Time wreaks havoc on every girl

[austin_dern]

I need to make a correction on Wednesday's entry: the fursuit parade was the first thing we did on Saturday, and I should've remembered because we raided the con suite to find something bunny_hugger could snack on while in fursuit. (It was a granola bar.) The trip to Big Boy came after, and that makes time make much more sense.

After lunch, the first SIG we got to was the rodents one, held as ever in room 269, which is a suite, so that room 269 is not actually labelled and you enter through room 267. This confuses everyone and I remember it confusing people last time around too. I think they're going to fix the room assignment stuff next time. The rodents sig, as usual, was accompanied by cheeses of many kinds, and other snacks, and we had a lot of various chatter about rodents and rodent-related creatures such as rabbits. Here as often bunny_hugger took point, as she is a master of everything generally accepted in the field of rodent studies, and remembers technical details with the precision that only the true fan can.

I had a quieter contribution. Back for my birthday bunny_hugger bought me a puppet, a Folkmanis guinea pig, and this was the first time I really took it out in public where I could putter around and interact with the crowd. The rodent sig was my first audience, although I wasn't any competition for the cheese, since, obviously. The guinea pig puppet would draw a fair bit of attention over the weekend, including at least one person who claimed to think it was live, at least from the corner of his eye.

The video game room, to our double disappointment, didn't have Rock Band. The double part of that is that the folks who bring karaoke machines to the con weren't able to make it this year either, so there was no chance for bunny_hugger to sing quite well and me to sing uproariously badly. (I have no control over my voice, but it knows automatically how to find the diminished fifth, causing ears to explode in blood.) However, there was a Dance Dance Revolution, so bunny_hugger was able to dance pretty well and at slightly too high a skill level given her unfamiliarity with how the pad at the con reacted. (The one at home is more sensitive, or she's better-fitted to it.) There was also a Kinetix thing, capable of judging whole body motion, and I tried dancing to that even though I didn't have the faintest idea how to make the moves the game was directing. In judging me the game's avatars just shook their heads and slowly walked away, promising never to speak of this again.

Trivia: Of the $10,000,000 paid to Panama in 1904 for the Canal, the Panamanian government kept about $750,000 in cash on hand, put two million dollars into public works, and approximately six million dollars into investments in first mortgages on New York City real estate. Source: The Path Between The Seas: The Creation Of The Panama Canal: 1870 - 1914, David McCullough.

Currently Reading: On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise And Fall Of Commodore, Brian Bagnall. There's a lot that's interesting here, not least, Bagnall's determination to keep reminding us that Steve Jobs is a horrible, horrible person, and his curious determination to put every company name in italics, at least on first mention, so we know that Micro-Soft or Honeywell or Motorola is something important, I guess.

Comments

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

snack on while in fursuit

Oooh! Are there photos? (I'm afraid I'm terribly behind with LJ again, but! I'm taking some long overdue time off, so that's one of several areas I'll be able to finally get back on track)

The fursuiting, that is, not the snacking. Which is not to pass any comment on her style of snacking.

and rodent-related creatures such as rabbits

Was that inclusion noted in the guide? I wouldn't mentally associate leporines with a rodent panel, although it's a sensible enough combination.

how to find the diminished fifth, causing ears to explode in blood

You should presently be preparing a pitch to a good anime studio, such as Madhouse.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Rabbits had their own panel, conducted by me, as I have been doing since 2008. The discussion just briefly veered toward rabbits because... well, I admit, my pedantic streak comes out when furries start repeating mistaken ideas about taxonomy.[1] Someone declared that any animal with continuously-growing incisors is a rodent by definition. I pointed out that this is not true because rabbits also have continuously-growing incisors. The rodent panel host correctly followed up that, yes, exactly two pairs of incisors (upper and lower) are what characterize rodents.

Lagomorphs, as you probably know, have two pairs of upper incisors, which is why we got moved out of the order.

[1] I've noticed furries are still in denial about skunks having been moved out of Mustelidae in the 1990s, for instance.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's more that furries really like what they already learned, and don't feel much like learning new things, at least not by book-reading or that sort of hard work. (I do feel a bit of this, since I really wish people would stop trying to push the idea that birds are really too dinosaurs; they can say it all they want, but a sparrow isn't a T-rex and stop arguing.)

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Taxonomy can be tricky to keep up with, at that. I'm sure i found out about the Euplueridae move five years after the fact, and you'd be pressed to find a furry more up on mongooses than me. (And I miss being in Viverridae.)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Fortunately there's not much sense moving raccoons out of the raccoon family, and it's awfully hard to find a way to split raccoons and coatis. All I have to wonder about are mountain coatis, crab-eating raccoons, and Cozumel Island.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

If they moved the Red Pandas out of there, don't assume you're safe.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Morphicon is pretty well-stocked with species SIGs. Besides rodents, rabbits, and raccoons, there were also ones for felines and canines. I may have missed some other species SIGs and wouldn't be surprised.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

....picture of you all, before and after suiting...? :>

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I've got pictures --- well, of her at least; I might have one or more of me somewhere --- and will get to them when I'm able.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

The room used to be labelled 269. It just kind of kept getting called that in the con material after the hotel changed it to 267.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

One of the two doors is labeled 269, I believe, but it's the one you can't enter through.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

That used to be the one you used, and then they remodelled the suite.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I remember it confusing me last time around, and I'm surprised how much it kept throwing me this time around too.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

held as ever in room 269, which is a suite, so that room 269 is not actually labelled and you enter through room 267

As someone who's had to patiently explain that since the river is to the north, then That Way is west at a con, I'm amazed anyone found it.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Me too. I was tempted to tape something to the door.