Tuesday, June 17, 2008

I feel unclean.

I don't know why it shocked me, seeing as how there are scholarly treatises on pro wrasslin' to be found there, but the fact that Wikipedia sported a slew of articles on... you know... Foxtrot, Uniform, Romeo, Romeo, India, Echo, Sierra... kind of caught me completely off guard. Now I know stuff I can't unlearn, no matter how heavily I drink tonight. That won't keep me from trying, however.

Because misery loves company, I want you to imagine how many mothers' basements had to be emptied to take this photo. I wonder, if you added them all together, how many days the people in that picture have spent with their heads held in toilets by varsity football players.

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think I finally discovered a reason I might want to handload rubber bullets.
*ew.*

Anonymous said...

Meh. Not my thing, but I have friends who are a bit into the furry fandom thing. It's not really any odder than getting together to watch a bunch of big hairy guys chase each other around and jump on one another trying to grab an oblong leather bladder.

Anonymous said...

WTF are furries?

-SayUncle

Tam said...

Ha ha ha. Very funny. I'll be sure to refer any resulting traffic your way.

HokiePundit said...

Didn't see that episode of CSI, I take it?

(BTW, I'm glad the verification word no longer looks as though it was written in Greek)

Jenny said...

oh my...

The other day, trying to understand what made the joke "so and so just got back from his yif" I went and looked up the word.

You feel unclean now... just don't read the glossaries. eeew.. sticky.

On the upside, aren't you happy you're well away from the bottom end of the geek hierarchy? I mean, all you need to do now is like publish a hard sci-fi novel or som'n. :)

Jay G said...

Apparently there's something I'm missing here... I'm with Unc on the WTF...

Anonymous said...

i don't watch CSI and don't know what furries are.



-SayUncle

Anonymous said...

For those who don't know the term and would like a neutral definition, "furries" are SF fans who focus on stories involving things with fur: Earth animals, alien animals, alien sentients. There are at least two types. For the milder type, just look at the linked picture. No more need be said. Rather odd, but basically harmless and as fun as most other focused fields of fannish activity.

For the extreme type, consider the linked picture as G-rated, and think about what an X-rated version of it might resemble. Don't think too hard or too long, though, or nightmares are likely.

Extreme furries even give other SF fans the creeps.

Anonymous said...

Furries are left wing commie cosplayers. A Cosplayer is a person who dress up as favorite characters from Sci Fi or anime, only in this case they're feigning being furry woodland creatures.
Cosplayers in general run from the amusing to embarrassing to the sexy, depending on venue, coplayer, and costume.

This Site.

http://www.acparadise.com/acp/display.php?c=8082

Has a rather pretty woman dressed up as Major Kusinagi From the Ghost in the shell series. The guys here will probably agree that she has some pinup value. but you wouldn't want to take her to lunch looking like this. People would wonder. But she still beats the hell out of any "Furry".

Mark said...

Ha ha.

Hahahhahahaha.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHahhahahahhahahahahahahaheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehahoohaaa....

*sighs, wipes eyes*

As a drinkin' buddy of the most infamous sheep-shagger in the history of videogames, this post tickles me pink. I got my grossout on a long, long time ago, then I got over it, with it all spiralling back to "what the hell business is it of mine?"

It ain't for me - and I don't judge - but Mercy, did I learn a few things I could'a done without learnin' over the years. Hoo. Heh.

*swig*

Mikael said...

bryanp's comment made me think of the movie "Billy Elliot". At least I think it was from there... when the ballet dancing guy tells off the jocks, of who's the straight one and who's gay, the one who's the only guy in class and gets to touch girls in leotards all the time, or the one who's with a bunch of sweaty guys hitting eachother with rolled up towels in the locker room. Or you could just watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn-t9BgV9Pg

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I shouldn't have called them commies. But there's a contingent that sows up at San Francisco left wing rallies you can see them on Zombie's website.

phlegmfatale said...

uncle - stay ingnernt and have a happy life

wolfwalker - I wouldn't remotely lump furries in with SF - I'd call it a full-bore fetish/compulsion

I also understand that they are a reason for a brisk and competitive stuffed animal trade on ebay.

This reminds me of an ad I saw in the personals section of the free San Francisco weekley paper once: "Couple seeks friends to dress up as Snow White & Seven Dwarfs, Bambi and other Disney characters. No weirdos."

*ahem*
Quite.

Drang said...

Well, Phlegmmie, costuming is a branch of SF Fandom, and you do see Furry costumes, but none of the folks who did Furry costumes at cons were as weird as the Furries in "that" CSI episode.

So far as I know.

Hopefully, I will never be disillusioned...

Anonymous said...

Ya know, I used to like you

Now I'm not sure

only thing I could think that would be more nasty is any clinton in a thong


Payback! heh
word verification was eygbs - my sentiments exactly

Mark said...

There is an interesting parallel argument:

If having sex with a nonsentient organism parallel to child abuse? After all, they're both pre-sentient organisms...

staghounds said...

I've told Tam before that I like furries.

She blanched too, so here's what I mean.

None of us can choose our sexuality, and I'm glad mine is relatively unremarkable.

I can't imagine the burden of thinking I was the only person with "my perversion" on earth. There are enough homosexuals and S&M people that they at least know they are not alone, even if they can't act on their desires. Even pedophiles can get treatment and support to help them control the danger they present.

But before the web, every furry thought he was uniquely fouled up by fate. How else would they have known differently? It's not as though they could tell anyone.

And now, thousands of people who must have thought they were mentally ill don't think that any more. They are unusual but harmless. They can meet each other.

It isn't just furries, and it isn't just sexuality. Plenty of perfectly normal people think they are crazy and are alone with that thought. Imagine for a moment that there was an internet in 1972, or 1945, or 1918, where combat veterans could anonymously share their mutual secret experience of what we call PTSD but was then just "crazy from the war".

I believe, with The Mister, that the world is round and we are all on it. Anything that helps any of us come to better terms with ourselves and our fellow people of good will is a good thing.

The web has done some great big things economically and politically. But I believe the little things, multiplied by millions, are important too. Al these blogs. Postsecret.

So that's why I like furries.

CrankyProf said...

I'll take the furries over the dollfuckers.

And that episode of CSI -- "Fur and Loathing in Las Vegas" -- was one of my favorites.

Fletch said...

Yeahhhh... Everyone's gotta find out sometime...

It's a dark day.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I've done the eyeball bleach before. Not clicking the link.

Curiosity << DREAD.

Please feel free to not try harder to trick us next time. There are some things that sentients do not pass on.

Peter said...

Seems like the definition of a target-rich environment to me.

Anonymous said...

my eyes. My frigging eyes. I'm gonna need a LOT of everclear.

Anonymous said...

staghound, you wrote: But before the web, every furry thought he was uniquely fouled up by fate. How else would they have known differently? It's not as though they could tell anyone.

Er, no. Furries as a distinct subgroup of SF fans (and they are) go back long before the Web. SF fandom has always been accepting of harmless weirdness, and it's also always been connected in a way that few non-fans can comprehend. Not being associated with any furries myself, my information is all hazy third-hand, but I have a distinct impression that the mild strain of furrydom originated in the 1960s, about the same time as several other major substrains of fandom. With the speed and reach of the SF grapevine, they wouldn't have had much trouble finding one another.

I _know_ I first encountered the concept of furries in the pages of an "about fandom" book that was written in the mid 70s, perhaps a bit earlier. I think the context was some Star Trek fans complaining about crossovers between some Trek aliens and furrydom. IIRC, the trek-fans were afraid that being associated with furries would give them a bad reputation...

Anonymous said...

I guess there's no such thing as
Enough, already!

gvi

Anonymous said...

Rowr!

Anonymous said...

Wolfwalker has it right in his description. Fandom will accept most anyone as long as they're not hurting anyone. It's one of the reasons I enjoy hanging out at SF cons.

Here's the thing, most "furries" are harmless folk who enjoy their cartoons a bit more than most. A smaller number go to the trouble of dressing up in outfits. A smaller subset still have turned it into a sexual fetish. That final subset is the one most people fix upon and use as the stereotype.

Now, tell me that there isn't a group that you belong to that doesn't have members who take the hobby a bit too far. I know I've met guys who were a bit too fixated on firearms, and that's all I'll say. ;)

Anonymous said...

I'm constantly amazed at the people that write football up as a gay-ish activity. I reckon those guys in Mixed Martial Arts are really fruity, eh?

Cripes, talk about Psych 101...


As for furries...I hear that basement basement mold can actually affect brain function.

Anonymous said...

*woosh*

Hey Oa, you might want to comb your hair.

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's just so 1993. Further, I got it. Wasn't as esoteric as you aprently think.

Anonymous said...

"I reckon those guys in Mixed Martial Arts are really fruity, eh?"

As we say, it is only gay if you make eye contact.

Rabbit said...

Oh, my.

Working in Big (like, huge, multinational) I.T., we have plenty of eccentrics to go around. Halloween is always a real circus in my workplace. Furries, cosplay, ponies, the surface is barely scratched. On the other hand, sometimes just normal workdays have the inherent propensity to go bugnuts weird at any time, given the Duke's mixture of folks who work in this place.

Regards,
Rabbit.

Anonymous said...

You think that's freaky, check this one out from the freaks-from-the-East: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,368282,00.html

Jenny said...

you know staghounds, that is a good point. Lord knows I've been on the receiving end of teasing enough I should know better than to go giving it myself. Thanks for the reminder.

Joseph said...

I wonder, if you added them all together, how many days the people in that picture have spent with their heads held in toilets by varsity football players.

That might be risky.