Two amusing stories off the newswire that I felt were worth sharing. Both from a week ago or so...



Moose Narrowly Escapes Halloween Goblins in Terror


Swingset Attacks Area Moose, Suffers Consequences

If you hate folks stealing artwork, direct your attention to Furnation's webpages here (and everywhere where your furry artist on Furnation is). Full info on Furnation's webpage.

Midwest FurFest is just over a week away; we're look forward to the furry invasion of Chicago! For some last minute details, check out the Midwest FurFest November newsletter, posted below. And don't forget to look up your harried Flayrah.com editor in the artshow when you're here!

For all the amateur astromomers out there, this year's Leonid show promises to be spectacular.

In North America, the show will start at 11:00 pm EST on November 17th, and peak at 5:00 am EST. At 4000 meteors predicted per hour, that'll be pretty spectacular, but if you live in Australia, Japan or other parts of the Pacific rim, tune in at about 1:00 am to 4:00 am on the 19th because 8000 to 14000 are predicted per hour at that peak (but it'll be morning in North America, so we won't see them).

The Leonids peak every 33 years, but after next year (which will be marred by a full moon) we won't seen this sort of display until the end of the century, as the pattern is broken by Jupiter's effect on the comet trails that cause these yearly desplays.

I'm not sure if anyone saying they are going out of business or leaving the fandom is news, as 90% of the time it is a very temporary situation, with the person or business returning after "a flood of support" - but I just got a message from FurBuy saying that they are going out of business effective December 1, with the domain name and auction software up for sale.

No, I don't know if they really mean it this time, that's just the email they sent out.

After a tragic accident in which a zookeeper at the London Zoo was crushed by an elephant, the zoo has announced that all three of its elephants will be moved to a country location. This ends a nearly 200 year presence of elephants in London, and has sparked a controversy over urban zoos and whether retaining large animal displays in them is humane and appropriate.

Josh Kirby, best known for his work on the Discworld series, passed away in his sleep in October, but I hadn't seen any general announcement to the fact. Well known and loved in the Sci Fi and Fantasy community for his humerous and outlandish work, he will be sorely missed.

Conifur is over, and so is the artshow. Now I can return to my peaceful existance of eating Zagnut bars from the comfort of my futon. All mail-in art has been shipped, checks have been cut, and everything's wrapped up for next year.

Final Statistics for the 2001 Conifur Artshow are now available, and here they are!



Total Participating Artists: 42 (No, really. I swear.)

Total Participating Bidders: 128

Total number of Items in the show: 410

Number of Items that went to auction: 44



Total Pre-tax sales: $11,904

Jeff Novotny writes: "We're in that brief lull between Conifur and MFF, so I guess this is a
good time for an update on CACE (Canadian Anthro & Cartooning Expo).



Our web site is now up. Glide on over to http://www.c-ace.org to get
more details about our convention, including our guidelines for the art
show and art shoppe, as well as more information about the hotel and our
guests of honour. We'll be adding more details from time to time and
finalizing a few items, so please check back often."

Book review by Geraldine Bedell in the UK Guardian Unlimited of "Lady: My Life as a Bitch", by Melvin Burgess; Andersen Press, September 2001, 212 pages, £12.99, ISBN 0-86264-770-3. SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE, Nov. 2001, pgs. 9-10. An excerpt from the book review follows.

CBS is placing its new TV series Wolf Lake on hiatus after its first four episodes averaged a disappointing 6.6 million viewers. More information is available from these stories at Reuters/Yahoo! and Sci Fi Wire.

(Partial credit for this story goes to petercat, who brought it to our attention.)

The Washington post just recently published this article talking about what wacky and weird plans for halloween people have this year. Down 3/4th through the article there's a paragraph about furries; the info taken from Vanity Fair, so the view is of course a bit warped. Positive/negative comments?

The second annual Midwest FurFest Charity Auction is only 19 days
away! That means if you've been meaning to create something for Uncle
Kage to auction off for Animals for Awareness, time is running short. Original items
like artwork, sculpture, fursuit components and other creative
products are very much desired!

But by no means are we limiting the items to handiwork. If you have a
plush, a stack of furry comics, a nonperishable food donation, a gift
certificate or anything else that may be of interest (and falls within
our item guidelines), let me know!

I would like to hear from you before the con (November 16-18) if
you're planning to donate an item, so drop me a line at auction@furfest.org as soon as you can. Time is also growing short to mail an item if you can't make it to MFF and offer it in person, so hop to it! And thanks...

The Associated Press (by way of Yahoo! News) has a nice story about the role of dogs in comforting the friends and families of terrorist attack victims in New York City. This is an excellent example of therapy dogs in action.

The Furry Resource Page has returned to operation. We have cleaned up the old database and processed through the two year blacklog of urls, and gotten the site back up. More changes are coming as well. -- WhiteFire