Thursday, June 14, 2012

Fascinating. Or Not.

And now, of course, I’m seeing Gloss Alabaster Family Arabian Foals with gray muzzles everywhere. But that’s how most discoveries go: they were hiding right in front of your face the entire time.

I’m beginning to think that the In-Between Mares (you’ve seen the latest one on eBay, right?) might be somewhat more common than we think they are, in part because hobbyists have a pretty bad track record of distinguishing between the PAM and the FAM, much less the IBM. Some IBMs, to put it indelicately, are probably hiding right in front of a lot of hobbyists’ faces.

Actually, I’m a little weirded out by the hobby’s compulsive need to know the whereabouts of every single In-Between Mare. It’s not like fakes are getting passed off on the unsuspecting: the mold (probably) doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t think having an extra dozen or two more pieces floating around the hobby should be such a huge cause of concern, except maybe to the people who bought them "retail".

Yeah, I’m cranky. It’s been a rough couple of days.

Are you familiar with that saying "Don’t attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance"? There are a few variations on it, substituting stupidity, indifference or incompetence for ignorance, but the sentiment’s all the same: if something bad happens to you and yours, it’s most likely nothing personal. It’s just the fallout from some other decision, and you just happen to be the "lucky" schlub that it’s getting dumped on.

I just found out yesterday that a certain situation I’m in that I was attributing to indifference can, in fact, be attributed to malice, at least partially. The worst part is there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it, for the time being.

So if I seem a little less personable than usual for the next week or so, it’s nothing personal, guys. It’s just the fallout from me dealing with a less-than-pleasant private matter that has absolutely nothing to do with the hobby.

Back to the ponies…

So they announced the Fascinator Prize: it’s a Gloss Brookside Pink Magnum. The surprise is that I’m pretty sure everyone was expecting that to be a Live Show prize. I was thinking they’d spring the Mid-Year release Hackney Heartland High Tech on us instead. (That Dark Bay would look fabulous in gloss, dontcha think?)

I can see the logic in it, though: considering how insanely popular the Bouncer mold is right now, having a Gloss Bouncer prize model among the live show prize models would just make an already bad situation even worse, especially if it were a Children/Youth show prize. ("How much for the shiny pony, little girl?")

Better to give it out in contest open to everyone. Well, maybe not: I imagine the competition is going to be pretty scary, with some hobbyists opting for "big" over creative, and some stage moms badgering/shaming the judges for a separate category for their children. You know, the usual nonsense.

(Goes outside briefly to work on her own BreyerFest projects a while. No clues for you!)

More tomorrow, when I’m in a better state of mind.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

oH, The stage moms at Breyerfest.

A few years back when it was the Hollywood star costume contest, I was sad not to win anything, but not surprised as there were some great costumes. I was behind the judge's stand at the end getting some snacks from the tables and got to observe several angry parents storming up to the judges complaining that their child did not win anything. And "not a single child won anything" and Breyers are for children so the contest should have been for children. And other such complaints.

Well, the next year I entered the contest again. And this year every one who entered was given one of the pretty Breyer Rainbow participation ribbons! I wondered if there was any correlation with the previous year's complaints. Now grumpy parents couldn't say their child did not win anything.

I still didn't win that year, either :)

ANDREA said...

I was there too - I saw!

Honestly, I thought their arguments were disingenuous. Kids have their own show, with their own (more limited!) prizes, 75% of the diorama contest prizes are awarded to kids, and there's never any shortage of kids winning the raffles, either. (As the saying goes, it only takes one ticket to win - and an awful lot of those singletons do!)

If anything, it's the adults who are at a disadvantage at BreyerFest. Especially the ones that don't have a kid to proxy for them.

I'm not saying that it's necessarily wrong for the kids to have some advantages, but they shouldn't have them all, or in every instance.