It's been 23 years since the World Trade Center towers fell and horrific as that day was there are signs that people are forgetting it. I was reading a Washington Post article that said that around 40 percent of Americans alive today were born after the 9/11 attacks and that by the late 2030s 9/11 there will be almost no people left who remember the attacks. I found this disheartening since that will mean that people will not be aware of the pain, hopeless and sadness that the attackers caused or of the great sacrifices the First Responders had to make to heal some of that pain. I hope I'm wrong, really, that our descendants are just as aware of the evil of the 9/11 attacks and what went on in their aftermath as the adults of today.

As you know haunted houses will be opening in a few weeks, inviting hundreds of thousands of guests to be entertained and scared by what they have to offer. I however LOATHE haunted houses (do not enjoy being scared and going with the flow of a situations like haunted house experiences) and will not be attending any, not now and not ever.

That said, I wonder what would happen if you went into a haunted house attraction with every muscle tense, every tendon on high alert and with your face and bearing broadcasting most clearly, "don't mess with me" and standing your ground when the performers who come at you with knives and chainsaws try to scare you, fully willing to "call their bluffs" and even indicating that if they did try to hurt you, you'd make their attempts very costly.

I know that adopting such a mentality defeats going to a haunted house in the first place and honestly, you're better off not going in the first place if that's your attitude. But honestly, it's the only way that I personally would handle such an experience.

I've been alone all my life, keeping to myself and not making very many friends, the few that I have made over the years drifting away after a time. You'd think that after all this time I have gotten used to it but truth to tell I don't think I have, that I still feel the need for companionship and friendship.

Liberals are going to kill me but say this I must....

If Biden stays in and runs, Trump WILL win, make no mistake. Biden doesn't have the mental firepower for another four years.

Inquiring minds want to know: why is Robert DiNiro being asked what he feels about Donald Trump? He's an ACTOR first and foremost and not a professional political pundit.

Thought: why is it said that your high school years are the best years of your life when many people I've talked to have confessed that their high school years stunk and were an experience they'd never care to repeat???

Next week, a movie called IF will be coming out. It tells the story of a young girl who acquires the ability to see and talk to childrens' imaginary friends (the "IF" of the title) whose children have outgrown them. With this in mind, an animator/director named Craig McCracken created a show called Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends which deals with a boy discovering an "orphanage" for those imaginary friends who, like the ones in, IF, have been outgrown by their children. I'm sure there will be a lot of reviews about IF (both positive and negative) but would love to see McCracken himself give a review of the movie and hopefully discuss the similarities and differences between his "imaginary friends" realm and IF's.

You know you and your friends are Generation Xers when you can go up to them and say "You remind me of the babe." and someone will answer back "What babe?" and begin completing the exchange that occurs in the iconic David Bowie song Dance Magic from the movie Labyrinth. ;D

Remember I mentioned the death of Mark "Sy Sable" Merlino, one of the founders of the furry fandom?

As I type this, I'm watching a live casting of a "celebration of life" involving him. It's now featuring opening remarks by Rod O'Reiley, his lover and partner in crime, but will feature remarks by others who knew and worked with Mark. I of course can't be there in person to show my respects, but it's wonderful to hear stories about how Mark and Rod came together and how they developed into the science fiction fanboys they are today.

As for me, I'm glad to have crossed paths with these gents and to have sat in on some of their "furry fandom history" panels at Further Confusion. Wish I knew them more but I am glad to have met them and got to know them as much as I did.

Today being the day it is, it's time for a REALLY BAD pun. ;D

Back in the days of the old Roman Empire, there was Bakerus, a skilled pie maker. Julius Caesar found out about the pies and they grew to be a favorite of his. The problem is that every March Bakerus started to slack off at his job and his pies became inedible. Thus it was that every spring Caesar's friend Brutus had to remind his friend to...."BEWARE THE PIES OF MARCH!" ;D

As of now, the furry fandom has lost one of its key founding fathers.

This morning I heard the news that Mark Merlino, who, along with his partner Rod O'Riley, were having "furry parties" at science fiction coonventions like Baycon back in the 80s. These parties were places were places where like-minded fans could exchange anthropomorphic (or if you prefer "furry") animal art, music and short stories and watch furry themed videos (like Animalympics). These parties grew so large that O'Riley and Merlino decided to break off and form their own furry related convention called Confurence. The first one, Confurence 0, was held in 1989 and the rest was history.

Confurence had some problems with attendance and was forced to dissolve in 2003 but by then there were a whole plethoria of furry themed conventions around: Anthrocon, Midwest Fur Fest, Anthrohio, etc and all feature like minded "furries" coming together to celebrate their love of anthropomorphics through art, music, short stories and novels and skits just like they did in the days of those "furry parties" but of course these days on a larger scale.

In the mid 2000s Merlino and O'Riley would get together at Further Confusion and host panels where they'd give first hand (or perhaps "paw") accounts of the early days of the fandom. I attended some of those panels and it was absolutely fascinating to hear them speak like the voices of history they were.

Recently Merlino suffered some setbacks in the form of strokes. These were followed by a diagnosis of stage 4 cancer. He seemed to know his time on this earth was drawing to a close because he chose to undergo pallative care rather than additional treatment for his ailments. It is in this care that he died peacefully in his slseep last night.

With him gone, all I can say is: RIP Mark Merlino and thank you for providing a place where like minded "furry fans" can gather pursue their unique interests free and clear of outside scrutiny or scorn. Rest in power, my brother!

Just before turning in last night I heard the news that one of the senior members of the furry fandom, a certian Mitch Beiro had passed on due to various health problems. Normally I'd feel sad at his passing at losing such a talented artist but not so with Beiro.

Don't bother rereading that. I'll explain.

Beiro was one of the senior members of the fandom, being a member since the latter 80s. In fact it could be argued that he was one of the founding fathers. He was a genial man with a huge love of food and a wicked and wacky sense of humor (his "marrying" the cartoon character Minerva Mink at a past furry convention was proof of this). He was also an extremely talented artist that had his artwork in several publications over the years.

Yet there are lines that must NEVER be crossed, and Beiro crossed one of them. In 2013 Beiro was arrested on charges of harboring and trading child porn and sentenced to a 10 year prison term (personally when I first heard of his incarceration I was wondering if he'd last the entire 10 year stretch as convicts, shall we say, have their own ideas of serving justice on child porn people) and was paroled the year before last.

He'd paid his debt, but as I saw it he would never stop paying. I'm sure he had a hard time finding a job or a place to live with such a record. Moreover by dealing in child porn he had turned into a fandom pariah, as I'm sure there were very few people wanting to associate with him and surely he was persona non grata at any furry convention you'd care to name due to liablity concerns. In short, his life was over.

With that in mind, I don't know what to think. He was a friendly and talented man but as the carnies say "he spun th' wheel an' took his chances". He made his choice and now he'll have to live with it for all eternity (if that is there is an afterlife).

So it has come to pass. The sun is setting on my 53rd year on this planet and is about to rise on my 54th one. I'm one step closer to doing the "danse macabre" with the Grim Reaper. :/

Obvious reasons aside (I am a bear after all), am i the only one who ACTUALLY LIked The Country Bears movie? ;/

Watching the *ONE* movie George Lucas doesn't want you to see-The Star Wars Holiday Special. (I hear this thing is so terrible that even the Empire won't use it as a torture device. ;D)

There's been a lot of talk these days about giving even the lowest of burger flipper a living wage through a wage increase. It's been said many burger flippers and dish washers aren't teens loooking to make extra "mad money" but adults with families to supportl. I'm all for this except....

Tonight my mother and i were wondering what to do about supper. I suggested McDonalds-my treat so we went for it. My mother ordered a burger and fries while i ordered a chocolate shake, fries and two Big Macs as as usual I asked for her to tell them to "hold the onions" since i don't like onions on my burgers.

Instead of a pair of Big Macs with no onions, my mother received them with NOTHING BUT onions-no lettuce, no tomato, no pickle, no special sauce, just double decker burgers with onions as the toppings. My mother had the rep remove the onions but brought the rest home-and by the time she did come home it was getting late so i elected to eat the burgers as they were (fortunately my chocolate shake and fries were flawless so there's that).

I've done "grunt" work like dishwashing and cleaning dutues so i'm all for a wage increase for those people. However, those people have go EARN those increased wages by listening carefully to what the customer wants and to deliver it (Ray Kroc-the one who popularized McDonalds, Dave Thomas, the one who founded Wendy's, Harlan Sanders, the one who founded Kentucky Friied Chicken and the like wouldn't want it any other way). Otherwise i don't see the need to pay premium wages for less than premium work.

It is better to be a lion rather than a sheep. Lions hold the line and are feared and respected, while sheep are cowardly and are often willingly led to the slaughter. - me.

Today a friend on Facebook sent me a news article aboudemolition. This saddened me. Fiesta Mall was once one of THE PREMIER shopping malls back in the day and I as a teenager had several adventures there back in the day. I attended a concert of a local band (Dave Pratt and the Sex Machine Band) there once, had bought my first Dungeons and Dragons set from the mall's Toys By Roy store, spent several hours at the mall's Aladdin's Castle game room, hanging out and playing the games they had, and going into the mall's Radio Shack store and playing with their Color Computers (when the salesmen would let me of course). Good times!

But that of course was years ago. Since then the mall had been steadily losing tenants and was a mere empty shell of itself when it finally shut down for good in January of 2018. There were tenative plans to turn the building into a medical campus but those plans fell through and now the mall is undergoing demolition. It'll be sad to see an empty space wherre the mall once stood, but at least me (and my fellow local mall rats) have their memories of how things used to be. t Fiesta Mall, a now closed shopping center, undergoing

About a month from now, a movie will be released based on Mattel's popular Barbie doll toy line. I was in my local cinema today and upon seeing a preview poster of said movie, was moved to pen the following...;/

Hey there Bar-bie girl!
Your movie'll make us hurl!
It's so crap-tastic,
getting many raz-zies!!!

This bear has established a den on Itaku. Look for me there at https://itaku.ee/profile/baarorso

It occurred to me this morning that conservative lawmakers want to crush gay and transgender people so much (they've already tried to ban books with gay and trsnsgender themes and denied transgender people medical care) that they'd ban showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show if they could (you know, that little stage musica/movie that both has a transgender lead character as well as being in the habit of celebrating diversity before doing so was cool).

I'm going through the Max Headroom show, a series pitting an intrepid reporter Edison Carter (and his computer generated alter ego Max Headroom) against amoral corporations and greedy politicians. . It was a short lived series in the latter 80s that has developed into an iconic, cult favorite and i picked it up because it was so iconic and i wanted to know what the fuss was about.

Why didn't i watch this masterpiece sooner? It's a masterpiece! Episode after episode sharp, satirical cyncal writing about the roles of corporate produced products in consumer hands and the (too) cozy relationship between viewers and mass media. It's eerily prescient since politicians are more corrupt than ever and the mass media (and the corporations whose products fund that mass media) have a bigger influence over how we think, consume and live our lives more than ever before. I love it and wish it lasted more than the two seasons it did.

Don't wish me a Happy Earth Day. In fact, the less I hear of it the better. I love my natal planet dearly but I'm no hippy-dippy tree hugger that will for example give up his daily dose of Keurig joe because the K-cups it uses kick out a lot of non-renewable refuse or give up meat because cow farts (supposedly) are helping to cause climate change. Please!!!

With gun violence at an all time high (literally one shoot up every day), i'd loike to ask the conservatives something. Since you are against background checks, licensing and banning of certian kinds of guns (like automatics) how would you go about curbing the modern pandemic of gun violence and bloodshed-and of course your usual "thoughts and prayers" don't count because they don't seem to be working.

Tomorrow being what it is, who's willing to wager that Punxsutawney Phil will emerge from his burrow wearing a Philadelphia Eagles team shirt??? ;D