Mystery (Partially) Solved

The kigurumi player I mentioned yesterday is not my friend Raven -- as initially evidenced by me seeing Raven in a Hello Kitty costume within seconds of the kigger, and secondly by me and Raven riding in the same elevator as the kigger this afternoon. (As I sat here typing this, Hello Kitty just walked by, but didn't notice me -- I don't think the visibility is very good inside that giant head.) I'm still not sure who the kig player is, although the pool of candidates is narrowed to a relatively small number of people (none of whom I know personally) due to additional evidence I won't go into here. It would be easier if the badges were readable at a distance of more than six inches. I did get a chance to talk (one-sided; per convention, kiggers rarely speak) to her and compliment her on her performance, particularly the little girl she was playing with in the lobby yesterday. She has at least three outfits (each with a different anime head) that I've seen so far.

Yesterday evening, after changing (partially) out of the Hello Kitty costume, Raven found me here at my "office" -- the round table in the poolside foyer where I've been gravitating when I have nothing else to do -- and I got up and hugged her once, saying, "This is from Lisa, at her direction." Then I hugged her again, saying, "And this one's from me."

There were fewer parties and of lower quality on Saturday night -- which was surprising; I tend to expect Saturday to be better than Friday -- so Raven and I pretty much sat in the Con Suite and let the convention come to us. About 11:30, I realized how late it was getting (given that I was commuting down from Fremont; had I taken a hotel room, it wouldn't have mattered to me) and had to say goodnight. I'm sure glad I had no commitments that required me to be up early in the morning!

This afternoon was the Fursuit Parade. Fortunately for me, I was able to secure a perch on the stairwell between the ground and upper levels of the convention center side of the hotel, so I had a great few as the horde of costumed critters made their way down the hall and out to the driveway area in front of the convention center, where a mass photo-shoot ensued.

Yes, I know: I need to get a digital camera so I can start illustrating these stories.

Virtual Vikki

One of the fursuited characters here, at least to my eye, looked a lot like Virtual Vikki, a character created by my friend Richard Hallock. This is sort of spooky to me, because as far as I can tell, Rick and his wife Erlinda, with whom I used to be very close friends until we somehow lost contact with each other, have gafiated entirely. None of the e-mail or paper mail addresses I have for them seem to work, and the last phone number I have for them is disconnected. I happened to run across another mutual friend of theirs here, and he also commented on how Rick and Erlinda have more or less vanished.

Rick was the producer and videographer on the two Doctor Who amateur films I directed. Rick and I flew together and shared a room at Noreascon Three in 1989 (I haven't missed a Worldcon since then). Erlinda and I dated for a bit before she and Rick connected (defintely no hard feelings there; Rick was best man at my wedding, and Erlinda videotaped it for us). The two of them and I were directors of the MythAdventures Fan Club together. But I haven't heard from them in at least two years now. Their interests and mine diverged a bit, as I got more involved with Worldcons and they with furry fandom, and I'd sort of hoped I might run across them here, but it hasn't happened. Rick, Erlinda, if by some chance you run across this message, please contact me! I didn't intentionally cut y'all off; I just got busy with other fannish projects!