I can't believe it's already been six weeks since the support center I worked at was closed. I had just purchased new tires for my car 3 days before I was laid off and I have already put 6,000 miles on them.

So far I've been to LA twice to see dancingphoenix, including a side trip to San Diego. I've also spent a week with my folks in Oregon and a week with my Grandpa in Arizona. I bought my Grandpa a new computer as the one I gave him 5 years ago was critically low on memory and disk space and was essentially unusable. On the way back I once again stopped in LA.

This weekend I will be heading to MFF and then I'll be spending Thanksgiving with relatives in Wisconsin. I don't return home until Dec 2, so I may have time to meet up with Milwaukee area furries.

And in case I haven't mentioned it yet, I'm still very happy that I was given two months leave and severance for a job I was completely miserable at and was ready to quit anyways. I still plan to spend several more months enjoying my vacation before I consider looking for work.

givesushope
It's that glorious time of year when we reunite with loved ones (we neglected all year), stuff our faces to excess, and pass out in front of the TV. Perhaps a recalibration of the thanksometer is in order. A spin-off of the popular GivesMeHope.com site, this community invites you to document moments of kindness, generosity, and pure human love in 350 words or less.

veggieslackers
Despite its mainstream appeal, Thanksgiving is not for everyone. There are those struggling with food disorders, for whom this day causes endless conflict. There are the cash-challenged, who can't afford the gluttony we've grown to expect. There are the lonely, who don't have loved ones nearby. And let's not forget the vegetarians, who decry the animal cruelty. But there's one more group we often overlook: the terminally lazy! This community of lazy vegetarians offers easy recipes for an animal-friendly feast.

fashin
Just in time for holiday shopping season, this fashionista community brings you the world of haute couture in the form of sumptuous photos, video clips, and candid commentary. There's also a sugary sprinkle of mainstream movie discussions and debates on such pressing social issues as manicure styles and celebrity colonics. If you need a break from the daily grind to indulge your girlie side, this is twinkly pink on steroids.

I was bored last night and so decided to pin curl my hair while I was waiting for it to dry. This was my first attempt at pin curls.

Hey! CRCrafts!

I don't appreciate you sending me REAL fur.

Indiecon was excellent fun from begnning to end - my first time at the con and definitely will not be my last as it is for sure my favourite UK con Ive been to so far. Really great games getting run, great venue and excellent organisation.

I arrived after surviving the torrential rain and several puddles, getting lost on the single road thru the camp several times till I found my chalet then headed to the bar, eventually ending up in a very drunken game of Baron Munchausen organised by Mick Red - where my Papist ways ensured the ousting of at least one frenchman. I do love this game but it definitely made sure I had an intense hangover the next day from all the toasting of the queen that went on...ugh. Its an interesting mod on the system I usually use - personally I love speaking for 5 mins plus, its part of the fun to just keep coming up with stuff. I was also dissappointed to find out about Scotts french tendencies...

Next I ended up playing Misery Bubblegum a very anime oriented RPG of high school drama. I really enjoyed this, perhaps cos I was drunk, but it seems to bring out the genre of the roleplay and has such a light system that you hardly notice it leaving you to concentrate on the game itself. It also seems quite short and a great pick up game with character generation consisting of choosing 2 cards. Great stuff. I think I might buy this...

Despite my hangover and my expectation of starting gaming at 10am rather than 9, I manged to make it into Rich Stokes Frontier : To Go Boldly - a morning session of Spirit of the Century style character generation and an evening session of actual gaming. Great players and definitely this sci-fi genre suits the Fate system to the ground. Some really interesting ideas here too - I particularly liked the fact that Aspects could only be tagged at most once from a group (Character, Scene, Manuver, Consequence) - this prevented the convoluted bidding war you can get with SotC. For some reason I keep playing russian characters in his games, I blame his beard, its too inspiring.

The mid-morning slot was Reel Adventures - we created a cgi classic Candy Cane Calamity where we took on the roles of ugly forest creatures fighting for our rights against the evil Clair bear. I was Steven Segal as Pink Skin Rodreiges, a Special forces Naked Mole Rat. We also had Indie Pete with Robert Downy Jr as a Hippo and Marlon Brando as an all seeing Cow, Great Moo... Loved the game, and everyone brought something good to the table. The system works pretty well for what its designed to do, tho I felt our actions often were too easy as the heros with a large number of players we had alot of power if we stuck together.

Saturday morning I was involved in a game of Steal away Jordan in which players are black slaves of early colonial america, subject to not even choosing their own names and who plot together on how they will improve their lot (with the GM out of the room). The palpable feeling of Us verses Them which I havent felt since my early D&D days (jk) was masterfully aided by Graham Warmsleys evil and cruel portrayal of our masters. I ended up being the bad guy of the group too, not cooperating with my fellow slaves. The experience was more uplifting, a sense of real achievement when we got to the end game and the endtire owners family were poisoned and ruined in the community.

Afternoon game was Elaines Little Fears which was a riot and a real scum of a game for Gms attention - actually just like a real gang of kids as we were playing in the scenario - I dont know how the Gm coped! But she did a marvelous job despite our insistence in brining a wee-stained pedo tramp into the action, kicking and screaming. Our supposed savior (Van Smellsing or Mr Law) died within 30 seconds but the sense of satisfaction was palpable. Memorable game!

Late night Saturday was Rich Stokes Umlaut, I played MunkHaus - a band which used Bob Monkhouse bones as an amp for extra power and had a Mecha-Carol Vorderman as a member along with a pommeranian who hosted the MTV awards. Also in the game were Cancelled whos drum machine split from the band because of artistic differnces and took several Ho's with it. Odins Squirrels destroyed milton keynes in a longboat. The other band whos name I forget were charged with hosing down Amy Winehouse at one point. Utterly classic game and one of my favourites of the con too.

Onward to Sunday morning where I just about squeesed into a game of Agents of Swing - A fate based system set in the world of 60s secret agent fiction. It was lots of fun, with all the classic tropes going on and of course the fate system well supporting all the action. Tho I do feel slightly weird at the idea of me and Matt Nixon having formed a femme fatale duo in skin tight cat suits. Thats an image I dont need.

Final game of the day was Hot War, lots of fun with much character death, emptying a full clip into a baby, shooting prostitutes in the back of the head and a near TPK, pedestrian stuff for a game by Scott, of course.

Big thanks to all the Players, GMs and the organisers for a great con!

I picked up a copy of a game called Ribbon Drive which I cant wait to try out - the game is pretty freeform, but has the players each make Mixtapes/CDs for each other and has them create the story and characters from their feelings after listening to each song. For some reason this really appeals to me, making mix cds is a hobby of mine and the music is also a great influence to me when writing plot - it just seems such a perfect idea.

Here are some pics of my first successful roller set. I have done three sets now and this was the best one by far.

( pictures )

Hi all. Despite allegations to the contrary, it appears as though I'll be at FC again this year. As such, I'm looking for one more person to make up a 4-person room (one bed already taken up by 2 American friends). The room is available from Thursday night until Tuesday morning, and it'll be a fair split between everyone ($187.50 per person for the whole 5 nights).

Standard disclaimer applies: don't be a douche. :)

If anyone's interested, please drop me a PM.

I am at plushlover 's place now. Will be leaving tomorrow to make the 12 hour drive home. The trip went well, but I didn't have time to post what I did during my trip. Will post on that later. I did like his plush collection and took some home that he was going to give away. Hope my drive home will go smoothly.

- S

The site is down, so I figured this was as convenient a place as any to post an inquiry.

Will FC require our comedic services again this year? We're loving the crowd, and I need to know in advance so I can make some phone calls and sucker some comedians into joining me on stage again this year.

Too last year's viewers, any comments, advice, or opinions on last year's "Listen to Kigs Talk" are always welcome. Unless you're dumb. Then, go away. :)

Truly,
Kigs

So a friend is flying in from Madison, WI for FC. We decided to change their flight to have them stay longer, but it'll end up costing so much to change the ticket, its cheaper to just buy a new one, and I"m getting no refund on the old one.

SO! Would anyone be interested in a NWA flight from MSN to SJC?

Flys in Wed, Jan 20th leaving at 3:10PM with a stop through MSP and arrives at SJC at 7:47PM
Returns Tuesday Jan 26th leaving at 12:10PM and landing MSN at 8:34PM

Total ticket price was $255 including all fees and such. I'll take best offer on it and switch it to your name.

For the last year or so my car's turn signal has been... well quirky.

If the humidity is high (not necessarily raining/snowing) my turn signal will tend to not blink when I engage it. Pressing the emergency blinker or "percussive maintinence" tends to fix the issue, but when you're trying to merge or turn and it stops, the process is jarring and I'd prefer to just fix the issue.

So, being the crafty and educated electrical engineer I am (and talking to another Impala owner) came to the conclusion that the circuit is screwed up and it's most likely the relay. Anya and I were near a parts store last night so we hopped in and decided to ask.

Now, before the story continues, let me explain I am not a car person. I went in expecting an easily replaceable part that would cost me no more than like $25. Most parts that fail, in my limited experience, are the sort of thing you can buy over-the-counter without much problem (batteries, wiperblades, alternators, etc). Boy was I wrong.

Talk with parts guy and he comes up with a $420 part. A relay and some wires is $420?! A little cruise control chip, blinker circuit and connectors comes to 420?! You have to be kidding me! No moving parts, just some circuitry... like $5 in material and easily manufactured (or fabricated) somehow comes to more than my netbook... this is wrong!

Anya had a good giggle, for she is far more versed in car issues than I and was not as surprised as I was. I was absolutely floored. Looks like I will just be dealing with the issue or doing more research to see if there is some sort of manufacturer's recall on the part...

Freaking lame!

I made a room on www.mibbit.com for therians, otherkin, furries, and humans who seem to not fit into one place or the other. So, if you feel out of place please come and join us. I hope to see many of you there tonight and later on. If you stop in, pease let me or the other Admin know who you are and where you come from. The channel room is #Misfittherian and the server is irc.mibbit.com

As you probably know it is the tradition of Further Confusion to each year hire a new chairman and staff, in order to help keep Further Confusion fresh with new ideas and approaches. Yes, it means we do reinvent the wheel a bit, but it has worked alright for us this past 12 years. Towards that end, we are soliciting bids to run Further Confusion 2011. The deadline is Dec 1 to submit a bid and Dec 7 to have all the paperwork submitted in support of it.

Individuals who are interested can find the bid guidelines at the following location. http://www.anthroarts.org/fcbids.html

We look forward to another great team for FC2011.

(on behalf of)
The Board of Directors of AAE, Inc.

Back around my birthday, my brother got me a couple random PS2 titles, Mojo! and "Sega Genesis Collection". Mojo is odd, but a fair time killer. I've only played a couple titles on the Collection, mainly Comix Zone and Ecco the Dolphin. All the titles on the Collection are just retro kick-backs. Nothing too deep or involved there.

I'm still spending way too much time on Rock Band 2. I've been (still) working on my vocal career, attempting to clear every venue. I average five stars, with the occasional gold star, all on expert. Oh, and we now have a respectable amount of DLC.

A couple weeks ago, I was able to try my paw at DJ Hero (thanks, Timber!). It was...interesting. I would not turn it down if it was given to me, but I am not running out to buy it either.

Also, a few weekends ago, I picked up Lego Rock Band. (Again, thanks Timber!) Oh my gosh. It's got its issues, but it's still a fun game. The nostalgia of hours spent with the little plastic blocks....sigh. Oh, and yes, my character was "Furball" for a short time. Now, it's "me". I did customized my band mates. I now play with Paul and Storm.

The Anthrocon Board will soon be deciding on the Charity to support for 2010. If you know of a charitable organization that you would like to recommend be added to the current candidate list, please suggest it here or on the Anthrocon website forums by December 31st.

Criteria for candidacy:
- Must be animal-related (exceptions possible)
- Must be 501(c)3
- Must be within approximately 60 miles of the Pittsburgh, PA metropolitan area
- Must be incorporated in Pennsylvania (can't be in Ohio or West Virginia)

Well, I have an odd question today. Its a little fix-it yourself (so maybe the men in your lives would know too? Im not sure.) My boyfriend and I are wanting to recarpet our dining room and hallway, and take out the carpet in our extra room (which serves as our puppy's room for when we are not home during the day.) The recarpeting isn't a problem, I have a bunch of handy men in my family that will do it for some beer. Haha, but its the extra room Im worried about...all the floors under the carpets are real hardwood (extremely gorgous medium dark hardwood that makes my heart melt in happy. Haha.) My boyfriend wont let us have hardwood in the main areas, so only my room/guest room (my crafting/sewing room) has hardwood. :/ Its unfortunate. We dont want to put new carpet in our puppy's room because she still has accidents and we dont want to spend the money on something that is going to get ruined soon anyways, so we were thinking of just not putting carpet in...there's where I stopped my boyfriend, there is no way Im going to willingly let him ruin the hardwood. >.< I would die. So we agreed to tile it for now...but again...dont want to ruin the wood.

Question: Is there anyway...or anything to put down over the hardwood (like plywood or something) that we can vinyl tile over, but isn't going to ruin the floor under it? Like no glue, no nails in the middle of the floor, ect.

Any answers would be great and extremely helpful! Thanks!

. . . I've had Surfing Bird stuck in my head for days now. Please make it stop. ;____;