Vote for Vixen!

A friend has been put up as a potential model over at TopHeavy.com. Top Heavy is a site full of photos of clothed women with big boobs -- lots of cleavage, quite a bit of swimwear, nothing nude, but always tight 'n exciting. At least, it is to those of us who like the concept of clothing leaving something to the imagination.

In any case...if anybody else here digs that stuff too, I'm calling for a little vote help. Top Heavy has only recently reinstated user submissions for new models and you can vote without registering or anything. Just click Yes or No based on who you see. There are some other...interesting choices as well that you will likely want to check out if you like busty gals.

The page is here and the model in question is Vixen (the one with no face -- she's stacked but she's shy). Thanks.

In my element

I hear that phrase a lot. "At work, I'm really in my element." "I'm really in my element when I'm on the soccer pitch." Well, I realized...I actually am in my element most of the time.

I live in California, not far from water, and in an exceedingly windy area. I'm talking 25 miles per hour most days, and when it gets stronger, the windows in my office creak. My front door has burst open thanks to 50 mph gusts, and it's just the natural state of my neighborhood. The hills and the water and everything sort of combine to create an atmosphere where the air calls the shots.

And while I see friends and coworkers complain about the high winds, I love them. I just totally feel like, yeah, world. Behold the power of air. I find the intense winds extremely relaxing. I like walking to the car in the late afternoon when the air currents get more intense.

Because I'm in my element.

I met Sievert

If you felt a small tremor in the earth this weekend, it was the momentous face-to-face meeting of Sievert and Inflate123. Sievert was one of the first people in the community I met -- actually, his was the first Usenet post I read and that gave me hope that there was someone else out there who felt the way I did. He was asking about a video he'd seen featuring a corset with inflatable cups and hips that also got rigid as it inflated. I'm still fascinated by this concept and want to see such a garment made. I wrote to him immediately and didn't get an answer for several months -- he was in college and it was his school account. For me, it was a long three months.

Over the years we got to know each other very well...but never actually met. We talked about it, we found ourselves traveling in similar areas of the country here and there, but never actually made it. He was in my neck of the woods about six months ago and a disastrous work schedule prevented me from seeing him throughout the entire week that he was in my zip code. It sucked.

He gave me a month's heads-up this time and, sure enough, my schedule sucked again. Three days away for a business trip, followed by another event three hours away the day after I returned, followed by an intense deadline push at the office. But in that slim window between those events -- literally about five hours -- I realized we could meet for lunch.

So you can imagine how pissed off I was that he showed up two hours late!

But what's two hours when it has taken you 14 years to get that far? In real life, Sievert is as he seems to be online -- polite, quiet, intelligent. We had a nice lunch that was, for me anyway, surprisingly frank. It felt kind of exciting to be talking about and around taboo topics in public; I rarely articulate any of my fetish verbally. It's always in an email or a forum post or a blog -- I say a lot but I never talk. So it was a little surreal to discuss inflatable fetishism in a crowded restaurant. Nobody cared what we were talking about. My wife just rolled her eyes as we went over inflatable community names, events, and history like two old war buddies.

I had intended to get a photo of the two of us together, then post it here...with our eyes covered with black bars, to protect the guilty. After all, the internet is not a crowded restaurant. But we had to cut ti short and I forgot. Maybe in another 14 years.

Tattoo?

I've considered getting a small, non-flashy tattoo for several years now. (I generally follow pop culture trends about 10 years late...) The permanence is the biggie: What am I willing to get on my skin that I will want to live with forever? What defines me? What will I find funny or empowering 10 years from now?

If I get one, I'm getting it for me. I don't necessarily need it or want it in a public place. So that made me realize...you know, this inflation thing, it's not going away, and it does help define me, to me.

I haven't been able to figure out what to get. I don't want balloons; I don't want Jessica Rabbit (while it's true that she's not bad, sometimes she is just drawn that way...forever). I don't want anything vulgar either, and I don't really want a bike pump or an air compressor.

I have considered a simple perspective line drawing of a valve -- like the one you'd find on a beach ball or vinyl inflatable. I've also thought of just having a PSI rating, in text. Simple, secret, cheap.

Any suggestions?

Helia: She's back again

Yay, a new blog, since she apparently no longer had access to the old one. My link on the right has been updated.

Any update from Helia is a good update in my book.

Big things for Bambi

Here's some cool news. Looks like Bambi's going beyond just physical special effects and is moving into digital special effects as well. According to matching posts at DeviantArt and BEArchive:

Please bear with me for just a bit for this new vid production because we're in the process of moving into our new studio and manufacturing complex! The studio facility will contain multiple sets and a dedicated green screen set which will allow us to greatly expand our special effects capabilities so that we can produce more diversified inflation & expansion content. And...our new prop manufacturing and R&D center will significantly improve prop design and production. This has been a year long undertaking that was temporarily delayed due to my surgeries and illnesses occurring in 2007.

Sounds like a major upgrade. Digital effects are a totally different realm but the technology is much closer to consumers than it ever was before. I have a little experience in it (and a few friends with lots of it) so I've always sort of kept a geeky interest. Seems like a natural evolution of the fetish, though -- if we've got homemade movies, why not homemade special effects movies?

At the same time, look at both Wonka films -- the first Violet scene was all physical effects and the second was all digital. Fans liked the first, but a deft blending of both techniques? That could pay dividends.

Inflatable BE from China

Props to The Process forum for turning up this one from a film called Millionaire Cop. Give it time to load -- China's answer to YouTube is halfway around the world. The BE scene resolves at around the four-minute mark.

Some things, like glasses being visual moviemaking shorthand for characters who are nerdy and uptight, are apparently universal. As for the rest, your guess is as good as mine.

Working on something

Had an idea, kicked it around with an old friend, and we gave it a mutual green light. We've already bought the most important part.

Should be fun. No ETA, though. But lest anyone think I'm no longer creating stuff...I am.

History of BE

Amazingly, someone wrote down a brief history of how the BE/inflation community got its start. The first stories I read were written by Dr. Enlarge; the first two people I met were Buster (who now runs BalloonBuddies.com) and Sievert (who retains a quiet dignity). I think we might actually meet face to face soon, after all these years. I have only done that with a handful of people in the community, by choice -- I met Dr. Enlarge, and I met Lucky and didn't realize I was meeting him at the time! -- but I've always wanted to meet Sievert, the one person who always felt like my brother from another mother. I'm a bit nervous.

I have always wondered what happened to ACotto; did he get bored? Did he get scared? Did he pass away? His creation of a common file archive really did establish the foundation and we really owe him a debt of gratitude.

New content: Taylor, Big Horse

Taylor has put up a new expansion clip called Age of Expansion. It's $12. It's worth it, I think. Keep in mind that I like the clothed stuff, so this scratches my itch. I also enjoyed the light tone and sense of humor going on -- doing both sexy and funny at the same time is often tricky, but I think they pulled it off. The actresses are pretty good at improv and running with the ad-libs. Also, by the end, you can tell they're having a lot of silly fun. While I was happy to see a new face on the scene, the first few clips they released didn't grab me but it looked like they were ramping up. I'm hoping this is the first of a second wave.

Also, now that I unexpectedly have a little more money in my pocket, I've commissioned a few clips from Big Horse on my favorite topics -- inflation, hourglass shapes, redheads -- and he delivered two cool images for the money. With his permission, I'm sharing them with everybody. I don't know what they're really called but I have been referring to them as "The Witch and the Hourglass" and "Boob Tube."



I will upload both images to the gallery at bodyinflation.org too, where many of Big Horse's pieces currently live. Enjoy!

Inflate123's Video Vault on YouTube

After years of scavenging for hosting space and relying on the kindness of strangers, I gave up hosting my Video Vault in early 2004. But a lot has changed with the internet and video since then, and I'd like to bring the archive back and make it available to everyone easily.

So, I am rebuilding my original Video Vault on YouTube. You can find it right here.

I should have done this a long time ago, because now that I am, it seems easier and quicker than I thought. I have all the clips backed up to CD, so I'm just restoring from those, for better or worse (some of them are noticably low-res). And some of the clips that I used to offer on my older site have already appeared here so I will try to focus on the stuff that isn't already represented.

Tell your friends. Hopefully we won't get hit with a lot of copyright violations and the collection will only grow. Hopefully you'll see some old favorites as well as new ones!

Give me an H! And anoither H!

I just got a verbal agreement from my wife that she's going to buy this top with matching shorts:


My wife, you may recall, is a 38HH. I'm having trouble concentrating today, just from the potential of what this will look like when it's finally delivered.

I don't know what I did right but I'm going to keep on doing it.

My letter to Dr. Curvy

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Kinky King Latex

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Banned by Bambi!

Wow. Nothing like a good e-drama to get your blood pumping.

This weekend I got an email informing me that my subscription to Bambi Blaze's sites had been canceled. I contacted the billing company and they said I should talk to the webmaster. I went to the websites and couldn't get into some of them, but found a message on ExpansionMansion's forum login page:

"Sorry Inflate123, you are banned from using this forum!
The user Inflate123 has been banned for linking from M & L Productions websites to his blog where he spreads disinformation & negative propaganda regarding M & L Productions in an effort to promote his own agenda."

My initial reaction was disbelief -- there was some server maintenance going on this weekend, so maybe something got mixed up. And maybe my credit card ran out -- we've been consolidating our cards and bringing down our debt, so maybe I forgot and canceled the card that was on the Bambi subscriptions.

Um, nope. I've been banned for the reason stated above. And I don't really know what it means.

Well, I do now, or I think I know now. I started looking at what I have done or said that would have been taken as "disinformation" and "propaganda" and I found it -- it was what I call "opinion" and "constructive criticism." I wrote this blog entry six weeks ago, offering my take on the state of Bambi's videos and the appearance of a new actress on the scene who might give her some healthy competition, and therefore give the community more and better options. This isn't even the first time I've suggested that Bambi could improve -- I did it in an earlier blog post, too.

Surely they wouldn't find my opinions so offensive that they'd just close my accounts and ban me from the forums? There had to be more to it. And since I didn't get any direct communication from Bambi's crew, I kept thinking, and I think I figured it out.

I created a decent-sized library of original inflation sound effects while working with Cyndi Irresistible. After Cyndi's vocals were done, I went looking for sounds and didn't find ones I liked, so I set up a microphone and grabbed some pumps and balloons and pieces of rubber and made my own, to better suit the stories. It's not much but I've always been very proud that I was able to get the sounds I wanted, so I've been kind of protective of the library. I planned to share some of it on the Yahoo group dedicated to this niche topic but I ultimately never undertook the Herculean task of uploading 700MB of audio files individually and didn't want to get trapped into the "that's great but can you make one like this" thing that often happens.

When Taylor posted on bodyinflation.org looking for input from the potential audience, I chimed in and even offered use of my sounds. (Bambi's videos traditionally use "wild sound" -- the hissing and the stretching sounds of the actual costume props, which is one aspect I like -- and not post-production effects...though I notice that the most recent one I saw -- "Enchanted Garden," released March 31 -- was specifically promoted as having custom sound effects.) Taylor's team said yes to my sounds and offered me some of her existing work for as a license fee. In essence, "We'll take your sounds, you take some videos." Sounds good to me.

Here's what I'm guessing caused the problem. Taylor's producer asked if it was okay if he gave me an on-screen credit for use of my sounds. I said sure -- I own the copyright on those files and there were no legal problems surrounding their use. Why not? I put effort into them and with Cyndi currently on extended hiatus, I was glad to see them used again. A credit was a nice gesture, especially considering I'd already been compensated with porn. You can see the evidence here.

I think the combination of the blog post six weeks ago -- one nobody even commented on in that time, so I didn't think it was particularly influential -- with my name appearing in "the competition's" video made the Bambi camp think I'd chosen sides. Since I linked to my blog from her forums and my blog contained something a mix of praise and negative feedback, and the blog talked about Taylor, and my name then showed up in a Taylor video...that I must be using Bambi's forums to spread -- what was it? -- "disinformation & negative propaganda regarding M & L Productions in an effort to promote his own agenda."

Okay, then. Time to come clean: My compensation for letting Taylor's team use my sound effects library (I simply FTPed my recordings and that's where my involvement ended -- I didn't record anything new and I didn't help with the video's production at all) was about $25 or $30 worth of complimentary Taylor video downloads and a thank-you line in the opening credits of one of them. I guess I'm a cheap date -- it's not like I'm seeing profit sharing or something. It was a content-for-content swap, which is kind of how this whole community started.

By contrast, I was paying $28 a month to see Bambi's stuff (a total of $600 to date), which, um, I'm apparently not paying any more. I have no problem with money-for-content swaps, mind you, and I do remember thinking about writing a script for Bambi, and maybe even bringing that up with Bambi, but even if I did articulate it, I never actually got around to doing it. I think it's the false assumption that I'm "working for the competition" that caused the problem. But I'm not really "working for" either side -- I'm just a customer. I suppose it's a little telling someone they can't buy Coke any more because you spotted them drinking a Pepsi.

So, that's that -- the long version, so I never have to tell it again. I haven't heard directly from Bambi's camp; I wrote to Dr. Curvy but I haven't heard a reply yet, so this is all conjecture until (if?) I get a response. But what's done is quite obviously done and the choice has been made for me.

I'm going forward with the following stuff in my head:

1) A business has the right to refuse service to anyone, and I really do support that. If they wanna kick me out, that's their right. I am not going to fight it because I am not actually entitled to anything. The internet is not actually a democracy, even though we all like to think it's at least a meritocracy. The people who pay the server bills do make the rules, and that's not an injustice.

2) I'd sent in direct feedback to Bambi on her videos last year, with ideas and suggestions for improvement for some of the same deficiencies I called out in my blog post. I didn't get that same courtesy here, and I wish I had -- if I could have explained what I just explained here, it probably would have worked out fine. By not knowing there was a problem, I wasn't given the opportunity to solve it.

3) Banning me doesn't actually change my blog post, the areas where I'd like to see Bambi's videos improve, or my desire to offer constructive criticism to the creative community. I'm a critic -- I mean, I'm really a critic in everyday life, I write entertainment reviews for a magazine -- and that's not going away. I don't feel that what I said was unfair. It's not "disinformation" -- it's just editorial information. And I have the right to post that as much as they have the right to refuse me service. I think my banning actually caused more people to read that blog post than if they'd just left well enough alone.

4) Every time I write a review on my day job or a story in my other life, I expect to hear negative feedback as well as hoping for positive. Any and all content creators who release their work publicly (especially commercially) should be prepared for the same. If you feel threatened by customer feedback, you will not succeed. This is a song I've sung before. Twice.

5) What a drag.

Bambi vs. Taylor?

This should be interesting. Bambi has been the only actress brave and enthusiastic enough to shoot inflation videos on a regular basis. But Mistress Taylor just showed up on bodyinflation.org to check out the community and announce her intent to cater to our fetish. (She currently caters to many others.)

This can only be good. Fresh content from a fresh perspective is always awesome. It's clear from the sample clips that Taylor and her team are semi-pro, and while they don't have Bambi's expertise or excellent costumes/props, even the creative workarounds in the BE trailers proved pretty effective. I'm eager to see what they wind up creating. And, like Bambi, they were eager to talk to the community and find out what they wanted to see. That's a good sign.

To be honest -- and it pains me to say this, because of the family feel I have always preferred in our community -- I've been wondering how long I'm going to keep paying for Bambi's work. It seems like the videos are posted less frequently, contain more filler (I felt last year's experiments with the second actress was a mistake), and aren't getting better in quality. I've always accepted that Bambi's films were humble homemade productions and more about use of cool props than the improv acting -- I knew that when I signed up and I have paid for it because, well, there's nothing else out there even close to what I'm looking for, and she's certainly dealing with the right subject matter. I'm still paying about $30 each month for access to her two sites. But I really did think by now that the performances and productions would have naturally improved, but they've kind of stayed the same -- a ten minute film opens with the same credit treatment, spends a long time setting up a disposable story (which is often hard to hear -- no mics are in use), and when the inflation comes around, the film is abruptly cut off as "part 1." When part 2 is posted (which used to be the following week but now has become unfortunately a lot more...flexible), the remaining four minutes of the scene are basically Bambi moaning. Meanwhile, there's oodles of dialogue in story archives just waiting to be read for inspiration, several common recurring phrases that really do have power. I download the next video and the next video hoping I will hear some of that stuff, but I rarely do.

What Bambi does is hard. It takes effort, it takes planning, it takes time, and it takes money. And it's not personalized content -- I certainly don't expect that every film is my personal fantasy scenario. But am I the only one looking critically at this stuff?

So if someone else is coming to town to try their hand at it, I say, good. If we get one good new outlet and one existing outlet breaks out of its ruts as a response, everybody wins, and I'll be happy to give my money to both camps.

The past never goes away

I have told three people about my fetish in real life. The first was a girlfriend in high school. I was a a geeky sophomore; she was a well-endowed freshman. Young love and crushes are awkward enough but for some reason I played the "what turns you on" game over the phone with her. She said the usual stuff -- romantic music, candlelight, soft touches. For some reason when it was my turn, I didn't chicken out. I told her the truth.

She had a sense of humor (or else I wouldn't have been dating her) and she teased me about it a little bit later, but our relationship was very chaste and no urges were ever acted upon. I also played the villain, initiating an abrupt breakup. No more about my unusual turn-on was ever discussed.

This was 20 years ago. We've remained friends as adults and we play Scrabulous on Facebook. We're both happily married and she's thrilled to have several kids. But I realized that we'd hit the anniversary for the dumping, so I sheepishly apologized again. She said I'm forgiven but the fact that I'm still apologizing must count for something -- "Power to the boobies! Long live HC!"

HC? I asked what it stood for. Apparently I'd articulated a nickname for her -- "HC" for "helium chest" -- back in the day.

All these years, I thought she had forgotten -- we'd had plenty of discussions about all kinds of other things since, but my deviant desires never came up. And besides, it sounds so silly...maybe she played it off as a joke?

I trust her with this secret. This ain't going nowhere; this is not e-flirting. We are both happy where and with whom we are today. I have since learned that this is part of who I am, but I do not feel the need to make everybody aware of that part.

But I sure was surprised to realize that she's still got blackmail on me after all these years. :)

The power of the blueberry, indeed

My real life and my fetish life don't intersect often -- but I was laughing all the way through this note I got recently, and for all the wrong reasons:

--

Hi there! Have you heard of TrueBlue yet?

With all the recent studies just released on the incredible health benefits of Blueberries, I wanted to send you some info on our juice brand, which Nielsen’s ratings have shown is among the fastest growing juice brands in North America! Ours is among the best in the world, and a great natural source of daily blueberries. Mom’s and health nuts alike are really taking to our product, and we want to talk about it!

Our resident Blueberry expert was hoping to talk up the new product and all the health benefits – any interest in an interview or recipe session for our health smoothies?

Our product is available North America wide now and we’re seeing a HUGE demand for it ever since CNN’s Dr. Gupta and Oprah both started praising the power of the blueberry……. I’d love you to hear our story, we’re competing right alongside big US brands like Coke and Pepsi – and doing well!

Please let me know, and thanks!
www.trueblueberry.com

--

Any takers? I'll be there's a market segment that reads this blog that these folks have never even considered.

Biggest mistake I never made

Usually you identify your mistakes after you've made them. I was on a flight recently for work and remembered a mistake I didn't make that would have been pretty catastrophic if I'd made it.

I was on a trip in high school, and was still pretty confused about the whole inflatables thing. I hadn't learned to cope with it, hadn't really embraced it, and certainly hadn't told anybody about it. So I'm on the plane and I realize...there's an inflatable vest under my seat. You know, like this:

And I remember thinking...wow, free inflatable. Because in high school, you're often stupid.

I spent the whole flight wondering, can I take this with me? Is it like the magazine in the front pocket? And then I started thinking, you know, what if the plane goes down on the next flight? Someone wouldn't know it was missing. And what if they did do a safety check and realized it was not there? My name is on that ticket for that seat...they'd catch me. And it's probably a federal offense. And that would mean I would have to explain why I stole an inflatable item when my parents came to get me.

It wasn't worth the risk, but I remember being INSANELY tempted to take it. Just because, you know, it was something inflatable.

Juliekat!

Hey, you didn't leave me any way to contact you. I don't check the old email, but I'm inflate123 at gmail dot com now...drop me a line if you see this!