Dogpatch Press

Fluff Pieces Every Week

Tag: bowling

RIP to Downers Grove FurBowl organizer killed in Illinois road accident

by Patch O'Furr

Patch.com, a news source focusing on local communities, reported the death of Jimmy Harbin, AKA Scorch Dragon (not the same as another who uses the name.) The news was noticed with recent filing of a lawsuit to compensate his family. The 49-year old New Lenox, IL resident was the victim of a fatal accident with a semi-truck and trailer that crossed into oncoming traffic in the early morning of Feb. 19, 2019.

Harbin’s obituary page named him as father to a son and daughter and the devoted manager of his small farm. It asked for donations in lieu of flowers to a wildlife rehab nonprofit. It also has a video tribute showing his love of bowling and costuming. He was a volunteer with the Downers Grove Furbowl, an event of the Chicago area L.A.F.F. (Lake Area Fur Friends.)

Scorch’s last tweet was a wish for a sick friend to get better, and years of tweets from his friend Odie (head of the D.G. Furbowl) shows how he is remembered. Read the rest of this entry »

Furry Bowling record: 297 attend ‘When Furballs Strike 25’ – interview with Kijani of FurLifeNW.

by Patch O'Furr

If you only saw furries in the media, you might think they only meet at cons.  But after the con, there’s local events you won’t know about unless you’re tuned in to their channels.  Some of them are established with their own names, venues and dedicated dates. You can go and say tonight, this place is ours. That’s a sign of a full-fledged subculture.

Independent furry dance parties are well covered at Dogpatch Press.  That’s adult night life. But for all ages, there’s furry bowling.  Big bowling meets can be bigger than small cons.  They happen all over the place, but how many does the furry world have?  I doubt anyone knows!

I’d love to know more, considering how fabulous some of them seem.

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Here’s a special look at the thriving community of the Pacific Northwest furries. (Member pics: Whenfurballsstrike.net)

November 12, 2016 – When Furballs Strike 25 – Fursuit bowling in Kenmore, Washington. 

  • ‘When Furballs Strike’ appears to be the biggest bowling meet for any furry community. If it was a con, it would just enter the Top 40 by attendance.
  • Their nearest rival for size is a bowling meet in Brazil! How many outsiders are in touch with that corner of fandom? It shows how widespread this is.
  • The Pacific Northwest furry community has remarkable activity. Does any other have an event calendar like Furlife on Meetup with over 2,000 members? (Disney’s marketers went to Furlife to reach furries for Zootopia.)
  • Furry dance parties have tried to get established in the Pacific Northwest without the success you might expect, making this their biggest meet.  (And their popular local con Rainfurrest shut down, but an unprecedented four are now proposed there.)

I talked to Kijani Lion, meet organizer:

Tell me more about the broken record?

“The record that was broken was actually our own record for “largest attendance at a furry/anthropomorphics fan bowling meet”. We had 297 attendees at When Furballs Strike 25, which broke our old record of 271 at When Furballs Strike 22. Before that, the Brazilian furbowl Furboliche had the record with 248 attendees at Furboliche 4 which took place Halloween 2015.”

Read the rest of this entry »