Leaks need a rubber patch, not a whole new tire

Hasbro shows their upcoming Star Wars products in magazines and such months in advance. Sometimes they've been known to show prototypes of figures to generate buzz or even to enlighten the consumer on the process they go through to create the figures. Of course licensed products are more protected through the license owner so it would be really tough for a LEGO competitor to have a leg to stand on if they did copy one of those sets.
There are the issues of movie spoilers to take into consideration as well. As in, Disney is not ready for products from their upcoming movies (POTC4 and Cars2) to be shown to the public. They wouldn't want to give away the plot to a movie that really has no plot. Gawd I love popcorn movies.
It really doesn't seem fair that we are punished for looking at the images that show up on the internet while the source seems to go unpunished but maybe we need to remember that these sources are usually quite anonymous. I have no idea who runs 'supercooltoys.com' but TLG does if they supply the site/business directly. Punishing those retailers, no matter how small they are, would be TLG cutting it's nose off to spite it's face; without retailers, how do they get their product to consumers in the most widespread fashion?
Personally, I think they could/should be a bit more proactive and disribute nice hi-res images for us to drool over much earlier than they do. It's not like the sets aren't already in production months in advance of release and there wouldn't be any reason for us to get wind of the prelim set images that they say causes negative reactions.

What blog?

Three months? THREE MONTHS? Wow, things must be happy happy around my legoverse if I haven't been angry about it in three months. Hmmm, I'll start bitching tomorrow...I just don't have it in me right now. Just kidding.














Or am I?

No, we are not the Peace Corps!

No, we are not the Peace Corps!
Originally uploaded by kaitimar

This is the write-up that goes with this photo:
When I was a child, LEGO was a very special thing. It was not like other toys with their glittering guns and missiles, LEGO was about building, cooperation, positive values etc. When minifigs came, they all smiled and had jobs like firemen, (friendly) policemen, baker, bus driver, doctor, race car driver, construction worker… They lived in a world of peace and prosperity, a world without violence or crime, without war and without monsters of any kind.

Not anymore. Minifigs have nothing to smile about anymore. Their world got tough. Cops have prison cells now, and surveillance equipment and armored cars. Secret agents fight evil super criminals, while star fighters engage in epic battles in high orbit. And the brave explorers search high and low, desperately looking for the next energy source, the power crystals, or the treasure keys, annihilating anything and anyone that stands in their way.
It is all about money now, and violence sells.

It is only natural, I guess. We must prepare our children for the battle that lies ahead. The rest of the world might not put up with our plundering of their resources much longer, and and there will be buttons to be pushed, and triggers to be pulled.
And sides will have to be chosen.

Shit, LEGO, I am still hooked, but now every hit makes me sick!


Too profound? Right on the money? Sex and violence sells; even to seven year old boys?

The lonely caveman

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Etzel/Prehistoric/prehistory01.jpg

Brickshelf user Etzel has made a nice little scene depicting a part of the daily life of a caveman. There is some really nice scenery to look at here: some bare rock that of course would be riddled with little caves for a caveman to dwell in....sigh, duh. Some of his trees are really nice, like the ones in the foreground that use the 1x3x3 arches new to this year. With those little arches he's able to achieve a nice vine-like tree with lots of variations in direction, something very hard to do with LEGO arches. This little caveman likes to fish and it would seem that he's a bit of an inventor; at least that's what that little wheel outside of his hidey-hole tells me. Oh yeah, don't drink the water. Good thing he's discovered fire so he can boil it.

FTW, wtf? Epic win or lolfail?

Nerds the world over, not just LEGO nerds, are spewing phrases that used to be simple shorthand. Word are being replaced by colloquialisms that make no sense because they're being used out of context. Fine, if you really want to use FTW (For The Win) as a part of your comment, go ahead but remember that it should only be part of the comment. Maybe I'm just old and crotchety but seeing somebody drop one of those in a comment box somewhere drives me crazy. "WHAT is 'for the win'??" I don't mean "What does it MEAN?" I want you to use some descriptive words. Don't be shy. Don't be lazy. Say what you mean, it's not that hard and believe me, you aren't being 'cool' by using geek-speak.

One day you'll grow up and understand where I'm coming from. Heaven help the next generation....

I love monochromatic LEGO creations

Army Men
Originally uploaded by "Orion Pax"

While so many LEGO builders fall all over themselves to add details to their creations while uttering words like 'scale', 'realism' and 'scale' Orion Pax has decided to just play around with his green bricks. Everyone who wanted to buy a bunch of the green army men from the Toy Story line had thoughts that they would build a MOC of this type. Well, maybe not everyone. There is a section of LEGO fans that have been labeled as WWIItards because they browse Wikipedia and build machines and weapons from that era while cut and pasting encyclopedia pages. Do kids study WWII in school anymore or do they learn about the Gulf war now? I digress though.

Again, I'm blogging a MOC and I don't want to talk about technique or colour blocking or some of the various other things the artsy builders go on about. You decide what you like about it. Me? I just think it's just good old green army men fun with a capital L.

Make sure you check out the rest of the pictures too!

Republic Gunship

Republic Gunship
Originally uploaded by \/\//\R |_[]R[)

The Republic Gunship is easily one of my favorite ship/aircraft from the Star Wars saga. This MOC is easily one of my favorite renditions of the ship. Why do I like it? It's clean, it's a good scale, it's full of really nice angles that follow the source quite well but most of all...it seems to follow right along with a couple of my own failed attempts to build my own. Eerily so. I never tried to do the green potion like this fellow or use those 1x4 studless slopes but quite a bit of it looks like something I tried to build but gave up on. The 1x3 wedges on the side of the fuselage was something that hung me up as did the curvature on the upper hull. My fault, as I see it now looking at this, was trying to uses so many of the older round bricks like the 2x2 'macaroni bricks' or the 1x4x1 1/3 curved top bricks or even the 1x2x6 arch bricks. Those all looked pretty good but I always felt like I would be settling by using any combination of them. Never mind trying to find a decent hinging point that would allow upper fuselage to sit on those snotted wedges properly with a decent structure. Yes, structure is extremely important to me. Well done Warrior, well done indeed.