Luminous Ayumi & IDEX Were Worth Losing Sleep Over! REALLY!

There are few things in life these days that I'm am willing to lose sleep over. Putting myself into a Lunestra induced coma on the weekends is something that I look forward to more than a fat kid want an ice cream sunday! So, when I read in the WClub forum that there was going to be a select number of FR2 Luminous Ayumi FOR SALE on the floor at IDEX 2012, I called up my favorite blond Marl Davidson and said,"We're going to Orlando Lady!" She quickly agreed! It was not only a great opportunity to see some of the early preview dolls from the 2012 IT Collection in person but also it would assure us getting this beautiful exclusive FR2 doll without entering one of the lotteries (which I lose sleep over as well...lol).
Well kids, she was worth the 1.5 hr. ride and thensome! Not only to see the great dolls but it was also wonderful to see Percy and the lovely Newsum family, along with marketing genius Alain Tremblay and designer extraordinaire David Buttry!
I took  pictures of all the dolls that were being shown...but honestly the ones sent by IT were sooooo much better. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PRODUCTION PICTURES and what the dolls actually look like in person. In fact, if it is possible, THEY LOOK EVEN BETTER IN PERSON! So, I decided to just share the production pictures that were sent with my feedback on each.

Hanzel & Gretel - Nu Fantasy Collection
These are the run away favorites from the preview. If you have not gotten your pre-order in....GOOD LUCK! They are simply stunning! I can't even begin to compliment the details on these dolls. They have a very edgy S&M inspired look to them. And if I was the witch in this fairy tale....I'd be scared of these two!

Poppy, Chip and Darla!
The next set that made everyones heart beat a little faster was the Poppy Parker set. First off, Chip is as dreamy as we all hoped he would be. A little Ricky Nelson, a pinch of Fabian and a dash of young Elvis! This set is a winner! The Poppy series only keeps getting better with each year! Darla is simply stunning with her new facemold and the shade of satin blue on her dress perfectly compliments her mocha skin. This doll will look perfect on your shelf exactly as she comes....but I'm sure that there is going to be TONS of redress value in her as well. I think she is going to look beautiful in everyting that you try on her. The make up and hair are just PERFECT!

SABRINA
Let it not be said that IT does not listnen to their collector's! We asked for the continued style and glamour started by the Breakfast At Tiffany's collection and we got it the new SABRINA series!. These doll are so sweet, delicious and luscious that you are going to want one of each! The outfits are painstakingly reproduced from the movie. The dress that Sabrina wears "with embroidery and yards of skirt" is amazingly done. She is a winner! Every accessory - from the jewelry to Sabrina's poodle named David is done to sheer exactnes. This set is as sure to be as popular as the Tiffany's set!

FR 16
These girl took over where the Avant Guards left off. But, I think from everything I heard from those ewwing and awwing over them at the show....THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE EVEN MORE CROSS OVER APPEAL! Basically, think FR character and fabuous clothing ONLY BIGGER! Plus, all the details that are done at this scale are even more impressive! This set is sure to be a huge hit with Tyler Wentworth Tonner fans and the like! Saskia, Anais, Elsa and Freja are about to take over....Don't miss out on ordering one of these DIVAS!

Ok...let's save some for later!
I'll share the pics on Poppy Parker 16" and the most beautiful MONOGRAMS to date for the blog tomorrow! Goodnight!
xoxo,
F

Dig Out Your Rupaul Dolls Kids....THE GLAMAZON IS COMING TO TOWN!

As many of you may know, I am very good friends with the one and only Supermodel of the World - RuPaul! We've been sitting on a secret for days now that she along with many other celebrities from LOGO TV are going to be coming to celebrate Sawmill Resorts Anniversary! RU will be performing for the first time in many years in her first scheduled USA concert in our back yard!
Other celebs will include the gorgeous Mike Ruiz - Celebrity Photographer and Drag Race Judge. The hott men of the A-List New York. My good friend Glenn Douglas Packard from VH1's Brooke Knows Best and many other surprises.
So, if you want to get your Integrity RuPaul doll sign, meet the Queen of All Media herself or just hang out and have a good time in Central Florida - NOW WOULD BE THE TIME TO MAKE YOUR RESERVATIONS! Like the Diva herself says...here's your chance so..."Don't F@CK It Up!"

xoxo,
F

DOLL ROOM TOUR PART 3

Hi Everyone!
I know that I still suck at video....so I will include the photos of each cube of the curio like I did last time so you can see the girl and boys in the back a little better ;-)
Enjoy!
F

Coming OUT Of The Dark...

I could go ahead and make up some dumb excuse as to why I have not been keeping up to date with my blog by saying that I’m still personally protesting the SOPA bill. I could lie and say that I’ve just been too exhausted from all the work that I’ve been doing at both my jobs at WHM and ALandCHUCK.travel. I could say that my bronchial/sinus infection from a couple of weeks ago still had me feeling under the weather and  was still too weak to knock out my daily blathering on the blog. But that would all be false.

Although, the commitment to my blog has been very a very cathartic and fruitful experience (thus far), I feel somewhat obligated to keep things on an upbeat note. I mean, what point is there in adding to the choir of negativity that seems to always be looming out there in cyber land? I always try to look for the positive in every situation. I can pretty much always find something nice to say about anybody or anything. I’m the perpetual “half glass full” guy. At least that is who I prefer to be. The truth is that I have, on occasion in my life, suffered from the monster disease that is DEPRESSION. I know that anyone that knows me will say,” Depression? YOU? Nah! Never!”, but it is the God’ honest truth. And trust me talking about it outright is a real milestone for me.

 In the past, I’ve been very embarrassed about my condition and have instead chosen to hide it from others. I would go into my own little catatonic cocoon for several days (if not weeks) and emerge again when I was ready to slip my Pollyanna mask back on. But, the older I get the harder it is for me to allow myself to wallow in the depths of my depression for too long. So, now I do something about it on a daily basis. I figure if all those little cartoons on the depression commercials (which I can’t stand because I feel like they trivialize the condition) can feel better by dropping a little pill everyday than it is worth a try. So far, it is working, but it took me a long time to admit that I needed the help. I did not want to be one of those “weakings” that needed a crutch to cope with life’s ups and downs. But, the truth is, that the strength lies in admitting that you need help. There is no shame in that. So, although I know this is a taboo subject, I wanted this blog to be a true representation of my life in every way in so far as it relates to me, my collecting of dolls and life in general.

My dolls have always brought me happiness. The sheer beauty of them, the chase after one’s “grail” dolls, and the creative outlet that they can be to those of us that are OOAK artists; have always offered me respite from the ugliness that the world sometimes can be. I can escape into my only little world of perfection. Many years ago, I had a long hiatus from my doll collecting because a group of “mean girls (and boys)” that I worked with to put together a huge doll event. That experience ruined enjoyment of doll collecting from me for a complete decade. I sold off most of my collection and honestly stayed away from any clubs or doll shows like they were the plague. After a couple of years of my self-imposed exile, I decided to dip my toe again into the world of collecting at the Integrity Doll convention in Chicago 2009. It was a great decision. It opened a new world of friends that I’m so very grateful for now.

But, for the last 20 years there has been a “rock” that has literally and figuratively carried me through some of my darkest hours – my husband, Peter. Peter was the first one that gave me the “permission” to love my dolls out in the open and share them with everyone without shame. A man who collects dolls has a stigma attached to them (even within the gay community…which should really be more tolerant if you ask me) sometime as a “weirdo” who is developmentally arrested.  Most of us do not have the “nostalgia factor” of having played with dolls as little boys…but we do appreciate fashion and I believe that is where the attraction to our mini-mannequins lies in. Peter has always given me the freedom to be myself. That strong foundation (which is, after all, his namesake: Peter means ROCK in ancient Hebrew) has been the constant I’ve always been able to count on so that I could take the creative and personal risks necessary to have successes in my life. 

So, although it is too early for a Valentine’s day message on this blog, I wanted to acknowledge that through love, patience and a few well thought out “trinkets”(specifically: Poppy, Darla (love the new face), Holly Golightly and a beautiful arrangement of flowers!), Peter has helped me once again get my head back in the game. The picture above shows a picture of my man (sexy wolf) and the bits of “happy” he bought  - just to see a smile come cross my face. Every time I look at my dolls I will always think of my loving man and the efforts he goes through just to make my world a more tolerable, gentle place for me to live in.

Thank you, my love, for always being my ray of sunshine , breaking through all my dark and rainy days. You’ll never know how much it means.

Xoxo,

F

What Is Up With SOPA?

You've probably noticed today that many images all over the web have been blacked out.
It is in protest to SOPA.
If you don't know what that is...I found a great article on the web that explains it totally.
Today...www.dolldork.com stands in support against SOPA and will have NO IMAGE to accompany this post. (BORING!)
xoxo,
F

What Is SOPA?

If you hadn't heard of SOPA before, you probably have by now: Some of the internet's most influential sites—Reddit and Wikipedia among them—are going dark to protest the much-maligned anti-piracy bill. But other than being a very bad thing, what is SOPA? And what will it mean for you if it passes?

SOPA is an anti-piracy bill working its way through Congress...

House Judiciary Committee Chair and Texas Republican Lamar Smith, along with 12 co-sponsors, introduced the Stop Online Piracy Act on October 26th of last year. Debate on H.R. 3261, as it's formally known, has consisted of one hearing on November 16th and a "mark-up period" on December 15th, which was designed to make the bill more agreeable to both parties. Its counterpart in the Senate is the Protect IP Act (S. 968). Also known by its cuter-but-still-deadly name: PIPA. There will likely be a vote on PIPA next Wednesday; SOPA discussions had been placed on hold but will resume in February of this year.

...that would grant content creators extraordinary power over the internet...

The beating heart of SOPA is the ability of intellectual property owners (read: movie studios and record labels) to effectively pull the plug on foreign sites against whom they have a copyright claim. If Warner Bros., for example, says that a site in Italy is torrenting a copy of The Dark Knight, the studio could demand that Google remove that site from its search results, that PayPal no longer accept payments to or from that site, that ad services pull all ads and finances from it, and—most dangerously—that the site's ISP prevent people from even going there.

...which would go almost comedically unchecked...

Perhaps the most galling thing about SOPA in its original construction is that it let IP owners take these actions without a single court appearance or judicial sign-off. All it required was a single letter claiming a "good faith belief" that the target site has infringed on its content. Once Google or PayPal or whoever received the quarantine notice, they would have five days to either abide or to challenge the claim in court. Rights holders still have the power to request that kind of blockade, but in the most recent version of the bill the five day window has softened, and companies now would need the court's permission.

The language in SOPA implies that it's aimed squarely at foreign offenders; that's why it focuses on cutting off sources of funding and traffic (generally US-based) rather than directly attacking a targeted site (which is outside of US legal jurisdiction) directly. But that's just part of it.

...to the point of potentially creating an "Internet Blacklist"...

Here's the other thing: Payment processors or content providers like Visa or YouTube don't even need a letter shut off a site's resources. The bill's "vigilante" provision gives broad immunity to any provider who proactively shutters sites it considers to be infringers. Which means the MPAA just needs to publicize one list of infringing sites to get those sites blacklisted from the internet.

Potential for abuse is rampant. As Public Knowledge points out, Google could easily take it upon itself to delist every viral video site on the internet with a "good faith belief" that they're hosting copyrighted material. Leaving YouTube as the only major video portal. Comcast (an ISP) owns NBC (a content provider). Think they might have an interest in shuttering some rival domains? Under SOPA, they can do it without even asking for permission.

...while exacting a huge cost from nearly every site you use daily...

SOPA also includes an "anti-circumvention" clause, which holds that telling people how to work around SOPA is nearly as bad as violating its main provisions. In other words: if your status update links to The Pirate Bay, Facebook would be legally obligated to remove it. Ditto tweets, YouTube videos, Tumblr or WordPress posts, or sites indexed by Google. And if Google, Twitter, Wordpress, Facebook, etc. let it stand? They face a government "enjoinment." They could and would be shut down.

The resources it would take to self-police are monumental for established companies, and unattainable for start-ups. SOPA would censor every online social outlet you have, and prevent new ones from emerging.

...and potentially disappearing your entire digital life...

The party line on SOPA is that it only affects seedy off-shore torrent sites. That's false. As the big legal brains at Bricoleur point out, the potential collateral damage is huge. And it's you. Because while Facebook and Twitter have the financial wherewithal to stave off anti-circumvention shut down notices, the smaller sites you use to store your photos, your videos, and your thoughts may not. If the government decides any part of that site infringes on copyright and proves it in court? Poof. Your digital life is gone, and you can't get it back.

...while still managing to be both unnecessary and ineffective...

What's saddest about SOPA is that it's pointless on two fronts. In the US, the MPAA, and RIAA already have the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to request that infringing material be taken down. We've all seen enough "video removed" messages to know that it works just fine.

As for the foreign operators, you might as well be throwing darts at a tse-tse fly. The poster child of overseas torrenting, Pirate Bay, has made it perfectly clear that they're not frightened in the least. And why should they be? Its proprietors have successfully evaded any technological attempt to shut them down so far. Its advertising partners aren't US-based, so they can't be choked out. But more important than Pirate Bay itself is the idea of Pirate Bay, and the hundreds or thousands of sites like it, as populous and resilient as mushrooms in a marsh. Forget the question of should SOPA succeed. It's incredibly unlikely that it could. At least at its stated goals.

...but stands a shockingly good chance of passing...

SOPA is, objectively, an unfeasible trainwreck of a bill, one that willfully misunderstands the nature of the internet and portends huge financial and cultural losses. The White House has come out strongly against it. As have hundreds of venture capitalists and dozens of the men and women who helped build the internet in the first place. In spite of all this, companies have already spent a lot of money pushing SOPA, and it remains popular in the House of Representatives.

That mark-up period on December 15th, the one that was supposed to transform the bill into something more manageable? Useless. Twenty sanity-fueled amendments were flat-out rejected. And while the bill's most controversial provision—mandatory DNS filtering—was thankfullytaken off the table recently, in practice internet providers would almost certainly still use DNS as a tool to shut an accused site down.

...unless we do something about it.

The momentum behind the anti-SOPA movement has been slow to build, but we're finally at a saturation point. Wikipedia, BoingBoing, WordPress, TwitPic: they'll all be dark on January 18th. An anti-SOPA rally has been planned for tomorrow afternoon in New York. The list of companies supporting SOPA is long but shrinking, thanks in no small part to the emails and phone calls they've received in the last few months.

So keep calling. Keep emailing. Most of all, keep making it known that the internet was built on the same principles of freedom that this country was. It should be afforded to the same rights.

2012 Doll Room Tour Part 2 - The Sequel

Hi Everyone!
Thanks for such an overwhelming response to my first mini doll tour! I really appreciate all the kind comments and emails. But, I heard you loud and clear - "WHERE IS ALL THE FR!" So, for this blog you are gonna get a full-on FR OVERDOSE (p.s. with some other few things tossed in for fun!)
I also took bright pictures to go alongside this entry because I haven't figured out how to make the "overhead" light work with the video camera (I'm actually not very technical....trust me this blog has been a stretch for my technical abilities! lol)
Hope you enjoy and I can't wait to hear your comments!

xoxo,
F

Miss Darla Daley Making History Alongside DR. KING Circa 1965

When I was in grade school, my teacher (who's name was Miss. Brown...but she was a blond and that was always very confusing to me) showed us once a reel of the "I've Got A Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr. It was 1977 and believe it or not, Miss. Brown got into a lot of trouble with many of the parents because she had showed that speech to a bunch of 2nd graders. It was deemed too controversial.

It had only been approximately 9 years since his untimely assassination, but his words were ringing in the ears of people who still thought of him as a subversive and a rebel. Now years latter, we revere a man who was a visionary and a leader with a national banking holiday and not much else. We forget many of his teachings who's morals still stand the test of time today.

The photo above features Dr. King during a press conference. You can bet that if Darla Daley had been around back in the day she would be lending her celebrity and voice to his cause. So, I thought it only fitting to show the two contemporaries together in this very "rare" picture. ;-)

All kidding aside, I urge you all to take a moment and see the footage below from youtube.com (or read it below) to see the man speaking LIVE. The sound of his voice and his energy was truly awe inspiring. It's been several years since the first time I saw this speech, but the words still inspire me today.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day...take a moment and ask yourself what part have you played in keeping Dr. King's dream alive....FOR ALL.

"I Have A Dream Speech"

By Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"