Some directors like a lot of cutting, cutting, cutting

We try to get to three furry conventions a year, which if the New Year's Furry Ball counts we managed for 2013. One of the mainstays, Further Connection North, closed up last year. Its social place has been taken by two cons, the first of which, Great Lakes Furry Con, we went to last weekend. We weren't sure about going, particularly as the programming schedule came out late and didn't have much on it, but I figured we'd be glad to go once we did go, and besides, it was in Grand Rapids, barely an hour away. It's almost more work not to attend a con that nearby.

( Where did we eat? What did we do? What did we wait for? Why did we wait a lot? What horrible mistake put us out in the cold, cold cold late at night? The answers may surprise you! )

Still, the con had a dance, and I had brought shoes other than my heavy rubber boots, so we enjoyed an hour or so of that before going in for the night.

Trivia: In June 1914 the International Olympic Committee added ice hockey, skating, and skiing to the list of optional sports for the 1916 Berlin Games and future Olympics. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle.

Currently Reading: Year Zero, Rob Reid. It's quite a funny book, built from the premise that humans have an exceptional talent for music none of the other species in the universe have, and, building loopily from there. One species is put in charge of maintaining the Townshend Line, keeping the universe's many, many Who fans from crowding Earth, because they're such a phenomenally dull people that it's trusted nobody could get past their thick defensive screens of talking to intruders until they pass out. The galaxy's style guides warn the species and its members' names can't be capitalized and that it's a grammatical error to have a sentence mentioning them end with an exclamation point.