Brick Musings: Feb. 6

I rustle through lots of bricks on a regular basis and here’s some stuff that happened this week.

This image is legendary:

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I assemble a *lot* of droids at work. This came to mind and had to make it #sorrynotsorry

This can apply to lightsaber configuration, minifig hand orientation etc etc

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On new year’s eve VicLUG was invited back to the Provincial Museum of BC to participate in our second ‘Early Shift’ event. Last year we did mammoth habitats, and this year it was a more general animal habitat sort of thing. There was a series of nature photos on tour in the space we were in, along with many other attractions. We had a couple of different stations set up, one of mostly mocs and then another where we set up a terrain made out of system, Duplo and Primo. The public then populated it with critters or added to the terrain.

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At our club Christmas party we do a vignette exchange every couple of years, alternating between that and ornaments. It’s a secret Santa situation and you don’t know who got who until the party, we have a little game to see how well we can match up who made what for who ( I did pretty well…. )

Here’s all the vignettes lined up

I made this for a club member who works in big coffee. His name happens to be Joe as well, double pun (starting to look like a triple pun!)

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Over the holidays we also did the local Nerdy Craft Fair for the first time. This is us setting up in the Santa Workshop area:

Here’s a few pics of the fun, mostly actual Xmas sets but a few mocs scattered throughout including my gingerbread house. It really doesn’t like to travel, but I recently added Mintbacca from the SW advent calendar so nice to have it doing the rounds.

 

that’s mine on the left

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Now we are getting ready for a 3 day Lego festival in a neighbouring town! My workshop is almost Death Star 2 state…. a mess but fully operational battle station. I will be unpacking and sorting from this move forever it feels!

A Lego Dimensions note, Toys R Us here has ~ nothing ~ left at the moment. Wartmall still has a good selection but all wave 3 stuff is original retail price. EB Games has some. It’s not plentiful on local used sites except the starter packs.

CMF 18

There are pics in the wild and as of yet Lego has not said to remove them so will share them here because I’m slightly irked by the presentation of them. This is not a final press release pic, it feels like a premature render. I’ve seen different versions of one of the figs too, the Elephant Girl has a cheese wedge ‘attached’ to the mouse in one set of pics and not the other.

What do you think, are these legit? Release date is April…. is this an epic prank being set up?

If you go to the brothers brick post she looks like this:

This image was touted as a fake when it came out in May but since then the rocket boy was released in 2017. That flower girl looks just like the one in the series 18 pic.

A Serbian toy store posted this pic last week with some of the CMF 18 figs in it:

These are slightly different angles from the full set pics being shared, but also this is clearly a composite shot as they are all so out of proportion and perspective.

What do you think? Actually what we will be looking at as far as figs go or a clever ruse that has taken off?
If this is indeed a leak then I will remove photos 🙂

Dimensions

Time is ripe to get what you are missing. Stores are price matching, xdays before xmas, no future stock in sight.

Speaking of… Merry Christmas all and may all your presents rattle with that tell tale clatter!

Brick Musings: Dec. 7

Just like to shout out to one of my fav extensions, Lazarus ( https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lazarus-form-recovery/loljledaigphbcpfhfmgopdkppkifgno?hl=en )
If you are on fruit phone then I don’t know what to tell you, add in the comments if you know. This is an extension that remembers what you type in a form field ( like a blog entry!  new phone who dis? )

Ok, so Lego.

In the store this week we put together a couple of UCS sets and frankly I’m a bit riled. The AT-ST uses a mofo elastic to maintain structural integrity. Would this be even permissible in LDD? Seems a bit beyond the stresses the elements doctrine, and kind of squeegy on a moc level. I really grok elastics and tires used as decorative elements, but hidden like this makes me a bit queasy:  

http://lego.brickinstructions.com/lego_instructions/set/10174/imperial_at-st

That said the Lego Death Star II is such a hot mess that it does not even make sense.

http://lego.brickinstructions.com/en/lego_instructions/set/10143/Death_Star_II

After painful hours of descending into gollum’nish type likenesses we found actual errors in the instructions where it showed jumper plates but next step was impossible.

As bad as StarWars sets are, I defy you to exemplify a more inane set as the paramount of all things wrong

inb4 you say https://shop.lego.com/en-CA/Jedi-Starfighter-With-Hyperdrive-75191 which is the free bingo square of all things bad in SW sets

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So hey gang! Besides bad StarWars sets, there’s always fun stuff right.

What’s UP with this AR LEGO game!!??

https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/andyrobertson/2017/12/01/new-lego-augmented-reality-app-is-the-best-open-world-lego-video-game

I’ll drop this Forbes link as I haven’t come across any that spill any more beans as any yet. I caught wind of this a bit ago but wasn’t quite able to say anything yet, since MSM is on this then guess I can chit chat as well.

My first and bit big beef is wth LEGO, why only fruit phone??! It’s bad enough I’m considering getting a PS4 for MA2  (  just not getting a WU for City despite how awesome it is ) you will NOT tip me to the dark side to get a fruity platfrom to imbibe in whatever malarkey you are up to. Get on the boat and get your TT titles available on every next gen platform already.

Ok, I feel shluffed. That is what is being bothering me, like really, jeesh.

Now, let’s talk about this Lego AR that is going down.

It allegedly has gold brick conductibility.  As someone who is in *deep* with Ingress ( about to hit 2.0 after 5 yrs!?!)  and dabbled with Pogo, I can envision what is going on here. Since the spawn points have nothing to do with Google Maps, it is not tied into the Google Maps network ( Ingress/Pogo ) so spawn points of bricks could be user generated as opposed to user submitted like in Ingress/Pogo. That means you create the instances as you play instead of running into them as the game decrees.
In a glorious world this is ideal, but did I mention that it’s a fruit phone sitch currently?

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Lego is big like Russia, something happening every day. You know I love the brick and also the community. I will keep the pulse on the weird beast as I know it.

Play well my friends, play well.

Brick Musings: Nov. 30

I rustle through lots of bricks on a regular basis and here’s some stuff that happened this week.

A wonderful lot of prequel ships and figs came into the shop this week and there were a couple of outlier figs in the mix that didn’t make any sense. Would you look at this shiny dude who is looking just fine

I was quite calm about the whole affair really, until a coworker asked me how freaking excited I was to see that guy. Then I lost a bit of my composure.
Side note, my favourite part about the prequels has always been the bricks. There are a few universally reviled things at my shop: McFarlane Toys, Megablocks and the Prequels. Yep they are all the same consistency of poop, just different shades.

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How about that new modular…??? 10260 Downtown Diner is a pretty swish affair

Many many things to like here. Tiled roof, curvey windows and Art Deco piping, figs with expressions, fab colours and many detailed inner builds. That boxer has pretty fabulous hair, almost looks like Umbridge!

https://www.brothers-brick.com/2017/11/29/lego-reveals-newest-modular-building-10260-downtown-diner-news/

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Don’t let the big hype modular machine to distract you from some real interesting news though…. Ideas Tron! Talk around the water cooler so far has been this better be cool, and don’t Delorean this one. It would be nice if it was actually playable with and not an executive desk funko pop ‘toy’

This is the fan created model, as always the finished will be modified. Here’s hoping for unique Tron disc elements!

https://io9.gizmodo.com/lego-enters-the-gride-with-this-fantastic-tron-lightcyc-1820801319?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

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So this looks cool…. What I’m pretty excited about is all the fun parts that will come out of this, possibly a new game too…? Thanos as a big fig seems like a no brainer. This new Spidey seems made for gaming. Unlocking suit abilities and web types with some skill tree suit hud. Notice an ability he had in the trailer that was fairly absent in Homecoming?

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My Lego club has a fun little event we are doing this weekend. It’s a Nerdy Craft Fair that is put on by my shop in a plaza like area downtown. We are going to have a public build zone and a Christmas village. It will be a combination of sets, mocs and winterized sets/mocs.  Will post pics soon!

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Many LUGs are having to redesign their club logos right around now as a new set of guidelines have come down from the mothership. Some of the details are still being ironed out but you can’t have the word LEGO in the club name or url, and the LEGO logo & minifig can not be present either. This is throwing some long standing Lugs for a lurch.
Here is an interesting thread from a Polish Lug where they are asking the club members to help redesign their brand!
http://www.lugpol.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30208

More info on the LEGO fair use policy here: https://www.lego.com/en-us/legal/legal-notice/fair-play

Play well you blockheads!

 

 

Brick Musings Nov. 11

I rustle through lots of bricks on a regular basis and here’s some stuff that happened this week.

I’ve been doing some reassembling of the Life on Mars figs for the shop and really falling for these lil guys. There was a pretty big gap between Space sets after this one came out and it’s unique in the respect that the humans & aliens lived together in seeming two piece harmony. I thought they were great at the time and look forward to figuring out which ones I have in my own collection but here’s a few that I have cobbled together and posted so far.

Altair from Life on Mars

Altair is the most plentiful in the shop’s assortment of figs for whatever reason. He was in a polybag as well as a set. He’s the funky kid of the bunch who likes crazy music and drives fast.

Vega from Life on Mars

Vega is a pretty somber dude. He is into excavations, BLT and not a fan of surprises.

Antares from Life on Mars

Antares is the doctor and eats veggy cubes. Don’t tell the others but he is my fav.

Life on Mars was featured in a few Lego games back in the day! Lego racers 2 where they had 5 races based on the line, and one I’ve never played called Soccer Mania where they had a team. Anyone play that one?? It came out on PS2 ( as did Lego Racers 2 ) so will see if I can thump it up at a retro game shop I’m going to tomorrow.

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Clone brand build tape

So you know that Mayka brick tape that had a kickstarter and blew up? Some knock off tape showed up at TRU! I don’t know the quality, hesitant about anything with ‘as seen on tv’ on it, but do like the colour assortments. I’m guessing there will be more clones of a crowd sourced 3rd party compatible product….

Clone brand disclaimer

Here is a funny disclaimer. Apparently KRE-O has made it to the bush league, grats guys.

Mr Freeze from Batman Lego Movie

This set #70901 came through the shop and I actually hadn’t taken a look at it yet. The shoulder pads caught my eye and asked my coworker about it. We deduced that it’s indeed new and only other version is Red Hood from the Batman CMF. Looking forward to more, my guess is that it will always be printed on the chest spot.

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So I will be going on more about Dimensions but for now keep an eye out for steep sales. Dollar stores here have had UniKitty for $5 and Sunrise Records have had a good assortment of fun packs for $5, including a Marty Story Pack for $5(!!)

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Fun trivia of the day that is still tickling me.
Klaatu barada nikto is the phrase from ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ which is arguably better known in Armies of Darkness. I found out that the Nikto are a species of lizard like aliens and Klaatu and Barada are his skiff guards at Jabba’s Palace. There is a very deep Wilhelm Scream rabbit hole for this trope but quite like this one.

An Auspicious Day

Hello Nexians!

I’m back and dusting off the rust off this old space bucket! There is significant developments on the LU front, plus Lego gaming in general. Dimensions, Worlds, all the TT games.

Today is a significant day and why I chose to wait to begin again. This was the closing announcement date of LU back in 2011. We are also hot on the heels of the official closing of Dimensions. It’s a good time for new beginnings.

I’m beavering away in my house, rebuilding my Lego cave. I work at a pretty great vintage toy store where Lego helps keeps the lights on. The store and my local club are going to be heavily involved in a convention, plus all our regular events. It’s a pretty bricky time.

I’ll be posting about all that fun stuff but will keep the emphasis on Lego gaming. I’m interested if anyone wants to be a contributor and thanks Aronwk for keeping the lights on 🙂  and yes…. I’ll be tying up the contest! My life got turned upside down and inside out, so everything got put on pause but it’s time to build!

Leak of Lego Novelty Products

I’d like readers to know that I’m adhering to the updated policy that the company has released. What is still permissible is discussion of set names, numbers and other rumours. Obvious leaked photos I’m going to be mindful of not spreading.

Leak of LEGO® Novelty Products

Why Restrictions?

For every business, it is essential that confidential information such as trade secrets and product novelties is kept secret until the business is ready to release such information. For the LEGO Group it is extremely important to control WHEN and WHERE our new LEGO products are launched, HOW they are launched, and in which quality and volumes!

As the owners of the LEGO IP rights, the LEGO Group is legally entitled to control the publishing of its product and marketing material.

Background for the release control:

•We want to give our customers and consumers a 100% experience of our products and campaigns

•Our competitors should not have any chance to get a time lead to copy our products

•The LEGO Group must protect the confidentiality of its license partners and is obliged to fulfill its contractual obligations towards the IP partners

•Leaks of preliminary material, which is not finally developed, is not in the interest of our consumers or our partners.

What not to share or publish

The LEGO Group is asking fans not to share or publish LEGO owned confidential information, for instance any information about new, unreleased LEGO products. Some material carries a specific watermark saying that the image is not to be disclosed or published. Other leaks consists of copied or photographed material, which is obviously confidential information, which has come to the public without authorization by the LEGO Group.

To all our fans: Please do not share obviously confidential information, which has not been released by the LEGO Group.

If you become aware of any leaked confidential information on other websites/forums/blogs, we would be grateful if you would reach out to KimT@LEGO.com. We very much appreciate your loyalty to the LEGO products and hope that you will assist us in protecting the confidentiality and competitiveness of the LEGO Brand.

We look forward to continuing our cooperation with you in the future. Thank you,

Jørgen Vig Knudstorp Chief Executive Officer LEGO Group

First Lego League 2016

Hey gang! Starting the year off with some Lego gaming at a First Lego League scrimmage. Happy Pappy and me did referee duty for this initial round. There was a great turn out and everyone involved  shook the rust off as most of us had taken at least a year off and this was most of the kids’ first attempt. This year’s challenge is “Trash Trek” with a bit of a rules and board revamp. The scoring is refined, the models are intriguing and it’s more streamlined for the refs to score a board. I was particularly impressed with the composter!

We had over a dozen teams show up with all manners of robots. The local tournament is next month and the provincials will follow after that.

Setup with the teams milling about

A couple of teams squaring off under HP’s watchful eye!

One of the many fabulous robots in the now circular home base as opposed to the previously square one.

I’m going to assume that these photos are fine to post as everyone involved signed waivers for them to be posted by FLL. I’m involved in a peripheral role and if anyone wants an image with themselves removed they are welcome to contact me at joseph@viclug.ca

So let’s fire up this gaming engine. There’s lots to go over this year. I’m composing a Lego Dimensions post, our club is rebooting VicWars  for a new gaming convention and loose ends are getting tied up around this place.

http://www.firstlegoleague.org/

We’re getting the band back together

via brickset:

“An advert for an unannounced video game, Worlds, has been spotted on the back of the instructions of 60097 by Eurobricks member mikaelsol.”

http://brickset.com/article/15346/could-this-be-the-game-that-appeals-to-non-gamers

ty jamester for keeping an eye on this too, this could be the droids we’re looking for.