I have been feeling the falling out of touch for the past 7 years or so myself, so I understand where your coming from. Like you, it won't make me leave, actually far from it as I want to see where it all goes, but I find myself more often as the years go by, understanding a particular direction and focus the next generation are gyrating to less and less.

Things change.

I want to read it but my word won't open it.

Its not a good idea to run software that doesn't open and Adobe .pdf. It's just about universal. However, you may just have an outdated version of Reader. You can download Reader 9 free, just by searching for it on the web.

Same with MS Word Doc. You don't have to have it, but its a good idea to be using a genericbrand that is compatigel with MS World Doc, because it is so common.

Ah that explains it I made the assumption that since it says it's a word document I tried using word to open it.

Sorry... it is a Microsoft Word Doc. I just downloaded to check, and it opens fine. Right under the thumbnail picture there's a line that says File Type, and after that Word Document(doc). If it had been a .pdf, it would have said so.

My first assumption, when you said you had trouble, was that I must have uploaded a different sort of file, but that wasn't the case. I posted again, saying that it *was* a word doc. Secondly, I had no trouble with the file just now, and nobody else has complained of it either. You could try again. However, the same text can be found on my user page as the most recent journal, so that would be the easiest way to read "On the Head of a Pin."

I only post journals as word docs for people to favour and save.

No worries. I was able to download and finally read it. It is a very interesting and thought provoking piece. Showing how much the furry fandom has changed both in focus and composition of its members. Just like the every rapid changing of technology, I can remember when having a computer with a 20meg HD was something. As the internet has grown over the last two decades or so. The fandom has grown from be a local or community based fandom of local artists and fans of antropomorphic art. To being a global based fandom, which only magnifies the growing lack of person to person social skills that some fans have. As well as proving the point the bigger the group of fans you get the more drama that is created due the high numbers of different personality quirks. I can remember when Trekies where viewed in the same light as furries are today some 30 years ago. Hopefully as time passes and the number of younger fans mature we might see the fandom change Ito something resembling but not quite like what it once was.

Amen to that. I attended Feral in 1999, and talk about buyer's remorse; big money, bad food, worse accommodations, and a smattering of social opportunities and panels of interest. I think there comes a point in life where conventions end and pot luck dinners (or hermitage) begin.

There was drama and conflict in the 'old fandom,' but the new kiddiewinkies seem engrossed with it to me; like it's less about conflicting opinions and more about infliction of bad days/weeks/months upon 'enemies.' Maybe that's a symptom of contemporary society, or maybe I just need to get out more.

I never really understood the Feral thing. When I attempted to talk with some of the people who ran it, they told me they wanted to do something "different." So far as that goes, I sympathized. But I pointed out that a lot of the fans want to see art, buy hard-to-get furry comics and toys, or had things to sell. While they might enjoy being taught how to stitch a mocassin made from bark, it wasn't likely they'd spend a whole lot of money to go to Feral if the other attractions were missing. Either the Feral people didn't get my point, or didn't care. They got the couple of hundred people they needed to make ends met, and fans who wanted something else could go somewhere else. I pretty much wrote the con off at that point.

In one respect, the con may have gotten a bad rap. A lot of rumours went around in the first years that it was about yiffing in the woods. There may well have been some of that, but I understand that Feral went to considerable effort to promote a G rated con, so that many fans brought children along with them... in no fear their kids would be dragged under a bush and buggered by a middle-aged man in a teddy-bear suit.

Of course, just denying that anything like that happened, is another way of preserving old slander...

Slander nothing - you couldn't walk past a bush without it rustling at you. That's my firsthand impression, at least. The well-used phrase, "three misguided straight boys," (of which I was one) is one of the things that really stuck in my mind. I was courted by one guy and outright propositioned by another. My cabin stayed mostly empty most of the night, except for two other guys sharing one bed (with a suspicious amount of whispering), and I have a hard time imagining that the communal shower room wasn't used to play out a few fantasies.

There were some good points, mind you. The location encouraged physical activity, very similar to your description of the picnic in Hide Park, and it was eye-opening to see how athletic the furry community could actually be, even without prompting. So much for one stereotype. I only attended two panels, but both were really good, and I think there actually might have been an artists' alley set up but I was about flat broke before I even got to the con. As for children being present, I don't remember seeing a single one there. It was a childrens' camp ground, though, and I think the staff were fairly confused and squicked by the whole thing with grown men acting like some kind of sexually active children.

On the other end of the scale, Fezdani and I attended the Guelph Furry Breakfast a couple of times. There were some good folks there, but on the whole I found it excessively cliquish. We had a two hour drive to get there, and by the time we arrived on the first occasion all that was left of the $12 breakfast buffet we'd already paid for was three pieces of cold toast (we ate before setting out the second time). The next time, the planned day trip was cancelled on the spot when the core members opted to womble off to play Dance Dance Revolution instead, without so much as an invitation to join them. I never went back, though Fez befriended a few folks and attended one or two house parties in that community. I'm way past the point of viewing 'furriness' as viable common ground for relationships, and am more interested in similar or compatible values as a starting point. Of course, I'm also not the most gregarious guy in the world, so YMMV.

They may have cleaned up their act at Feral later... or not. I rely entirely on second hand information. I recall the Feral guys saying something about furries not being active enough, and needing encouragement to go hiking. I was a little put out by the innuendo (that I was lazy and they were fit) and reminded the wimp that I was accustomed to doing my hiking at 11,000 feet, or in the desert, and had once gone swimming in choppy Lake Superior water to view some hieroglyphs on a cliff face, and another time had to chop the ice off our tent before we could roll it up one morning. Real, rip-snotin' manly stuff... not just following some well-marked trails paved with ceder chips. Maybe I should have jus started a fist fight -- nothing manlier than that. But he was right... by that time I had grown older and a little lazier, so I let him live.

Some furries from New Jersy drove up to Toronto to visit one time, years ago. They were here to see the gay furry community, but Ken and I joined them at the Hoy Ching for dinner once. I still have to giggle whenever I think of them telling Ken and I that we were "almost" furry, and could have been if we weren't straight. Gawd... I was one of the first furries, and Ken was no youngster either.

FurAffinity and like sites seem ideal... socially. They were hell on business, in some ways.