It was just a couple of days ago that I mentioned that the Bear Boutique was about to go live. Well it's alive, kicking, and it's a bouncing brand new baby Bear boy.

This online shop is direct from France, and it's maintained by a very handsome couple - Axel (Thorn on TubeBear) and Pascal (Pakko). As I mentioned in the last update, Roger and I got to meet them and we took a few pics while we were in Chinatown (here). So head on over to their site and take a look at the t-shirts and baseball caps (coming soon) they have to offer. Roger was wearing one of their shirts the other day ~ which read 'Woofez Moi' ~ and more than one person asked him what it meant and where he got it.

Voulez vous Woofez avec moi, ce soir...?

Make sure to login to TubeBear on Monday, August 25th as we are going to have our very 1st LiveStreaming Party. What does this mean...? We are asking everyone who has a profile with TubeBear and a webcam to login on 25/08/08 (logging in is simpler eating cake on your birthday - just go here, click 'accept' in the top box and voila, you're streaming).

Have any questions? Contact either me (Bob Forrest) or Niko the AdminBear and we'll give you a hand in setting up your webcam if you run into any issues.

The Bear Boutique website is not quite ready... yet... but they are planning on opening up shop really soon (as in the next few days). This online shop is run by 2 hot gentlemen who live in France ~ Axel (profile on TubeBear - Thorn) and Pascal (Pakko). They have come up with a real cute design for t-shirts and baseball caps and, realizing that there is no one in France working on Bear goods, that they would take the initiative and start something up.

Axel and Pascal were in Montreal not too long ago, and we (Roger and I, Bob Forrest) met up with them for an afternoon. We headed into Chinatown, ate, and had a few laughs. The visit was short but we did take a few snapshots (snap #1 - snap #2 - snap #3 - snap #4 - snap #5 - snap #6 - snap #7) of our afternoon together, and Roger is going to model some of the t-shirts for their website, and I'll add the pics up once they are ready.

Here are the recent photos of Alain, aka BearMontreal (profile). As I mentioned in the preview, BearMontreal is this 6'2'' dark and handsome Bear, born in Europe and has been in Canada for over a decade. He's trilingual (English, French and Italian) and he is of Italian descent.

He is a friend of Roger's (gallery - profile), and while chatting on TubeBear, BearMontreal wanted to have some photos of him taken. He mentioned me (Forrest - profile) and that I took pictures, so off we went into downtown Montreal for an impromptu photo shoot. It was already late so we were only able to get one set of photos in, however Alain stated he would really like a set of pics taken of him in the shower. Altho it's not been scheduled yet, we will be getting together in the near future to fulfill this shower scene.

For some previews, click here - preview #1 (small - large) - preview #2 (small - large) - preview #3 (small - large) - preview #4 (small - large).

We added 3 new galleries to BearFoot. You can see them here (they are entitled 'Bakin' 'n Restin'' - 'On The Dock' and 'Muddy Beach'). Now the only way to see these galleries is you need to have a PlanetBears membership. BearFoot is not open yet and only PlanetBears members can see the gallery section. We are still working on BearFoot and we're hoping to have it open soon.

So in order to see the BearFoot galleries, you will need a temporary username and password. For more info on how to get one, check out this article and watch the video.

Click here to enlarge that thumbnail of Roger (profile) and his muddy feet. BearFoot right now has over 1000 photos of Roger, many of them focusing on his legs and feet.

Here's someone who's got all the right ingredients to being a Daddy Bear; he's good looking, debonair, he's thoughtful, has a nice sense of humour about him, witty while intelligent, modern while paying attention to traditional ways. His name is Richard and he's a husky Bear from Montreal. Check out his gallery here.

These pictures were taken back in January '07. Now there's the long version as to why I never added these pics and there's also the short version. So here's the mid-length version: I met Roger (website - gallery - profile) just shortly after taking these photos, and when you meet the man of your dreams, everything else is placed on the shelf. I was also working on a Valentine's themed movie (it was January and I had a couple of weeks to work on it), and Richard's in it as well as Jacques aka PandaMontreal (website - gallery - profile) and Friedrich (gallery)... I have all the film for it, it's just a question of editing it... anyhow, that got shelved as well.

Fast forward to today and I'm re-discovering all this material I have, so I'm trying to add as much of it as possible, all the while working on some newer material.

Anyway, there you have it. Richard is truly a nice guy, make sure to send him a message via his profile. Click here to see some previews.

To all those who have a membership with PlanetBears (and those who still have their membership since the bear-pics days) - please email me or use the contact form and I will give you a temporary username and password to the BearFoot Galleries which has almost a thousand photos of Roger.

Now I posted this very same article back in the middle of May (here) and I was expecting a lot of you guys to email me. However, I didn't even get the fraction of emails I was expecting... which says to me that a lot of people don't read what's on the net... and well... I know I don't read a whole hell of a lot so I guess it's understandable.

In other BearFoot news: when I wrote that article back in May, I got an email from someone who was interested in buying the domain name. Now this was not the 1st time someone wanted to buy BearFoot but this was the 1st serious offer I received... well... it turned out that it wasn't so serious after all and this guy was just leading me on... I don't think he had any intention on buying the domain name, and we negotiated for a month and even when he got his asking price, he declined, which tells me he was a scam with too much time on his hands.

So... whatever... he's a donkey and I wasted my time. The bad news is that I wasted a month when I could have been working on BearFoot. The good news is that I get to keep the BearFoot domain name.

Anyhow... back to the article... to all those who presently have a membership with PlanetBears, please email me and I will give you a password to the site. It is a temporary password but at least you will get to preview the site. But once the website is finished and we're ready to go live, the password will no longer be good.

So please - contact me... I have something good to give you... honest.

My partner Roger (gallery - profile) loves getting and receiving email. He has a bunch of friends he emails with and they all send each other either inspirational letters, funny videos or beautiful pictures from around the world... among other stuff. And every now and then, Roger will forward me an email he think I'll enjoy. So I get this one email he sent me and it's got incredible images... however it was the song that hooked me. I had heard before... somewhere... so I did a bit of searching and found it on the net. The singer's name was Iz ~ Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. He was 38 when he died, and at one point in his life he weighed 758 pounds which is pretty incredible.

By the way... I keep getting choked up each time I listen to it. Why? I don't know, but it strikes a chord somewhere deep within me. The song is a medley of 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' and 'It's a Wonderful World'. Listen to it here and tell me what you think. For more info about Iz, check out his Wiki page.

PlanetBears members (and those who signed up with bear-pics and still have their membership), you need to either email me (Forrest) or use the contact form as soon as possible. Why? It's because I have been working hard on BearFoot.com and I want you guys to preview it. Right now there are only photos galleries but there's 845 pictures... and I will be adding more this weekend.

So... all you have to do is email me - if you know your PlanetBears (or bear-pics) username and password, that'll be great... if not, just give me your email that you signed up with when you bought your PlanetBears membership. Once you email me that info, I will email you back a membership pass to the BearFoot galleries.

Now please note: this is just a preview for PlanetBears members. This 'BearFoot' membership password will work for awhile, but it won't last forever. Also, please do not email me if you only have a TubeBear username. TubeBear is a free site; PlanetBears is the one with the pay section.

I've been mentioning BearFoot for quite some time now (from what I can see from the archived articles, I have been mentioning the site since September '07). Now a lot has happened in both Roger's and my life since then, and I've also been working on a lot of projects (PlanetBears site, TubeBear site, a movie which is in the works, a book which is like 75% done)... all that while moonlighting on BearFoot. It might seem that I'm spreading myself a little thinly but for some reason I have many projects, so hopefully you can understand why it takes me awhile to get something done.

Anyhow - hope you guys enjoy the BearFoot preview.

Also - please note - very important - BearFoot will be a paysite, but we are still working on the pay section. It's not available yet so you cannot buy a BearFoot membership. Right now all you can do is buy a PlanetBears membership which will give you access to the PlanetBears galleries and videos, and for a short while the BearFoot galleries - but only for a short while. Once we have the BearFoot pay section up and available, I will be giving super rebates to prior bear-pics and PlanetBears members.

PS - The site is called 'BearFoot - Roger's Adventures' and Roger and I have been trying to write a little about our lives since we met, something so as to accompany the photos. Our adventures are nothing like Indiana Jones, but they are ours and we're sharing. And if this is your 1st time here, check out Roger's TubeBear profile as well as my profile (Bob Forrest).

Bob aka BearBob1952 (TubeBear profile) of Project Big (articles) is letting us that he and Nard (TubeBear profile) of BearPodCast are running a 'Project Big Contest'. They talk about it in their podcast #204. They sent them some clothes and they plan on doing a 'best top' and 'best bottom' contest. More info can be found here, but essentially send them a photo and a 200 word or less essay as to why you are the perfect top or bottom. Deadline is June 15th. From their site: "We will choose a winner from the Top and Bottom category. Winners will be on a future episode and will be introduced during the show. Hopefully we will have a Project Big match and we will check up on the two winners from time to time to see if anything happens between the two of them. Top winner will receive 1- XXL shirt and Bottom winner will receive 1 pair of XXL shorts from our sponsor Project Big".

I betcha a buck that anytime you turn on the tv and you see some fashion show going on, you just shake your head thinking what those poor models must go through while trying to maintain their 98 pounds of weight... and since we are all Bear lovers here, well there is never any eye-candy whatsoever at those fashion shows (save the occasional Bearish model designer who's extremely gay).

Ok now that I'm done with that overtly long intro - how about watching a Bear fashion show... one with extra husky Bears showing their stuff while strutting the runway? That's what you'll see if you download the latest American Bad Bear (ABB) podcast. Their show is called BearZero (TubeBear profile) and the ABB Bears who make this podcast do a great job because ~ and it's a video podcast as well, which is even more fun. To see their latest podcast, go here (give is awhile to download). In this show, they feature Bob aka BearBob1952 (TubeBear profile) from Project Big (TubeBear PRO profile) with a bunch of his friends who model his great wares. Go take a few minutes and watch it.

And make sure to check out Project Big which is a new line of clothes with the bigger man in mind (see some of the pics they sent us here). Swimwear, shorts, shirts, jocks, singlets and underwear, up to 4XL. Clothes for Bears made by Bears.

Time to download the latest BearPodCast show hosted by 'The Nard' (TubeBear profile). The most recent show is #186 and Nard talks about 2 new Bear podcast shows - Cubs Out Loud and BearGeek and he also has an interview with the highly adorable Florida Daddy Bear known by everyone as Bob (TubeBear profile). Bob talks about how we all need to get to Florida at some point (it's true, I went, I've never been the same) and he also talks about a new line of clothing made especially with the larger huskier man in mind. This new line of clothes is called Project Big and it's worth checking out the site just to see the models (see some of the pics they sent us here). Swimwear, shorts, shirts, jocks, singlets and underwear, up to 4XL and from the interview Bob said they will even make custom sized wears for any of you guys. It's a fun podcast (Bob has a sexy voice) so go grab it, and go pick up some clothes for the big man in your life, even if that big man is yourself.