One ninety-nine, are you outta your mind???

The Grid is alive...with the sound of...crows.

I love how those black, black birds congregate around my area of town (the south side) and caw wildly over the sun's disappearing over the horizon, into the vague grey of another valley winter.

OK, enough poetry.

I also just came past the AM/PM at 16th and W, the grand entrance to midtown Sacramento, which appears to have finally opened. It's alright, I don't mind it too much. I like how low the lights are at night. It's very low-key, for a dastardly, neighborhood-scarring, planet-warming commercial monstrosity.

But what really caught my eye was the price sign: Unledded, $1.99.

$1.99??????

A dollar ninety-nine. Wow. That's less than half of what it was in August. Incredible. And, weirdly enough, scary. Prices shouldn't be fluctuating that much. It's unstable, and what little conservative I have in me - very, very little - doesn't like that lack of stability.

I mean, honestly, do we have ANY idea where we're going to be, economically, in six months? It could be just fine, or it could be...well, how many times do you have to hear the phrase "since the Great Depression" before you start wondering if this time, we played a little too hard, too close to the bone. I know I did.

Still, $1.99 is worth celebrating. Car rally, anyone? Road trip?! Burn it while it's cheap. Will we even remember $4.44 gas - until it hits that again, which it surely will. Is everyone who regretted their SUVs at one point now in deep denial again? (I cast no stones: I've got a '89 van that gets well under 20 MPG and STILL can't go up a mountain any faster than about 39 MPH.)

OK, to other things - the weekly weekend-plus post. Up next...