Thursday, July 28, 2011

It's so shiny and pretty...and doesn't photograph for crap, darn it !



Current Mood : Sleepy, for once !


I have to confess - between my medical pros and Beloved Hubby, I'm sort of on a modified 'house rest' sort of thing. We're slowly but surely getting the house back in order in the evenings, with Dearest Son's help, but during the day, I'm on 'rest, relax, sleep' orders. Sounds nice, but even I can only space out for so many hours out of each day. It's not long before the sweet home I share with my fellas starts to feel like a spacious hospital room with a kitchen. Still don't trust m'self to sew yet, so I'm looking around at fun stuff I missed when I was too out of it to care - now that I'm just barely 'into it' again !


Lagoona's Hydration Station had to be #1 on the list. I didn't even know what the 'three different aquatic light effects' were yet, and I hadn't used that too-cool branded funnel to add water to the forward chamber, either. Originally, I'd hesitated because I didn't wanna use rechargeable batteries - all the AA size we have - but I was ready to be done with such concerns. Besides, using rechargers means I'd need to change the water more often, most assuredly a good thing. I was too curious to let that stay in my way any longer. 


It is *lovely*. The lights are blue and green, two of each, and there's three settings with an 'off' in between. First is a short burst of lit-up bubbles, a pause, then another burst. The second is more dancing green and blue bubbles, for as long as you like. Last, the lights fade and brighten, like rave Christmas lights. Not my favorite, it gives weird shadows to the doll within's face, but nice to have. 


Further experiments reveal that, even without the stand, the only way to get two dolls in there is to either leave off the protruding shelf back door and substitute your own out of paper or cardboard. Which is easy - attaching the door in the first place is 90% of the 'assembly required' part. And you'll have to prop and fit the dolls in there like an odd game of Tetris. The guy dolls just barely fit, and it's best to remove their shoes. If you really want the truth of the matter, Lagoona's a tight squeeze herself, and she was *made* to go in there !


Still, there's a lot to like - especially if you got a good price on it like Beloved. The bubble motor isn't loud at all, but when he's across the room, he says it sounds like voices. Could be creepy ! It always bugs me when you see a toy ad and somehow, you can hear the doll/toy/whatever speak clearly, but in the ad, you never hear the servomotors working the mouth. If I'd have known the mechanisms on the Furby line were so loud - something completely removed in the ads - I probably wouldn't have purchased one, much less two. 


I'm enamored of her stand, although really, it's identical to all the others, just the back part is bubble-shaped. It, and nearly all the included props, are done in a fresh and delightful transparent pale blue. I liked how the stand could either fit in the Station directly, or outside of it with the included matching base. It would have been easier to make it one or the other, so it was nice to see Mattel use both. 


Not a lot of other props, but I like using the matching light-blue skullie brush, and the tiny Lagoona-themed funnel was a blast. Chamber took maybe a third of a liter to fill. There is a fill-line, but it's small and barely noticeable, which was nice. My Neptuna, Lagoona's pet fish, had a slight eye rub, no big whoop. His (her ?) little matching eye-mask was so adorable, I couldn't stay miffed. Removing Lagoona's mask was a PITA, since they used six tiny white tags, and I usually end up snipping a hair or three trying to remove those darn things. And that's when I use the equally-tiny, super-sharp embroidery scissors !


There's a water bottle, a shampoo bottle, a Nautilus-shaped makeup compact, a tiny Lagoona-size composition-book diary with her name on it, and a matching blue 'pen'. Sometimes I wonder if it's the little accessories that really make me love Monster High.

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