Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

You do not have to buy all of your music from the iTunes music store.  You do not have to pay $0.99 for every song.

If you have CDs you can put them into your computer and "rip" them onto your hard drive and iTunes will play them for you.  You can transfer them to your iPod and listen to them any time you want.  This is all entirely legal, provided you bought the original copy of the music CD yourself. (or obtained it through legal channels.  You are also obliged to keep all your ripped music to yourself.  You may not sell it to anybody else nor may you give it away for free.  The only exception would be if you gave away or sold the original, factory CD to somebody else, provided you also completely and permanently erase all digital copies you have made of that music.

iTunes is a great program but it is also a great marketing tool.  Fortunately, you do not have to buy everything from the iTunes store unless you want to.

iPods either come with their own charger or else they charge when you plug them in to the computer using the connecting cable.  It depends on the model of iPod you have.

iPods are initially set up to use iTunes to manage your music and/or podcasts, etc.  It's not absolutely necessary to use iTunes but it is highly recommended.  If you use iTunes, almost everything about the management of files, playlists and even the state of the battery charge is managed by iTunes.  If you get a third-party program you are not guaranteed to have all the automatic features.  You might need to fiddle with settings and things like that.  Bottom line:  Use iTunes and your iPod will "just work.

The concept of incompatibility is a MYTH!  iPods and iTunes and Quicktime are perfectly compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista.  You might experience one or two small glitches every now and again but that's to be expected when you use electronic gadgets.

iTunes is a very nice program.  It is often said that Apple writes better software for Windows than Microsoft does.    iTunes is probably the best example.

Buy the iPod.  Download iTunes and install it.  (It uses an automatic installer program.)  Plug in your iPod.  You're done.

If you have music on CD you can copy those CDs to iTunes.  It is perfectly legal provided you do not share those electronic copies with other people.

If you want to download music from the internet iTunes makes it easy and fun.  Again, this is perfectly legal as long as you pay for those downloads.

iPods are one of those gadgets that, once you have one, you might find yourself saying, "Why didn't I get one sooner?" 

George looks mighty spiffy in his necktie!   
He and his new Bear friends seem to be having fun.

Be sure to take George out for some Belgian frites and a waffle!
He's probably hungry after traveling all that way. 

Sago Palm is not poisonous to only animals.  It's just plain poisonous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycas_revoluta

People often just don't think about the plants they keep around the house.  Even the dieffenbachia and the philodendron can be bad for small children and pets but a lot of people don't even realize it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieffenbachia#Toxicity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philodendron#Toxicity

Glad to help, pandamac.  :)
Hope the boy gets a Bear that suits him.  :)

We have three rescued Bears living in our den.

One Bear was found by the side of the road in Steadman Corners, NY.  We call him "Steadman."
He was found several years ago so we think this will be his home from now on.

The second Bear, was found outside a school.  She's a small, pink CareBear.  "Cheer Bear" is her CareBear name.
We posted her pictures on the internet and tried to post her picture to a Lost-Bear website but have had no replies.
Check here for the pictures of Cheer Bear's story:  http://s107.photobucket.com/albums/m294 … ar%20Bath/
So, even if she doesn't find her human, everybody knows that she's been well taken care of... and well FED!  :D

The third Bear we found literally at our doorstep!  We don't know how he got there!  One day, Melanie was going out to get the mail and there he was!
We figure he must have gotten lost and he somehow knew this was a Bear house.  We often have a Bear sitting by the window.  He must have seen the Bear through the window and made his way here, knowing that this would be safe haven.

Question for Bear makers:
Do you guys have any ideas on how to tag Bears so they can be returned to their human if they ever get lost?

Build-a-Bear puts a bar code tag inside the stuffing that allows them to return the Bear to its human.  The BABW Bears have a tush tag that says where to call for return but you have to return the Bear to BABW for the "tagectomy."

What about a tush tag that says, "Call for safe return." or something like that then has a blank area where the Mom can write a phone number or e-mail address using a washable laundry marker?

This could be a nice little "value-added" feature for Bear makers to offer customers.  For an extra couple-few dollars a Bear can be tagged for safe return.   

Ask the boy.  :)

Show him the website.  (Kids take to the internet, these days, like fish to water!  :D)
Tell him, "These are 'Bear's' brothers and sisters."  Ask him if one of the Bears on the website can come live with him.  If he says "yes" then you're golden!      If he says "no" you haven't lost anything.

Tell him not to worry.  You will still look for "Bear."  But "Bear II" will be there for him until you find him.

Even if you don't find him you can tell your son that "Bear" went to live with the Velveteen Rabbit.

Toby42;

Do take a look at Pandamac's (Ellen's) website.  http://www.embears.com/
I think her style is very close to what you want.
Take a look at some of her Bears.

And she makes "Child Safe" Bears too.  Always a "plus" in every Bear's book! 

toby;

I wish I knew what "Bear's" pedigree was but I don't recognize him.
If I get any ideas I'll certainly let you know.

As for finding a new Bear for your son...
The best thing to do is to look at all the Bear makers websites and see what kinds of Bears they make and what styles they are.  Find a Bear maker whose style you like best.  Then send that person a message and see if they are available to make a Bear.

You should be able to get just the Bear you want. 

New caption:  "Who kut da cheez?"

I hit it. 

Pretty cute.  :thumbsup:

But maybe he should try for 314,159 hits?      

Do you know anybody who can carve one out of wood for you?

You could get one made to the exact specs you need if you had it carved.

Finley is a real cutie!   

He looks very similar to the Teddy Bear in the movie "AI."

The only difference is that "Teddy" the Bear is brown and Finley is silver-gray.

Finley looks like a precocious Bear.  He probably needs lots of attention to keep him happy.
Sitting on the sofa with you in the evenings while you watch TV would probably keep him happy for a while.   

Yes, the gray Bear in the bottom picture (is it Finley?) seems pretty bored.
Bears need to play, sometimes.  Get them some toys.  A little ball would be nice.

One time I brought home a whole bag full of bean bags that were left over from an event at work.  The Bears love playing with them.
It keeps them busy for hours on end.  They especially love to have stacking contests!  :D

Your Bears are very nice!    :thumbsup:
The two little Bears in the top are really cute. 

But they look like they could use a snack.
The Bears here tell me you should bake them some goodies.  They advise cookies.  Something chocolate.  Chocolate chips, perhaps.
And they say you should make them smaller so Bears can hold them in their paws better...  "Bear size."

Melanie and her girlfriend painted the trees on the walls.
I spackled the walls and painted them sky blue.  Then, when the paint was dry, I screwed slotted shelf standards on the walls.  Melanie and her friend painted the trees and the grass.  When all the paint was dry I put slotted the brackets into the standards and attached the shelves.  It took about a week to get ready for all the Bears to move in.  (You have to let the room sit empty with the windows open so you can be sure the paint is 100% dry and the paint fumes have all dissipated before it is safe for Bears.)

You can't really tell from the picture but there is anti-UV film on the windows to prevent the ultraviolet light of the sun from fading their fur.

Spring cleaning!  Oyvay!  :doh:
Yes, this is a problem! 

We usually take the vacuum cleaner hose and cover the end with a piece of doubled-over cheese cloth and secure it with a rubber band.  Then we just gently dust the Bears and suck out any dust.  It takes a lot of time.

I have been trying to think about a better way but, so far, have only come up with theories.
I was thinking of using an air compressor hose (on low pressure) to gently blow the dust out and fluff their fur at the same time.  The question is what happens to all the dust that comes out of their fur?  It has to settle somewhere.  My theory would be to open a window and put a big fan on the sill, blowing outward.  Hopefully, it will blow all the airborne dust out.
But, then, we can only do it when the weather is nice.

Maybe we can start another thread to talk about suggestions?

A Bear ALWAYS travels with us when we go anywhere.  We've always had a hard time picking out which one.  Everybody always wants to go but there's only room for one.

Thank you!  We try to keep a cheerful house and the Bears help.  If we ever need a Bear hug we never have to go very far.   

There are Bears living in every room of the house except the bathroom.  Bears don't like the humidity.  Besides, our Bears collect rubber duckies.  The bathroom is where the rubber duckies live.  (Where else would they live?)

All 1,002 of us are glad we could brighten your day.   

When the Krispy Kreme store had its grand opening we took Giant Snuff with us.  They were giving out free donuts to everybody.  We went up to the Drive-Thru window.  We ordered two glazed donuts, two coffees and when the girl asked "Is that all?" we asked for one for the Bear, too, and he got one!  She gave us the paper hat for a souvenir.

If you look carefully you can see the cash register receipt to prove it, tucked into the back corner of the hat.
That's a "First Day Krispy Kreme Hat" 

The Bear liked his donut!

But we don't feed them donuts too often...  We don't want them to put on too much FLUFF!   

Yeah, we got a bunch of Bears.  :D

They don't get into trouble too much.  Every once in a while, when you wake up in the morning to get your breakfast, you'll see a little brown streak going by out of the corner of your eye.  We don't ask what they do when we're asleep or away from the house.  We probably don't want to know.   
They are good about cleaning up their messes and they don't eat too much...  Because they are already stuffed!   :dance:

However, there was that one time when I came downstairs and went to the kitchen and I caught them in the act of sneaking a snack:

(Clickable picture)

When your house looks like this:

http://homepage.mac.com/randystankey/bears/bears.html

How about "Lucky Starr?" 

Right here in this town, there are two schools called "Wildcats."  There are the Northwestern Wildcats and the Walnut Creek Wildcats.
Do a Google search on "Wildcats high school" and you get:

http://www.google.com/search?q=wildcats+high+school

The Sunnyside Wildcats.
The Tullahoma Wildcats.
High School Musical comes in third.

There are at least a dozen schools named "Wildcat" in that search but HS Musical appears only a few times.

Remember, Disney's "Wildcats" are officially known as the "East High Wildcats".  Thus, the letter "E" on their costumes.
You'd think it would be the norm to use a "W" but they didn't.  I think if you used a "W" instead of an "E" that would put you in the clear right there.
Name your Bears "WildKats" if it suits you but who's to say?

Take a look at their costumes:  Red with white accents or black with red accents.

What if you used maroon and grey?  Or, how about maroon and gold?

Yes, BABW got a license to market HSM-3 and Hannah Montanna merchandise from Disney.  They probably have to give Uncle Walt a cut of the proceeds.

As long as you are careful to say your Bears are "INSPRED BY HSM-3" or a "TRIBUTE TO HSM-3" and you make sure to keep them different enough that people wouldn't confuse your Bears with officially sanctioned merchandise you should be okay.  But, honsetly, I think you shouldn't mention HSM at all.
Just make your Bear and let her stand on her own merits.  When people say, "Oh!  That Bear looks just like High School Musical" you simply smile and say, "Thank you!"

PS:  I can post that one picture of HSM because it is one small picture used for discussion and commentary purposes, to illustrate a point.  The "Fair Use" provision of the copyright law covers me.

Check out this YouTube video that talks about Copyright law, what can be copyrighted, what can not be copyrighted and how people can or can not use copyrighted material in their own work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo

I like "Lucky" better!   

Is that a white patch on her chest?  Does she have more than one?

We once had a brittany spaniel that had a perfectly round circle on the top of her head.
We named her "Dot."

Why not go with the obvious?  "Patches" 

A common word can not be trademarked.  How many high schools in the world have a wildcat as their mascott?  Would all those high schools have to change their names because Disney decided to cook up a movie about a high school?

This is the reason why you will see weird names and misspelled words on commercial products.  That's why products like "Kleenex" (tissues) and "Teem" (lemon-lime soda) are spelled the way they are.  The Kimberly-Clark corporation could not trademark "Clean" because it is a common word but they could trademark "Kleen".  Same thing goes for Pepsico.  They misspelled the word "Teem" so they could trademark it.

Had Disney used the name "WildeKats" for instance, they could trademark it.  But "Wildcats" is a common name.  I don't think they can stop you from making a Wildcat bear.

Now the trick comes when you try to make a Bear that is similar to the things that Disney makes.

If you made a Bear in and red and white costume with black trim  and a letter "E" on the front then named it "East High Wildcats" you would probably be called on it.  But who's to say you couldn't use a letter "W" instead?  What if you made the costume red and gold?

The only place I have seen an "East High Wildcat®" Teddy Bear is at Build-a-Bear Workshop.  I don't think Disney produced any.  Did they?
I think that would give you a lot of leeway right there.  Disney can't come after you for making a Teddy Bear.  B.A.B.W. might if you made a Bear that's too close to theirs.

How many of these Bears do you plan to make?  What do you plan to do with them?

Like the others said, if you are making just one and you plan to keep her in your own house, go ahead and make anything you want.
If you are making a one-off, you could probably slide it by.  If they try to come after you, just say, "Whoopsie!  Sorry...  I'll stop."  Then scratch your head and say, "Gee...  I didn't know you could trademark a common word like "Wildcat".    :twisted:

I believe Disney would have to send you a "Cease and Desist" letter first before they could take you to court.  If you get such a letter, just stop making that Bear.  You complied with their request.  How can they fault you on that?  The only thing they can do is say you profited from their brand or you sullied their trademark.  But, how can one or two "tastefully made" Bears harm Disney?

Go ahead and make your "Tribute Bear".  Change it up just a little.  Make it a different color.  Use a "W" instead of an "E".  Name it "WildKat" instead of "Wildcat."  Then stand back and watch all the suits at Disney® have little conniption fits over it!     

In this Bear den the rule is "Don't Ask.  Don't Tell."