Current Mood : Funk-butt.
Sorry, I'm in a funk-butt mood. Being off-and-on ill all week means I haven't done crap all week, and it's kinda hard to respect y'self when you just sit around when yer healthy, even if it's a brief prelude to another bout of sick.
Doesn't help that 90% of all the chat on In The Pink is about the Barbie Fan Club - who's signing up for renewal, who's signing up for the first time, when and why can't they use their benefits, what they're gonna use their coupons on, and all the stuff they can see that us plebes can't - it frustrates and annoys me every year. When any group seeks to separate its fan base into ‘the secret inner circle' and the hordes of unwashed, it loses my respect.
I go through this every year. I get so mad at Mattel and all the chatter about stuff I'm ‘not allowed' to see, because I didn't fork over $25. for the privilege. I end up abandoning Barbie for a while, even though I know the talk is just temporary, and will dissipate by the next week - until the next round of ‘sneak peeks' comes around, and the whole business starts again. Half the time, I either shun Mattel entirely, or else I buy a boatload of dolls at yard sales, dirt cheap, just to prove I can, and that it's not about the latest and greatest to everybody. And then I see those dolls that everyone's buzzing about - at ASM's coverage of Toy Fair. Of those, there's maybe two I'm interested in, almost always Playline, and any fascination I held for more than a month normally goes away when the doll goes from intriguing hand-painted Prototype to weird or just plain blah in Production. The Mattel Wicked Witch is a prime example.
Toy Fair, by the by, supposedly begins this Saturday. I've also read that it's next weekend. So I have no idea why I've wound myself up so quickly. I'm just frustrated when I can't join in any discussions about much of anything, because I'm not in that blasted inner circle. Still, though, it's no one's fault, and it's best if I just excuse m'self rather than make a scene. Just because I have a stick in sensitive places about ‘inner circle' memberships doesn't mean everybody has to agree, and clearly, a lot of the ITP membership really enjoys the fan club. Just because I usually tell Mattel to shove it somewhere equally as sensitive at least once a year - more often, when you consider convention season - doesn't mean I'm right. Just means I'm easily ticked off. I just really hate feeling like there's a country-club atmosphere surrounding a plastic doll primarily sold by the millions at Mal-Wart.
I'm sorry. But that's actually what I like about Barbie. That there's not a whole lotta difference between the $5. swimsuit doll at Target and the Swarovski-dripping Haute Design'er Name doll, when the day is over. And usually, the made-to-be-played doll is better constructed, since Mattel can't afford lawsuits on shoddy stuff when they know it's a toy. For some reason, they really cheap out on the ones they think are never gonna be deboxed. I keep wanting to scream that as adult ‘collectors', we're really getting shanked, but I'm shushed because everyone already knows that, and they just don't care. Long as they're on the waitlist for We Only Made Two Thousand, many folk are happy.
Yeah, I know, I'm a mess. Last month, I was happy as clams that I got a Gold Label doll I'd wanted. If I'd have paid the $120. asking price, and found that nearly a year later, it was on clearance shelves for a quarter of that, I'd be furious. But I'd refuse to pay that for a doll in the first place. Sorry, but Mattel just asks too much for repros and other ‘adult collectables' most of the time. And given the surplus of collector dolls that got clearanced this year, I'm starting to think Mattel is overestimating demand for them. They really had opportunity last year, with the big ‘50th Anniversary', but I couldn't tell that they really did anything with it, save for a few press junkets and cross-promo tie-ins that, if you weren't in California, probably didn't have much luck finding. I'm glad that they came out with special memory doll reproductions, and heck, they're coming out with more as we blog, but I thought it'd be more than ‘hey, here's more stuff we can sell !'. I keep forgetting, it's Mattel, there's not much more there.
Anyway. Weekend's coming, there's a Flea Market, and Aunt S. wants to go to the junk shop with me. No telling what'll happen there ! I just need to shake off all this bitter. Anybody got a Whitman's Sampler handy ?
. I hope you had a good time junk shopping. I love Kitchen Littles. I have my originals and added 1 or 2 of the new sets I found at TJ Maxx.
