Altivo

Steed and Bear arrived Friday evening from MFF, and we went out for dinner and hung out. They stayed overnight and this morning we had breakfast (I made an apple-filled German pancake, with bacon and lots of coffee) and we played around with the horses and dogs and then took photos of Steed in his fursuit before they went back to the hotel to catch the parade and head home.

So I got a little bit of MFF without actually having to brave the madness.

Went grocery shopping, and observed that the price of gasoline is fluctuating wildly in town here. This week the observed prices have been:

Monday about 8 pm, $2.62
Tuesday afternoon, $2.63
Thursday about 8 pm, $2.75
Saturday 2:30 pm, $2.59
Saturday 4:00 pm, $2.57

This is all recorded at the exact same station. Meanwhile, up in Harvard, prices have been locked solid at $2.74 for a couple of weeks. Down in Dekalb on Thursday the price seemed to be $2.59 everywhere I looked, and it was similar to that in Indiana last Sunday. In Ohio I saw one station at $2.39, though, and several at $2.44.

Some NaNo progress, gaining ground but not fast enough.

Current word count: 19,878
Today's quota: 35,007

Pictures continue to trickle in. I liked this one a lot. Here I am posing with horny_oryx who was in a hurry to catch the elevator on Saturday afternoon but still was nice enough to let goldenstallion snap this one. Thanks, Oryx!

P.S. He did catch the elevator. I'd be snagging those horns on everything all the time, but he's good at managing them.

Another nice snap of Argos by himself. Finally one where you can see the famous bracelet on his left wrist.

Milling about after the parade at MFF on Saturday. This is a tiny detail snipped from one of Dexcat's shots of the post parade gathering. See Dexcat.net for many more photos taken from above the scene. Extreme left here, from top: Argos (white wolf) and Steed (goldenstallion with Alaska flag.)

Con was good. I hope the staff will forgive me for saying it didn't last long enough. (That's a compliment, guys and gals.) Hugs and chatter exchanged with many, some new folks met, a few who were there and I'd have enjoyed seeing were missed somehow in the fray. Well, maybe not so surprising, since the final report shows just shy of 2000 attendees, $23K in sales at the art auction, and $15K raised and donated to the charity. I suppose there must have been a few "mundanes" staying in the hotel, but they were very much in the minority as we took over the entire place. Still waiting for the official fursuit count, but it was wonderful seeing so many suiters out and about the whole time we were there.

'Tivo's official rating: 4.5 apples out 5 possible. (Slightly faulted by flaws of physical location, parking, restaurant access. Highly rated for programming, hard working staff, and general congeniality.)


P.S. Just found some photos by T'Chall, nice too:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tchall/3057633900/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tchall/3056794493/

Oil down $4 to under $50? Incredible. They say demand is off so much that the price just keeps dropping. Also incredible. I just bought gas for $1.95/gal and I honestly don't remember the last time it was below $2 around here. Certainly it's been at least three years. The rate of drop is more amazing, and in my entire life I've never seen anything like it. A week ago I paid $2.19/gal. Just one week. That's a 24 cent or 11% drop in just seven days.

In spite of my food price complaints, the Consumer Product Index is shrinking. This is, or can certainly be, deflation setting in. Dropping prices sound good at first glance, but when they drop too fast, too widely, that's deflation and it's a sign of economic disaster. Serious, persistent deflation played a major role in the depression of the 1930s. Cutting interest rates or printing more money is supposed to fight this off, but it's really not that simple. Like the falling stock market, what we are seeing is everyone tightening their belt. (Well, everyone except the CEOs of failing companies, who keep holding million dollar "conferences" and flying their private jets to Washington to ask Congress for money.)

Once deflation takes off, people quit buying things except for absolute immediate needs. After all, why fill your tank today if you can count on the price being lower tomorrow? Why stock up on groceries if prices are falling so fast that you'll save money by buying only a couple of days' worth at a time? The slowing cash flow causes more places to shut down and lay off employees, which in turn tightens the crunch even more. It's a feedback loop, and a tough one to break.

We still have those space cadets wandering around, of course. I mentioned the CEOs flying expensive private jets to Washington when they could have taken seats on commercial airlines or at least all shared one jet. Even at the local level, in Harvard, here's an example. I pass four gas stations between the city limits and the library, twice a day. It's been fascinating watching them change their prices, going down a penny or two between each time I drive by. Except... the BP station has had its price stuck at $2.35 for weeks now. No changes at all. And, now, no customers either. When the station right across the road is at $2.01 and two more a mile north are at $1.99, who is going to pay $2.35? Stubbornly, they persist, refusing to lower their price. I noticed this week that they are now closed in the evening. Presumably can't pay help to keep the place open that many hours. Doomed, obviously, but they just don't seem to get it. There's only one answer: take a loss if necessary, but lower that price to match the competition. No one believes that BP gasoline is that different from Marathon or Shell or whatever that it can justify a 35 cent price premium.

Overall, I'd say things are looking really bad. I've been trying to encourage my mate to stick by his retirement investments and wait for improvements, but yesterday he talked to someone at Fidelity and backed all the way out, splitting his remaining reserves between cash and government securities. He was already in the most conservative funds they offered. They asked him to rate his willingness to take financial risk on a scale of one to six, but before he could answer, they went on to say that he was already invested "like a one" and his only option that would be less risky would be to get out of the stock market entirely. I imagine others are doing the same, which doesn't help the DOW or S&P.

Argos status: Zipper installed this morning. A few straight line seams to be sewn and he's done. Some optional details can be added if I have time yet today.

NaNo status: Still at 21,556 words, but I should be able to start rolling again by tomorrow night at the latest.

MFF status: Weather concerns. My room mate goldenstallion has to cross Indiana tomorrow to get to the con, and currently the forecast calls for as much as sixteen inches of snow between now and tomorrow morning. Not good. No snow on the ground here, but it's darned cold and windy. Good fursuit weather, I guess, though I think in this I prefer to stay indoors even in suit.

Oh, and one other thing. Instead of an artist type character badge for Argos, Gary embroidered a black sweatshirt for me with a white wolf and the name "Argos" on it. My con badge will have "'Tivo" on it, of course.

[Edit 4:20 pm] And the Dow closed down another 444. Enough with the "pep talks" and promises, I say. Time for the supposed experts to either admit that they don't know what's going on or that this really is more than just a "two or three quarter recession." I don't see any way that even half the loss will be recovered in that time. Six years of recovery from the post 9/11 slides have all been wiped out now. I guess I'll go scoop manure and stop thinking about it...

MFF was the best yet from my point of view. I did attend a single pawful of panels, most of which were well worth the time, but I spent most of my hours socializing instead of being so busy. This was good because I returned home this afternoon chock full of hugs and murr. I suppose I might actually get PCD, which won't be so nice, but maybe I can avoid it simply by having too much other stuff to do this week to take time for it.

Shout outs go to the following in no particular order, for making my weekend extra special (If I've left you out, I apologize. Nudge me and I'll fix it.):

goldenstallion zachary_geminus lobowolf damnbear loriana aerofox deffox dakhun quickcasey tinbender rrwolf kaysho tosdragon brokkentwolf trailhorse innerwolf linnaeus hartree takaza duncandahusky tango cbrenton vakkotaur jmaynard dlorn shadowtxhorse mistletoe and many more...

Most awesome, inspiring fursuit awards go to loriana for her gorgeous cross-fox and her very attractive playing of the part, and to stitchwolf for his glorious Roman soldier lion who was so attractive I had to sit on my hooves to keep from reaching under his red cloak to tweak him. :D It was also delightful to see goldenstallion fursuiting at last as the overly awesome Steed (and really liking it, I must add) as well as to see kaysho and deffox in the fur, as it were. (Both are so cute I just want to cuddle them.)

Other than food, and room, I did very well financially, restraining myself to the purchase of one book (a compilation of the first four issues of the Circles comic that several of you recommended to me recently,) one print (Heather Bruton's irresistible Draped Collie,) one bear-themed t-shirt and one tiny plush sheep with butterfly wings (as gifts for Gary.) He declared the sheep's name to be, obviously, "Baaah-tah-fly."

As for the NaNo-Novel, I'm only a bit behind quota, should be just over 30,000 by midnight, but I think I did well considering all the distractions at the con. Here is your chance to find out just where Argos' bracelet came from, and why it means so very much to him (and to Fennec if he will only admit it openly.) Next segment is more than half done, but not yet complete so not posted.

New chapter is here.

29,022 / 50,000 (58.0%)

OK, I'm not going to be giving an hour by hour report of everything I did or didn't do. That's too boring. I'll just mention a few highlights.

( Con report cut to spare the uninterested )

MFF 2006 gets five out of five possible apples from me. There are always a few glitches, but none of them marred a wonderful friendly and fun experience.

Busy! Hugs to all from MFF. Full report later tomorrow. Wish you were here to make it even better.

Only four months to MFF.

( Stuff to do list )
Not such a terribly long list, actually. :)