davidd's A Doll A Day Challenge 2020

[werepuppy]

That is a brilliant doodle! Hope Action Man has a safe trip to his best location.

[Alliecat]

I've been over to AMMO and read all of Willie's adventures at SCU HQ.  More genius perspective and great lighting, and I love that you did the whole song with them...
And THEN, what an amazing adventure on top of already fun shots of his time in Utah!  WOW!
(Cape Horn???!!!  I hate you )
Are you going to get a ship tattoo to commemorate rounding the horn??
I can't wait to see photos of more of your crew that went.
Thanks for a great evening's entertainment!

P.S.  Fantastic doodle, and only a 1/6 passenger would find airline pretzels to be "generous portions"

[davidd]

(Cape Horn???!!!  I hate you )

For what little it is worth, I thought about you as we rounded Cape Horn! Yes, seriously! I knew you would find it fascinating... and that you might be a little bit envious!

No tatts and no earring, because sailing around Cape Horn doesn't seem like it should really count when you're on a gigantic cruise ship. And technically, we did not fully "round the horn." The ship sailed through the Beagle channel and the Chilean fjords from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Then, because weather conditions were favorable, the captain reversed course in the open ocean and sailed back to the Pacific, then back-tracked again so we would sail past Cape Horn. In a way, then, we rounded, or at least passed, the horn twice. But another interpretation would be that we didn't truly sail around Cape Horn.

There was also a seemingly abandoned four-masted sailing vessel in the harbor of a small port city called Punta Arenas in southern Chile. I asked a couple of the local guides about it, and they did not seem to think it was anything worthwhile and knew nothing about it. One guide said, "oh, there are lots of abandoned ships like that around here."

Online research now that I am home indicates that the ship is the County of Peebles, built in 1875 and one of the last surviving four-masted windjammers in the world. It was beached and built in to a breakwater in the early 1960s. For a number of reasons, I could not get close enough to get a good picture, but here you can see it through the window of the port of entry office:

County of Peebles 4-Masted Iron Windjammer in Punta Areñas, Chile – January 2020

I have no doubt that one of these days you will round Cape Horn on a tall ship, the way it should be done! (Although I don't know if they risk taking any of the surviving tall ships around the horn these days. So maybe on a sailboat, at least.)

Another article about County of Peebles: https://silverfox175.com/2019/03/27/a-sa...fine-ship/

[Alliecat]

Ah, it's sad when they end up that way. Or as floating restaurants or some such other lame thing.
I guess technically it's not the same on a cruise ship... what was that about a giant condo stuck on a bathtub?? A tattoo of a cruise ship wouldn't have quite the desired effect! But hey, at least you were there. And the sea looks quite amazingly calm, so that was lucky timing. And also lucky that you got off before ending up quarantined or something!
Europa is in Antarctica in their summers. $$$$.....

[davidd]

I guess technically it's not the same on a cruise ship... what was that about a giant condo stuck on a bathtub??

The weather was much better than normal, we were told, with winds of only a few knots and swells of only about 6 feet.

Yes, I've seen the "condo stuck on a bathtub" line. This ship, the Norwegian Star, while huge, is much more "ship-like" than the other cruise ship on which I've been. The previous ship felt like a hotel, with very few spaces that seemed even remotely nautical. This ship at least looked like a ship, and had open deck spaces, decks that circled the entire ship, and some interior passageways that looked like a ship instead of like a hotel. My favorite moments were actually standing at the stern rail when the ship left port, watching the wake grow and recede in to the distance as the ship picked up speed.

[Elfy]

I’ve heard of Norwegian Star. I’d like to do a European river cruise one day maybe, but they’re pricey.

[werepuppy]

The ship looks fairly impressive to me, someone who knows nothing about nautical ships.

[davidd]

I’ve heard of Norwegian Star. I’d like to do a European river cruise one day maybe, but they’re pricey.

One of the passengers on the ship was from Australia, and I overheard him saying that the Norwegian Star visits Australia quite frequently.
I would also love to do a European river cruise, but as you say, very pricey!

The ship looks fairly impressive to me, someone who knows nothing about nautical ships.

The cruise ship, which was built in Germany, is quite impressive, actually!

The old, wrecked sailing ship that alliecat and I were discussing was constructed in Scotland in the 1870s, so I would have ex-pected you to know all about it!

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12 February:

[neon_jellyfish]

Wow, Janie is quite thorough! If my dolls needed to hold a house meeting, they'd probably use the light tent, or declare the whole rabbitbox their house. We're rooting for you, girls!

[Elfy]

Janie really is the brains of the outfit.

[Lejays17]

Yes, to have a house meeting one generally needs a house.

I wonder what the sudden need for a house meeting means though?


We know a few people who have done the river cruises, and they do sound amazing. And also eensive.

[werepuppy]

I need that Cyberman clip: THERE IS LOGIC IN WHAT SHE SAYS...

[davidd]

13 February – 'Frozen II' dolls displace 'Harry Potter' figures on the shelf at Walmart

Recently, in the comments at another topic, we were discussing whether the appeal of Harry Potter would endure long-term. Today I see that Disney Frozen II figures have completely displaced the Harry Potter dolls at Walmart. The Potter figures have not merely been moved, they are gone, the shelf space now being occupied by Frozen merchandise. All I could find of Harry Potter were a couple of accessory packs that had been overlooked on an adjacent shelf.

This is not necessarily indicative of a declining appeal of the Harry Potter franchise as a whole, but it does suggest that interest in Harry Potter among children in the playline doll demographic has largely disappeared.

Of course, the Harry Potter dolls were limited in that you had a handful of core characters dressed in their school uniforms and... well, that was about it. Not a lot of spin-off and upsell options there.

Elsa from Frozen also seems to have basically one outfit, her blue gown, so the approach seems to be to issue the dolls in a variety of sizes and in styles ranging from "realistic" to "cartoonish and cuddly."

[neon_jellyfish]

That's a lot of Frozen...

I find those Olaf plushies oddly disturbing

[Alliecat]

Ah, the movie-related merch-push. Potter dolls would probably reappear if there was another movie.
Were you tempted (or did you get) any of them?

I'm also curious to know what the house meeting is for ... discussing a potential new arrival maybe?? Janie would fit right in here at repair time, when the air is often blue...
Fun to see them constructing something their own size. Should be a piece of cake after their previous projects.