This made me smile:

Canada battles Norway for tallest moose statue

I had a shower thought the other day and wanted to see what you folks thought.

True or false: Does having sex with someone who is pregnant count as a threesome?

Come watch:
https://picarto.tv/Wolfblade

Megaplex is the one con I go to each year. This year, owing to circumstances largely beyond my control, I decided to attend with my toddler in tow. It worked out surprisingly well. He was fascinated by the suiters -  mysteryotter,  thedoggygal, the otter on staff whose name I didn't catch, and many, many others - who went out of their way to make it special for him. The parade was fun, and it was my distinct pleasure to finally meet  Kenket and have her sign my copy of Nordguard. During the few hours on Friday where I was there by myself (kiddo was at day care) I was able to introduce several other attendees to Skull and Linko which were very well received. (I've got a large board game collection and picked those two specifically because they're fast and easy to learn.)

Unfortunately, I broke out with pink eye on day 2 (courtesy of the aforementioned toddler), so I left early that day and skipped day 3.

All in all, I'm planning on going back next year. I'll probably take kiddo back again next year for the parade.

The only thing I would suggest for next year is to have a clearly marked route. The last thing you want, after waiting in a crowd for half-an-hour or more, is to see the parade take an unexpected turn and skip over your area entirely. That happened to me, although I was able to walk over to the main entrance and snag a nice spot near at the end of the route.

I was planning to go to Megaplex next weekend, but I've run into a bit of an issue. My babysitting arrangements are, in all likelihood, going to fall through. (The babysitter-to-be's grandmother is in bad shape, and they are telling me it is "almost certain" they are going to be at her funeral that weekend)

So now my options are to skip the con, or to bring a 14-month-old toddler with me. He's got a very good temperament (doesn't mind being around strangers or new places) and I'm local, so I can leave when he gets fussy. It'd be logistically challenging, but I think it's feasible.

So the more experience con-goers reading this: is this a good idea? Any suggestions or advice would be welcome.

Following on from my last post:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69sULRZ_bCo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INsiBZxX11s

So here is the full Imaginging Zootopia documentary.

Interest things I learned:

* John Lasseter basically admits to being a closet furry
* The director, Byron Howard, is gay
* The whole movie was originally about predators being forced to wear shock collars. This was changed at the suggestion of the Pixar folks.
* The movie was originally centered on Nick, but the plot got darker and darker the more they explored his backstory. So they changed the main character to Judy, whom the audience found more understandable.

Basically, anyone who enjoyed the movie should watch this documentary.

Imagining Zootopia, an hour-long documentary on the making of the film, will air on the Fusion channel on April 5 @ 8:00 PM.

So Cracked published this surprisingly-fair article what it's like to be a furry porn artist, based on interviews with  Arania,  Chewy,  Saucy,  Kabier,  Shiuk, and  Uba. Very interesting and worth reading, especially if you're a new commissioner.

Wow. Just... wow

I saw Zootopia this morning and I enjoyed it tremendously. Without spoiling anything, I really like how how Nick's character progressed.

It makes me very sad to think a sequel, if one gets made, is probably 10+ years away.

Brian Bedford, the voice of Robin Hood in Disney's 1973 film Robin Hood, has died of cancer. Goodbye Brian.

Hey folks -

I've got a (clean / non-porny) side project I'm working on. I'd prefer not to go into too many details, but I need a recommendation for an artist who (1) does good My Little Pony work and (2) does good backgrounds and (3) doesn't mind complex commissions and (4) is currently open for commissions.

Can someone please point me in the right direction?

Doug Winger,  justdoug, was taken off life support today. I didn't know him personally, but he was unique within the fandom, and he will be missed.

I work in technology in a very niche speciality. If you had asked me earlier this month what I thought of my job, I would have told you that while I loved my co-workers, I hated my boss and my (relatively) low pay, and wanted to leave.

Two weeks ago, I was informed that upper management has decided to shut down our local office in July. Most employees, myself included, were given the choice of moving to the other side of the country or being laid off. Relocation was not an option for me (for personal reasons), and finding a local job in my niche was a fool's errand.

Two frantic weeks of job searching, and I found a new one. Local to me. In my speciality. With a huge (50%+) pay raise. With the leading company in my field. It turns out they have a new customer in my city, and they needed local talent fast.

The last two weeks have been a crazy emotional roller coaster for me. After I put in my resignation yesterday, I sat in stunned silence for half an hour. I'm simultaneously relieved for myself, and sad for all my co-workers who are going to be laid off or forced to move. And I can't believe my good fortune.

Be careful what you wish for. Sometimes, you might actually get it.

Poor kitteh.

Said one friend of mine, "That cat looks so pissed."

Holy crap. Someone went and dropped calcified chlorine in the stairway at MFF. The hotel got evacuated and 19 people sent to the hopsital - http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/.....207-story.html

One of the things I want to do before I die is to read every Hugo Award winning novel. There are a lot of them (around 70 including the retroactive ones). After a decade of on-again-off-again efforts, I've done about 25 of them. There are some good ones and some not so good ones. But my favorite of all of them is Staride Rising, by David Brin.

Imagine a world in the future where Dolphins have been genetically engineered to have human levels of intelligence. Now imagine what would happen if you took a starship and staffed it mostly with these intelligent dolphins. Now what if they made an incredibly important discovery, and attracted a lot of interest from not-very-friendly aliens? That's what Startide Rising is about. And that's just the prologue :)

You can buy it for $4 on amazon. Or if you're a really cheap SOB, you can google around for it on the interwebs and it's not hard to find.

Another favorite of mine. A few years back, Peter S. Beagle (best known as the author of The Last Unicorn) released a cute short story about a mouse that learns to be a cat. Here it is.

It took weeks of searching, a lot of luck, and the assistance of an internet stranger, but I *FINALLY* rediscovered one of my all-time favorite stories. So I figured I'd share it with you guys. Here is Cats in Victory, an awesome short science fictiony vignette involving human extinction, religious zealots, and cats cats cats :)

James Hardiman ( Skunkworks) has passed away. James was a supremely talented artist. (The Knotcast guys once joked that he could draw a vag so accurately it was like he remembered being born.) He'll be missed.

 SydneySnake is coloring my Nex pic and one of the Moose pics I got at Megaplex. Come watch us: http://www.livestream.com/sydsstream

A few month back, College Humor did a *hilarious* video called Furry Force. Well, now they've done gone and made a sequel: Furry Force 2: Furry Superheroes Get Even Grosser. (For those of you who missed it, here's part 1)

(A slightly different version of this journal was sent into  Knotcast)

This past weekend I attended Megaplex 13 in Orlando. The con had 1,281 attendees, which was a 50% increase over last year.

For me, it was my first furry con after 16 years - mostly spent lurking - in the fandom. Yes, I know that going to a large con as your first is a bad idea. And I didn't know anyone else who was going, which made it a doubly-bad idea to go. But with that said, I had a great time. The hotel was large and well air-conditioned, with plenty of amenities and food options within walking distance. The con staff were well-organized and effecient. And the attendees were super friendly, even to a newcomer like myself.

I have to admit, the first hour was overwhelming. Up until then, furry had been an 'internet only' thing for me. Yet here were hundreds of people openly talking about it. Acting it out! Wearing tails! And for someone not accustomed to their presence, the fursuits were almost surreal.

One of the first things I did after checking in was to head over to the "Coming Out of the Suitcase" panel. It was a support group, of sorts, for people who keep their furry life separate from their real life. The panel was a cathartic experience. One person there compared lurking in the fandom to being outside the window of a fun party looking in. That comment struck a chord with me. The panel was also a great way to meet other new con-goers. I became fast friends with  StarDustFur and  JennaBradford, the two panel hosts. We had dinner together afterwards.

I also got to meet  Bucktowntiger. He's super friendly, and he put on a great musical performance while in suit. It was damn funny seeing the reaction after he started playing 'Be Prepared' from the Lion King. Audience members quoted the entire scene verbatim, precisely imitating the characters' voices and inflections. "Only at a furry con," someone commented amusedly.

Uncle Kage was on hand to run the charity auction and to do his namesake story hour. The Japanese gameshow and fursuit games were a blast.

In no particular order, the other con highlights for me were:
* The amazing character sketch I got from  FinalFlight.
* Getting to hold a baby bobcat at the charity presentation.
* One of my new friends showing me how a fursuit is constructed, and letting me try on his parts of his suit.

On the flip-side, I didn't see any major problems worth criticizing. Just a few nitpicks. The main parking lot was very tight, although there was plenty of space in the overflow lot. The con had literary panels, but no lit vendors were in attendance (I'm looking at you, Fuzz!). And the Smash Bros tournament (which hit its 32-player limit) only had 5 or 6 gamecube controllers. But all of these are minor problems. It was, as I said, a very well-run con.

All told, I had an amazing experience at Megaplex. I highly recommend this con.