16 GAUGE BELLY BUTTON RING

Bounce, Spin & Rock in this exciting entertainer. Unique bounce pad provides a soft surface for babies feet to play. Eight entertaining toys are just a reach away, including a Ladybug Mirror that plays silly sounds when baby presses its nose. Overhead toy bar encourages baby to reach and grab. Seat spins so baby has access to all the fun. Once playtime is over, you can fold it flat for easy storage. Features: Ladybug mirror plays silly sounds Frog spinner top Spinning bee rattle ball Ratcheting bug with crinkle fabric wings Lilly pad toy stalk with fabric edges Overhead toy arch includes teether and hanging bumblebee Easy to clean toy tray Four toy loops for attaching more of baby's favorite toys Three adjustable height settings in seat Gift Wrap not available.Shipping Note: This item ships via UPS Ground within contiguous United States only. Cannot be shipped to AK/HI, PO boxes, US territories, or APO/FPO addresses.

Pixar: 20 Years of Animation exhibition at the science museum in London.

From the various stories about the exhibition, the Pixar zoetrope is creating a lasting impression on exhibit attendees. Paul Lieberman (The Los Angeles Times) wrote about the display at MoMA:

"The show stopper is a re-creation of the 19th century's version of high-tech entertainment technology, a zoetrope. During one of the six visits that MoMA curators made to Pixar in California, Pete Docter, director of Monsters, Inc., mentioned how he'd seen one at the Tokyo museum of Pixar's Japanese counterpart, Studio Ghibli, and one thing led to another.

The one in New York is 7 feet tall and has three-dimensional characters from Toy Story affixed to a oval base. When the thing starts spinning like a carousel and a strobe light flashes, it creates an illusion much like a frenzied animated scene: There's Buzz bouncing atop a ball, Woody riding Bullseye the horse and tiny parachutists appearing to jump from a red, white and blue bucket. And on the very outside, there are tiny aliens, waving, right at the eye level of the toddlers who press their eyes to the glass, a touch suggested by Lasseter.

"For the last two months, this was all I worked on," said one of the Pixar animators who created the zoetrope, Dan Mason, who was standing by to take in the reactions of the kids and adults alike — and to make sure none of the pieces flew off. "We used a lot of epoxy," he said. "We all had scary dreams about what it would look like if one broke off."

This is one case in which the museum audience sees only the final product and none of the sausage-making. Mason said they first animated the scene in a computer, then created each Woody and Buzz out of plastic and glue with a three-dimensional printer, that alone taking 12 hours for each of the dozens of figures needed. The zoetrope figures to have a long life, going on with the show next to London after it closes here in February, then to Tokyo. Pixar officials say they expect to bring the exhibit to a museum in L.A. as well."

Roberta Smith (The New York Times) commented:

"Turning toward the opposite wall, visitors gasped and applauded again as a computerized zoetrope swung into action, using strobe lights and a revolving stage to create a ravishing bit of 3-D animation that orchestrated multiple versions of the characters from Toy Story 2 into bouncy concentric rings of repeating actions. Woody rides his horse while, circling in the opposite direction, Buzz Lightyear bounces along on a brightly colored ball. Aliens dodge the horse's hooves and catapult repeatedly into holes, thanks to the well-timed landings of Wheezy the Penguin on the end of a seesaw. At the center, parachuting toy soldiers spiral repeatedly downward, like grooms escaping from a wedding cake.

Any movement or change in body language from Woody's flailing limbs to the aliens' vibrating antennae represents a different, meticulously made toylike sculpture, as becomes clear each time a cycle is completed. But in action, the ensemble effect is of the grand finale of a Broadway musical in miniature. At the opening, most of us were as rapt as children seeing the Christmas windows at Lord & Taylor for the first time. And indeed, most of us were seeing something for the first time. The zoetrope was made especially for the exhibition; the only other one is in the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Japan."

The fabulous vaulting of the Divinity School, part of the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

From Wikipedia : "The Bodleian is used as background scenery in Dorothy L. Sayers Gaudy Night, features in Michael White's Equinox, and is one of the libraries consulted by Christine Greenaway (one of Bodley's librarians) in Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse novel The Wench is Dead. The denouement of Michael Innes's Operation Pax (1951) is set in an imaginary version of the underground bookstack, reached at night by sliding down the 'Mendip cleft', a chute concealed in Radcliffe Square.

Since J. R. R. Tolkien had studied philology at Oxford and eventually became a professor, he was very familiar with the Red Book of Hergest which is kept at the Bodleian on behalf of Jesus College. Tolkien later created his own fictional Red Book of Westmarch telling the story of The Lord of the Rings. Many of Tolkien's manuscripts are now at the library.

The Library's fine architecture has made it a favourite location for filmmakers, representing either Oxford University or other locations. It can be seen in Brideshead Revisited (1981 TV serial), Another Country (1984), The Madness of King George III (1994), and the first two Harry Potter films, in which the Divinity School doubles as the Hogwarts hospital wing and Duke Humfrey's Library as the Hogwarts library. In The New World (2005) the library edifice is portrayed as the entrance to the Royal Court of the English monarchy. The Bodleian also featured in the Inspector Morse televised spin off Lewis, in the episode "And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea", where a murder takes place in the basement."

Heartfelt praise for When You Went Away:

?Michael Baron writes with deep sensitivity of the power of love to transform and heal in the face of overwhelming tragedy.” ? #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs

?It is rare that a talent like this comes along. This will be a classic.” ? Book Reviews R Us

And for Crossing the Bridge:

?Mr. Baron touches my heart and soul with his book.” ? Coffee Time Romance

?Michael Baron is an exceptionally gifted writer.” ? Fresh Fiction

And for The Journey Home:

?I was unprepared for the talent and depth that Michael writes from.” ? Romance Writers Reviews

?I didn’t think he could get any better after reading When You Went Away but I was wrong.” ? Cheryl’s Book Nook


Dylan Hunter has it made. At 29, he has great friends, a huge job, all the women he can handle, and no commitments. A public relations executive, Dylan has dashed up the ladder of success by mastering the art of the spin ? bending the truth to his and his clients’ needs. But when a former lover steps back into his life with a three-year-old girl by her side (no, she’s not his), Dylan suddenly finds himself in a place he can’t spin himself out of. And when Dylan unexpectedly becomes the child’s sole guardian, he finds himself to be like a circus performer trying to keep all of his spinning plates from crashing to the ground. In what seems like a blink of the eye, Dylan Hunter’s life has changed completely?whether he’s ready for it or not.

Alternately humorous and poignant, romantic and tragic, playful and dramatic, Spinning is the kind of wise, touching, emotion-packed novel readers have come to expect from Michael Baron.