Two of my granddaughters are becoming violinists. I’m very happy to see their interest in music and do what I can to encourage it.

Recently Rachel began singing a little tune and seemed rather shocked when I joined in. “See the little pufferbellies all in a row.”

Not surprisingly, my twelve-year-old granddaughter had no idea what a pufferbelly was. I gave her a brief explanation, but our visit to Paducah, Kentucky provided me with a perfect pictorial example.

A not-so-little pufferbelly

As with so many things I run across nowadays, seeing the steam locomotive brought back more than a few memories.

For example, I recall my parents taking us to see Rook Station near Carnegie, Pennsylvania. Besides having a fairly large rail yard, Rook Station had a round house where the pufferbellies could be turned around and maintained.

A similar turn-table in Savannah, Georgia

I also remember a time when I was about Rachel’s age that I went on a field trip to the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in downtown Pittsburgh. Part of the tour included an animated film telling us about the future of railroading. They were getting ready to introduce diesel locomotives which would spell the end of most pufferbellies.

The "new" locomotive on the Branson Scenic Railway

A few scenic railways still use the steam engines, but they are becoming harder and harder to find. I believe the one that runs out of Bryson City, North Carolina is still using a pufferbelly.

A few years back I discovered how intense true railroad buffs are. I was working at a lumber yard in Texas when a load of old railroad ties was delivered. Almost immediately there were swarms of men intently searching for nails stuck in the wood. But these weren’t ordinary nails; they had two digit dates embossed in the heads. Those dates indicated the year the tie was put into place and were used to help the workers determine when to replace the tie. To my surprise, the nails were seen as valuable collectors’ items. I managed to obtain one and passed it on to Andy Sarge.

I mention Andy’s name because I’m hoping he can answer a question of two. While we were watching the Veteran’s Day parade in Branson, there were two machines working on the tracks of the scenic railway. The first machine was the one shown below:

A machine with steel teeth biting into the ground.

A closer look at the teeth

The teeth seemed to be used to loosen the dirt and gravel along side the track. Another interesting feature of this machine was the flimsy looking device being pushed ahead of the machine.

Unknown gizmo being pushed ahead

This thing seemed to be about twenty or thirty feet in front of the first machine. After this machine passed by, it was followed by a second machine.

The second machine

This machine would periodically drop the gray device in front and kick up a bunch of dust. I assume there were brushes cleaning the rails or redistributing the gravel loosened by the first machine.

Hopefully, Andy or some other railroad buffs will enlighten me.

In the meantime, let’s return to pufferbellies. Back in the late forties or early fifties, the Four Preps took that children’s song and produced the following recording.

And that is why I was able to sing along with my granddaughter.

From Grinnell College’s Scarlet and Black Newspaper, October 31, 1952

From the age when librarians could publicly lay the smack down on unruly patrons:

Emme at the Glamour Magazine Honors The 2009 Women of the Year Awards at Carnegie Hall in New York.

More Pictures

]]> http://dinosaurcollector.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/brachiosaurus-carnegie-collection-by-safari-ltd/ Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:01:42 +0000 plesiosauria http://dinosaurcollector.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/brachiosaurus-carnegie-collection-by-safari-ltd/

The Brachiosaurus is one of the few original Carnegie Collection sculpts, as far as I can tell, that has remained unchanged (with the exception of a new paint job) since it was released in 1987.  As explained by Randy Knol on the Dinosaur Collector Site,  the majority of figures from the original line have been tweaked or retired. The figure I’m reviewing is stamped 1988 so it’s important to bear this in mind when assessing the figure for scientific accuracy. The ‘Brachio’ part of the name on my figure is intriguingly raised relative to the rest of the text on the stamp, seemingly indicating that the figure was previously stamped as something-else-osaurus. Maybe one of our Safari Ltd collecting readers could check an original figure to clarify if this is the case?

This is one gargantuan figure and quite a significant hulk of plastic, ‘hulk’ being the operative word given the incredible green hue to the skin. The head towers above the rest of the figures in the Carnegie Collection – this Brachiosaurus stands 35cm tall. It is a heavy beast too, I don’t have any scales on me but I’d estimate it at a little less than a kilogram, worth keeping in mind for effects on shipping costs.

The anatomical proportions are good although the animal is a little overweight perhaps, and the posture of the legs is a little uncomfortable looking. The tail is raised (although the very tip touches the floor), the neck is almost vertical and the back slopes towards the hips. A ridge runs along the neck indicating the underlying muscle mass.

The skin is covered with large scales and is wrinkled, especially on the flanks between the ‘arms’ and legs, and at the base of the neck. The ‘hands’ possess five claws including an enlarged thumb claw. Brachiosaurus is now known to have only the large thumb claw so the figure is outdated in this regard. The cheery-looking small head has the distinctive macronarian ‘crest’. The jaws are open revealing a rather gummy looking mouth. The peg-like teeth are quite poorly defined, the sculpt is a bit poorly defined in several places but I think this is probably a result or the old age of the moulds?

The current colour scheme for this figure is green, with slightly darker green on the top and a grey wash, which highlights the surface details. The claws are black, the teeth are white, the mouth is pink and the eyes are yellow with neat black pupils.

Available from Safari.com (here) and Amazon.com (here)

MIA is a patriot, having served his homeland for decades, with distinction.

MIA is a prominent human rights activist, and peace activist, having tirelessly worked for peace with numerous humanitarian organizations, such as:

• The Soros Open Society Institute (Board of Trustees; with George Soros, Stewart Paperin, Laura Silber, Stephen Gutmann, Leon Botstein, David Rothman, John Simon, Jonathan Soros, etc.)
• The Council of Foreign Relations (co-chair of the 1999 Independent Task Force on”Reconstructing the Balkans” ["the regions [sic] of Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Croatia, and Rumania”] — from MIA’s report: “The region will enjoy a lasting peace only if all its states leave the past behind and move decidedly to join the wider community.” — strange … I thought Yugoslavia was “a wider community” …; The Center for Preventive Action’s Independent Task Force on the Balkans 2010)
• Human Rights Watch
• The Century Foundation (Senior Fellow; with Kenneth Duberstein, John Podesta, David Aaron, Margaret Hamburg, Richard Kahlenberg, Daniel Levy, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, Lewis Kaden, Nancy Soderberg, Tova Andrea Wang, etc.)
• The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (former president; with James C. Gaither, Bill Bradley, Jerry Cohen, Richard Debs, Susan Eisenhower, Leslie Gelb, Jamie Gorelick, Stephen Lewis, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, Zanny Minton Beddoes, Strobe Talbott, Robert Kagan, Sherman Katz, Albert Keidel, Masha Lipman, Jessica Tuchman Mathews, Moisés Naím, David Rothkopf, Robert Kagan, etc.)
• The U.S. State Department  (former Ambassador to Turkey; former assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research)
• The National Endowment for Democracy (former director; with Wesley Clark, Evan Bayh, Francis Fukuyama, Lee H. Hamilton (911 Commission), Richard C. “Hal” Holbrooke, Michael Novak, Paula Dobriansky, etc)
• The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (Board of Directors; with William Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Elliott Abrams, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Eliot Cohen, Norman Podhoretz, Moishe Pripstein, Tatiana Yankelevich, Kenneth Adelman, Audrey L. Alstadt, Leonard R. Sussman, George Weigel, Caspar Weinberger, Joshua Muravchik, Richard Perle, Marshall Goldman, Alexander Haig, Irving Louis Horowitz, Robert Kagan, Max Kampelman, Richard Pipes, Robert Lieber, S. Frederick Starr, Richard Gere, Seymour Lipset, Peter Rosenblatt, Philip Siegelman, David Saperstein, Gary Schmitt, William Schneider, Alexey Semyonov, Andrew Sessler, Stephen Solarz, James Woolsey, Larry Diamond, Sandra Feldman, Geraldine Ferraro, Erwin Friedlander, Frank Gaffney, Douglas Ginsburg, Harry Kopp, Jan Nowak)
• The International Crisis Group (for Bosnia and Kosovo; co-founder, and member of the Senior executive Committee; fellow ICG-ers: Chris Patten, Stephen Solarz, George Soros, Kenneth Adelman, Shlomo Ben-Ami, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Kim Campbell, Wesley Clark, Joschka Fischer, Leslie H. Gelb, etc.; MIA: “The sight of Slobodan Milosevic being tried for war crimes in the Hague may suggest that we have reached the end of history, Balkans-style.”)
• The Balkan Action Committee (ex-Committee for the Present Danger; with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Elie Wiesel, Max Kampelman, Saul Bellow, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ron Lehman, John O’Sullivan, Richard Perle, Eugene Rostow, Donald Rumsfeld, Stephen Solarz, Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Geraldine Ferraro, Paula Dobriansky, Michael Lerner (Tikkun), etc.)
• Freedom House (present and former Illuminaries: Peter Ackerman, Stuart Eizenstat, Walter Schloss, Max Kampelman, Bette Bao Lord, Kenneth Adelman, Bernard Aronson, Malcolm Steve Forbes, Theodore Forstmann, Henry Louis Gates, Jay Mazur, Andrew Nathan, Nina Rosenwald, David Rubenstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Paula Dobriansky, James Woolsey, Kenneth Adelman, Max Kampelman, Peter Ackerman, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Stuart Eizenstat, Sandra Feldman, Malcolm Forbes, Samuel Huntington, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Anthony Lake, P.J. O’Rourke, Bill Richardson, etc.)
• Intellibridge (with David J. Rothkopf, Anthony Lake, Richard C. “Hal” Holbrooke, Henry Kissinger, John Mark Deutch, Lawrence Korb, Joseph Samuel Nye, Jr., Stephen Solarz, Peter Tarnoff, etc.; subsumed into Eurasia)
• The International Rescue Committee (with Madeleine Albright, Maurice R. Greenberg, Henry Kissinger, Tom Lantos, Elie Wiesel, Reynold Levy, David N. Pincus, Colin Powell, Bruce Ratner, Felix Rohatyn, Nancy Starr, Jonathan L. Wiesner, James Wolfensohn, Guy, Morton Hamburg, Jessica Seinfeld, Howard Jonas, Marvin Josephson, Alton Kastner, H. Peter Stern, W. Michael Blumenthal, William vanden Heuvel, Ronald Waldman, Leah Zell Wanger, Daniel Weiner, Randi Weingarten, etc.)
• The National Interest (with Conrad Black, Irving Kristol, Helmut Sonnenfeldt, etc.)
• The Synagogue of Satan

MIA delivered Stinger missiles to the Mujahidin in Afghanistan.

MIA represented the Albanian Islamic terrorist group UCK and Bosnia’s Iranian-U.S.-Saudi-backed militias against the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia.

MIA campaigns for the Chechens against Russia.

MIA arranged for Turkey to receive $6,000,000,000 “and unspecified additional billions in loans” from American tax-payers in exchange for the use of Turkish territory for the invasion of Iraq. MIA also guaranteed Turkey that America would deny Iraqi Kurds any national self-determination.

MIA is married to Sheppie Abramowitz, director of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children.

Diana Johnstone, Fool’s Crusade, Pluto Press, 2002, p. 9:

… Presidents come and go but the continuity of U.S. policy is ensured by a small elite of policy-makers who remain outside party politics – and often outside public view. An influential member of this foreign policy establishment is Morton Abramowitz, whose career has involved him with both the Afghan mujahidin and Kosovo Albanian rebels. In 1986, as assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research in the Reagan administration, Abramowitz helped arrange delivery of the Stinger missiles. The collapse of the Soviet Union obliged U.S. policy-makers to redefine the “threat” justifying foreign intervention. The “war on terrorism”, launched by President Reagan in the early 1980s, was suffering by the end of the decade from a dearth of active terrorists. As president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the early 1990s, Abramowitz headed a project to develop a new U.S. foreign policy for the post-Cold War era. Rather than simply identifying “threats”, especially at a time when few threats could be seen, a successful new policy needed to combine promotion of U.S. interests with proclamation of American “ideals”.

…

Abramowitz continued to act from behind the scenes as an eminence grise for [US Secretary of State] Albright. He helped found the high-level International Crisis Group, a chief policy designer fro Bosnia and Kosovo. He was omnipresent behind the scenes of the Kosovo drama, both in making policy and in shaping elite business, government, and media opinion. He acted as an advisor to the Kosovo Albanian delegation at the Rambouillet talks, whose programmed breakdown provided the pretext for NATO bombing.

This is more of an observational post rather than anything intrinsically of any merit, but I will leave it for you to do with what you will.

I was walking along the Princeton Canal path. Off to one’s right is an old canal path from the early parts of the 19th century. Off to the left is Lake Carnegie, which is a bit of a misnomer as it actually is a straight waterway perfect for boats and, since this is Princeton, crew.

Crew are those long slender boats with many people sitting one in front of the other all facing the wrong way except for the one in front (back?) who is facing the way the boat is moving and whose sole responsibility seems to be to yell at everyone else. Often with a megaphone. This path is a perfectly tranquil place, full of beautiful birds and flower turning that brilliant cascade of yellows, oranges and red this time of year. It is tranquil most times except when the Ivy Leagues descend on Princeton for their crew races.

And yes, there is Dartmouth, and yes, Harvard, Yale, Georgetown and the whole bit. And yes there are chinos out the yin-yang and sweatshirts that say “Insert Expensive University Name here” Crew. And they all stand at the various bridges and scream things like Go Blue! Go Green! and Down With the Peasants! or some other bits of Ivy League wits (witbits).

I am reminded of a football cheer that was literally chanted at a football game in the great American institutions of higher learning:

Thermopylae, Thucydides
The Peloponnesian War!
x2, y2, h2so4.
Who for, what for.
Who the hell are we cheering for?

Ahh, they are witty around here, aren’t they?
(forgive my squared symbols above, I can’t be bothered to go look for the proper notation)

Either way, so you have these long boats and they race them really fast. As so does House, if one watches the opening credits of that show which supposedly takes place in Princeton (the river they show is Lake Carnegie as the overhead shots are Princeton campus):

So, I am sure all these Ivy League types have names for all parts of the boat and all those crew people in them. I, however, am fascinated by the social awkwardness that must ensue as the person who is facing the one direction is nose to nose with the person rowing in the other direction. I imagine that would be uncomfortable the first time.

The Princeton crew guy facing the wrong way

I mean he is sitting there doing nothing but yelling and facing the opposite direction as everyone else. I imagine the first guy rowing looking at him gets peeved as well as he might be thinking “who is this guy to yell at me when he is doing nothing?”

Well, I created a term to represent the space between the two guys facing in the opposite directions doing opposite things.

I hereby refer to it as the “scrum junction.” That is all.

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

The Chartiers Creek in Carnegie, seen through a curtain of brilliant red maple leaves.

Military Debt Protection Could Hold Lessons for Congress, Consumers
PBS FRONTLINE – Aired on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
24 November 2009
Associate Producer

A look at how military programs aim to protect service members from amassing too much debt, something the military considers a threat to national security.

Watch the NewsHour story. (7:32)
Read my accompanying article.

View the related PBS FRONTLINE documentary “The Card Game,” for which I was a production associate.

_______________________

Fruit-Picking Children
Aired on ABC – Nightline, Good Morning America and World News with Charles Gibson
30 October 2009

This story is the result of a summer long investigative reporting project by the four Carnegie Fellows (of whom I was one) chosen to work with ABC’s Brian Ross Investigative Reporting Unit. All footage – with the exception of the blueberry festival, Adkins shots and Zama interview – was shot by the Carnegie Fellows. We were not involved in the writing of the script and feel that, due to time constraints, the final product was not able to fully convey the complex nature of the issue.

The day this story aired, Walmart and supermarket chain Kroger severed ties with Adkin packaging company. That same week, the Department of Labor cited the owner for child labor violations discovered during the summer. The DOL has also cracked down on farmers in Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey and Arkansas for child labor violations.

Watch the Nightline story.
Watch a followup story on Democracy Now!

_______________________

Iraq TV Stories
All stories reported, shot, scripted and edited by Linsay Rousseau Burnett
Broadcast on: American Forces Network (AFN), DVIDS website and 1st BCT website
Camera: Sony PD 150
Video editing software: Adobe PremierPro CS2
Intro and Lower Thirds designed in: Adobe Photoshop CS2

To view photos I took while in Iraq visit my Flicker portfolio.

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A look into the explosive ordinance work of Air Force Staff Sgt. David Silberman and his K-9 partner, Zeko, stationed at FOB McHenry near Hawijah, Iraq. 27 February 2006

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Employees at the Iraq Media Network are transcending ethnic, religious and gender tensions as they come together to produce television news and entertainment programs throughout the Kirkik Province. 10 February 2006

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Soldiers from the C Co., 426th Brigade Support Bn., 1st Bde. Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division provide medical care to a local woman at FOB Bernstein, near Tuz, Iraq. 18 November 2005

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Iraqi forces take the lead in a massive cordon and search in and around Hawijah Iraq, with perimeter and aerial support provided by the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. 24 March 2006

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Soldiers from the 451st Civil Affairs General Support Team attached to the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), assist Iraqi soldiers from 2nd Bn., 2nd Bde. in providing aid to a Kirkuk orphanage. 3 November 2005

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One the mission of 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) while deployed to the Kirkuk Province, Iraq, is training the Iraqi Army to be a self sufficient force. Soldiers from 1st Bn. stationed at FOB McHenry, near Hawijah, conduct such a program. 10 December 2005

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Soldiers and Airmen destroy explosives found in one of the largest weapons caches discovered in the Kirkuk Province.  3 December 2005

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© 2005 Linsay Rousseau Burnett

FUENTE | abc.es

Un equipo internacional de paleontólogos ha descubierto una nueva especie de mamífero que vivió hace 123 millones de años en lo que hoy es la provincia de Liaoning en el noreste de China. El animalillo, llamado Maotherium asiaticus, tiene un aspecto curioso, entre una rata y un pequeño mono de morro alargado, aunque está más relacionado con la familia de los marsupiales. Su cuerpo medía sólo quince centímetros y no pesaba más de 80 gramos, pero, por encima de todo, lo que más ha sorprendido a los científicos es su oído.
La razón es que este fósil, notablemente bien conservado, ofrece una importante oportunidad de ver cómo evolucionó el oído de los mamíferos. «Los mamíferos tienen oídos muy sensibles, su capacidad auditiva es mucho mejor que la de los demás vertebrados», explica el paleontólogo Zhe-Xi Luo, del Museo Carnegie de Historia Natural, en la revista Science. Gracias a la complicada estructura del oído medio, los mamíferos -humanos incluidos- son capaces de discernir una amplia gama de sonidos. Esta sensibilidad resultó en su día una adaptación fundamental para sobrevivir a los peligrosos dinosaurios que dominaban el Mesozoico.

Este sofisticado oído medio está compuesto por tres huesos (martillo, yunque y estribo), que evolucionaron a partir de los huesos de la mandíbula bisagra en sus parientes reptiles. Los paleontólogos han tratado de comprender el largo camino evolutivo de este proceso. Hasta ahora resultaba complicado, pero el Maotherium asiaticus arroja luz sobre este proceso.
Segun los científicos chinos y estadounidenses que han estudiado los fósiles, los huesos del oído del nuevo animal son similares a los de los mamíferos modernos, pero con una curiosa excepción: una conexión inusual a la mandíbula inferior, conocida como el cartílago de Meckel osificado. Se parece al estado embrionario de los mamíferos y al oído medio primitivo de los ancestros de los mamíferos.
Los investigadores creen que el oído medio de los mamíferos evolucionó en múltiples ocasiones, desapareciendo y apareciendo a lo largo del tiempo, lo que demuestra que la evolución no siempre es lineal.

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Url: http://elboligrafo.es/2009/10/09/mamifero-125-millones/

I love books.  I like the feel of books, the smell, the whole tactile sensation of holding a book.  To me, there is always a feeling of holding a talisman of some sort.  As though there is magic within the the two covers, just waiting to be activated by someone opening it.

I think this partly came from my first experiences with a shrine to books, our local library, the old Steele Memorial Library in Elmira.  It was an older Carnegie-built library from the 1890’s, a beautiful building that oozed charm and opulence. It had real character, with stacks behind the front desk that you accessed via cast iron stairs and had translucent glass floors that allowed a little light into the dark nooks.  There was a real sense of intimacy in this building, a feeling which seeped into the region between the reader and the books.   I remember sitting in the comfortable wooden chairs at the long, cool wooden tables and reading entire books while there.  Many, many hours were spent there in other worlds.

I have very specific memories of that place. I remember that my sister first introduced me to the child’s section there and that I devoured those books there and how excited I was to finally move out into the adult sections of the library, where new horizons of adventure loomed. I remember how excited I was to find the Paddington Bear books and how I carried an armful of them through the streets to my grandparents’ home on the East Side of town. I remember that they were both there outside the house and that my grandmother’s face was very pleased to see the books I carried. I was no more than eight years old and felt like the world was in my hands.

The old library was moved in the late 1970’s or 80’s- I can’t really remember- to a new and shiny building. Oh, it’s a nice facility with better lighting and spacious aisles with room for computers and other activities. Better parking and all the modern conveniences. Everything one could want.    Except for personality.  That sense that makes you feel as though you were entering a private and sacred place, a place of stored wisdom just waiting for you.

Just for you…

Carnival Noir 2009 “Horreur Classique”

By Zahara

Where:  The Carnegie Performing Arts Center(Covington, KY)
When: Saturday, October 24, 2009
Preshow Entertainment:  7:00 PM
Showtime:  8:00 PM
Tickets: $15 get yours just click here

The Halloween variety spooktacular and bizarre bazaar is BAAAA-AAACK! 

I’d say that Mankato is a pretty cool town to  grow up in. But I think that there are a few things missing to make Mankato one of the best towns ever.  So here is a list of some things that should be added to Mankato…

• A gallery/ museum (Mankato already has the Carnegie Art Center, but  it’s only open Wednesday through Saterday. I think there should be an arts center open everyday.)
• Battle of the Bands that are all ages. There are a lot of accomplished musicains in Mankato that are under 18. I think that ’s why there’s The Tank, but I mean around town.
• Fashion shows would be lovely. There could be some really awesome handmade clothing in Mankato, but the designer has no idea how to present it.
• Maybe some outdoor events?

So those are just some of my ideas. I didn’t put any coffee shops on because Mankato has three fabulous indie coffee shops, The Coffee Hag, Bliss Coffee House, and The Fillin Station.

Compared to my work week last week, which included four of five days that were 15 hour days, budget week will be the week from heaven.  You see, as part of my job as Borough Manager, I oversee the $4 million dollar budget of Carnegie.

This week, I will complete the first draft of the budget attempting to balance everyone’s request (new vehicles for the fleet, new computers, new fire truck, new staff) without raising taxes.

Oh boy.  I expect to spend more time out of the office, working on this than being in the office.  I cannot work on this in the office without getting interrupted 50 times a day.  No joke, though I am looking forward to it.  I started Friday night (dork), but set it aside to pace myself.  I’d rather have a difficult task like this than sit in grant training (which I don’t need) until 9-10 at night.  We pick our battles I guess.

Wish me luck.  I will be seated in a Panera Bread most of the week to sip tea and work hard.  Budget hearings are on Friday, and this is the first year (I’ve) charged the staff with presenting me their budget, so its a little interesting.

Logo From The Second Eugenics Council 1921 Eugenics Tree

Eighteen solutions were explored in a Carnegie-supported 1911 “Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder’s Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population.” Point No. 8 was euthanasia.

The most commonly suggested method of eugenicide in the United States was a “lethal chamber” or public, locally operated gas chambers.

more

I’ve just made a great discovery off Koornang Road, Carnegie.  ‘Little Shop Of’ is a really cool boutique with all 100% Melbourne handmade stuff, like earings, brooches, cards and clothes.  Nothing is over $50 and it has about 30 different Melbourne designers including Morgan and Jane.  Morgan and Jane are the people who own the place.

Has lots of kitsch stuff like images from old children’s books and swapcards.  I bought a blue bird wooden Scrabble piece necklace and some acrylic black Bambi earings.

No more scraping the barrel at Serenity and paying heaps for the privilege.

Happy to plug something good.

Little Shop Of

Finding out about new Safari prehistoric creatures is exciting and this year wasn’t any different. After frustratingly scarce bits of information, our very own member crypto1 (Loren Coleman, the same person that runs the Cryptomundo blog, http://www.cryptomundo.com/) revealed a few hours ago three of the 2010 Wild Safari figures and they certainly look interesting! Plus, we’ve had glimpses of what Carnegie has in store for us next year.  Here’s the breakdown of what we know so far:

Wild Safari Rhamphorhynchus: This guy doesn’t come as a surprise I bet, Safari has released very attractive pterosaurs in the past few years and this doesn’t seem to be the exception, rhamphorhyncoidea is a big suborder but none of the major modern companies had made any.  So the Safari guys have already under their belt a Pteranodon, a Tapejara, an ornithocheirid and now a Rhampho! Not bad! The crest could probably belong to other species, but I certainly appreciate the fact that they bothered to make pointy teeth. It’s defintely in a larger scale (not in 1:40) just like the other pterosaurs.

Wild Safari Kentrosaurus:  It’s actually quite pleasant to see well-made stegosaurs, I suspect this is just as good as Safari’s new Stegosaurus. It appears that it’s tiny. Perhaps it’s in a 1:40 scale? Anyway, that green paint on the plates looks actually good, maybe it’s shiny like the blue coats on their 2009 WS Dilopho? It’s certainly worthy of notice that the rest of the paintjob is darker than usual.

Wild Safari Coelacanth: The WS Dunkleosteus is still one of my favorite PVC replicas, so I was stunned when I saw this impressive figure! Realistic enough to compete with the numerous Japanese coelacanths. The Coelacanth is an extant animal, I bet that’s why Safari chose to release one. Luckily for us he’s also a Mesozoic creature! I hope this means Safari will consider other prehistoric fishes in the future.

We know there was a Brachiosaurus in the works last year, we hope it will finally be released this time. So that leaves only three or four WS figures to be unveiled! Plus, other members have hinted that we might get new prehistoric toobs. We don’t know the contents yet but apparently Safari has once again topped itself in the quality department.

As for Carnegie, we know that Forest Rogers, the same artist that gave us the Tylosaurus and the Spinosaurus, was sculpting an Ichthyosaurus and a Cryolophosaurus. We haven’t actually seen the Ichthyosaurus (we’ve heard it’s excepcional) but we’ve already looked at the Cryo and it looks good so far.

We’ll keep you updated when more info is in. Meanwhile, you can discuss the news on our forum, here’s the thread.