davidd's A DOLL A DAY 2024

[Alliecat]

That's such a great set with all the detail.
Does it travel back to UT with you or do we have to wait for a conclusion till next winter??
Sushi and Hokey, LOL

[davidd]

21 March - A Doll A Day 2024:

VAMPIRA'S LITERARY LOUNGE

Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977) by Richard Bach. Fictional allegory-type novel, a genre which had a run of popularity in the 1970s. Initially interesting, but ultimately fails (I thought) to make a convincing argument, and ultimately becomes trite, predictable, and unsatisfying. But hey... there's actually a vampire in it! I wasn't ekspecting that!

[Alliecat]

Oh wow, I remember reading that in high school. I read it after “Jonathan“. I think I liked it but I don’t remember the details. Are you back in UT now?

[davidd]

Are you back in UT now?

Back in Florida after a trip to Oregon. The plan is to leave for Utah on April 2nd... while hoping to avoid the bulk of the ECLIPSE MANIA traffic.

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22 March - A Doll A Day 2024:

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A MYSTERIOUS PARCEL - PART 2

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[Alliecat]

LOL. I hope you yourself don't have such dramatic package-openings
This is a great set. And you'd never guess it was so small; you got a lot of different angles out of it.
In the 3rd and 4th last pictures he suddenly looks like someone I know. At least someone who would like to look that cool. I think it's his ex-pression in the closeup.

[davidd]

This is a great set.  And you'd never guess it was so small; you got a lot of different angles out of it.

A learned-through-trial-and-error trick to dolly-scale set construction is to make the background walls taller than "scale" height. I started with 16-inch walls, but found that camera angles were limited. I progressed to 18-inch walls, but still found the angle options limited. Now, for 12-inch figures, I usually build 20-inch walls, which mostly works for most of what I try to do, and which is the standard width of a sheet of foam core poster board. Sometimes, even then, I need to add a temporary "ceiling" for some shots so the top edge of the walls doesn't show.

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A DOLL A DAY 2024: Catching Up

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23 March - Misty Beach Day

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24 March - Mister Svengoolie in the Studio

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25 March - Another Misty Beach Day

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26 March - Action Figure Action

Wanton violence, firearms, objectification of chicks... you know, the classic action movie stuff!

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27 March - Yet Another Misty Beach Day

According to weather records, the winter of 2023-2024 has been the most consistently overcast, one of the coolest, and one of the wettest winter seasons on record for the Daytona-Ormond Beach area in the past 80 years.

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28 March - Mistress of the Dark

[davidd]

29 March - A Doll A Day 2024

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29 March - Outpost on a Misty Shore

[davidd]

30 March - A Doll A Day 2024:

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VAMPIRA'S LITERARY LOUNGE

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100 Places To See After You Die (2023) by Ken Jennings

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100 Places to See After You Die: A Travel Guide to the Afterlife (2023) by Ken Jennings offers a factual but tongue-in-cheek "travel guide style" overview of one-hundred different interpretations of The Afterlife culled from religion, science, spirituality, and popular culture.

Amusing in places, somewhat disconcerting in others. The "religious versions" of the afterlife seem almost universally unpleasant, except for the Mormon version, which might eksplain the otherwise improbable growth of that particular faith over the past hundred and a half years.

I was disappointed that the version of the afterlife described by John Kendrick Bangs in A Houseboat on the Styx wasn't mentioned, but more current pop culture and music references abound.

30 March  -  A Doll A Day 2024

[davidd]

31 March - A Doll A Day 2024:

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31 March - Sunny and Breezy

[Alliecat]

I love the Pinky castle!
Great perspective with Yasmin. The lifeguard station looks in scale with her.
“Jeopardy” Ken Jennings??

[davidd]

“Jeopardy” Ken Jennings??

Yes, that Ken Jennings!

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1 April - A Doll A Day 2024:

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On the Road Again! Like a band of gypsies, we go down the highway!

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I'm heading west toward the setting sun myself, and shall be AFK - Away From Keyboard - and from most other reliable Internettage for the next week or ten days or so.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I need to get hep with the times and learn to run my entire online existence via a mobile phone, but the Flickr app SUxx0Rz, as anyone who has tried to use it knows, and it's too much hassle to type long, rambling, self-absorbed captions enhanced with HTML embellishment on a tiny phone touchscreen, so I'm just gonna go radio silent until I'm back at a computer with a keyboard that's plugged in to a wire.

L to R: Skipper Mike, Ernesto Hamway, Arabella "Ari" Carter, Alexandra "Lexxi" Scott aka Lexxi Red Sky, Antoinette "Toni" Carter,  "E" King, and Cloë.

[Alliecat]

Yep it’s a bit tricky to do it on a phone. I use dictation and wind up having to correct half of it.
Safe travels.

[davidd]

A DOLL

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2 April - Where the Rubber Hits the Road: Ormond Beach, FL

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3 April - Red Roof Inn Motel in Richland, Mississippi

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Fueling Up in Monroe, Louisiana - Save Ten Cents per Gallon with the Loves Travel App!

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4 April - Motel 6 in Wichita Falls, Texas

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Highway Rest Area along Interstate I-40 West between Santa Rosa and Albuquerque, New Mexico

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5 April - Morning After the Last Night on the Road: a Motel in Gallup, New Mexico

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6 April - There's No Hell Like Home: Frozen Water Lines... again. And again. And again.

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7 April - Yasmin discovers that free-range cattle have done a number

on the landscaping around the garden pond during the winter

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8 April - Pullip EOS is Ready to view a (Partial) Solar Eclipse

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[Alliecat]

Oh, what a bummer, coming back to a bunch of stuff to fix. It always amazes me that you make time to fit the dolls into these repair jobs. At least you had a little entertainment today.

[davidd]

9 April - A Doll A Day 2024:

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When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade!

When Life Gives You Crap, Make Organic Soil Supplements!