Partially Obvious

In all honesty I could take you back to NorthWest BrickCon in 2007 and probably run you through every single thing that was built for it in this category, and I might after a while.  I came across this picture today on flickr and it was just a really neat memory of that event. 

The LEGOLAND Spacelines 979 itself is a great build and great looking, as we’ve come to expect from Bram Labrecht.  Bram is one of the more relaxed and smarter guys you’ll ever meet. 

He’s designed lots of community minded programs to assist people building in different ways (I can’t find any of them right now so just know that they’re there and anticipate a post update in the future).  At this point though I don’t know that I have the math skills to delve to deeply into some of the cool things he’s figured out.  For example he has a program that will build a sculpture model in SNOT (Studs Not On Top).

He’s got lots of great creations that you can check out on his home page.  It includes more pictures of his “Big Blue” pictured above as well.

sorry for the delay posting the winner.  We got a lot accomplished in our team meeting this week and we have clear initiatives set in place for 2009 and buzzword buzzword buzzword pause buzzword. 

Anyways, I promised to announce our contest winner, but I suppose first I need to put up the prize.  Our lucky winner, who in this case is the fastest person to get in the correct answer (lots of you got it right actually) will soon recieve in the mail their very own Chrome Black Darth Vader Minifig!!!  Yippee-Hooray!!!

“Wow Steve, that’s a sweet prize, maybe I should pay more attention to your blog and actually enter the contest next time”…yes…yes you should.

Anyways, I’ll stop blabbing and announce the winner.  Congratulations…

RUSSELL BERKOFF

Russell is…a guy (I think), from…somewhere (we can only hope), and he obviously has taste because he reads my blog.  Congratulations Russell, we’ll be in touch by email next week and everything will be arranged to mail this to you then.

PS – I’m delaying ‘Not New but still Cool’ slightly so this can stay on top for a bit.

So the entire LEGO Community Development Team is in Enfield for the next few days and that means meetings meetings meetings. As it goes I spent next to no time near a computer today. I’ll have to announce the winner to the contest in a few more days but be excited in the idea that we’re discussing how our money might best be spent working with the AFOL Community…that’s you guys.

Anyways, I’ll be back full speed in a few days, but I’ll be a bit distracted for a bit. There is a winner by the way, but if you want to send in an entry still, I’ll happily read it

today has been a heck of a day.  I’m still taking some entries and I’ll announce the winner tomorrow.

So I try to do a lot of building so that I can maintain some sort of credibility when I talk to LEGO fans about what they think of our products.  I pretty much build any time I have the opportunity, and I guess it helps that I love it. 

I mentioned though that I wouldn’t really do a big blog post about any sets that I didn’t like, simply because I don’t want to slam any of my buddies in the design building inadvertantly.

Here’s the thing, I built two sets in the last few days that I’m utterlly unimpressed with.  One is a smaller set that looks pretty slick but upon getting it together but the building process was just uninspired.

The second one looks awesome on the box, and awesome when together, but the act of putting it together was frustrating simply because its so flimsily made.  it has a function on it which is cool as long as you don’t touch it.  this is a mediumish size set.

Okay here’s the deal.  These sets were releaseed just recently (so January 2009, or December 2008 in some places).  They’re both from different themes.  They each have their own distinct color to them (with a flourish or two).  One is a $40 set and one is a $13 set. 

Send me an email to steve@lego.com and if you get both sets right you’ll get a pretty cool prize.  you can ask questions in the comments, but I’ll only give clues if I think they’re appropriate. 

Again, these are brand new sets, one is $40 and one is $13 (US prices).  Send your emails to steve@lego.com and if you guess the right combination then you’ll win a prize.  As soon as I have a winner I’ll post it on the site.

I was looking through Mike Crowley’s website, CountBlockula.com, a while back and found this gem he’d build up.  I talked to him about it and he said he’d built it for the Window into the Community display at his local LEGO store.  I’m not sure when exactly, but I hadn’t seen it until I made my way through his site. 

Most of us grew up with Sesame Street in one form or another and I think Mike’s approach to the colors work very well to give the feeling of the show.  The fun brickbuilt characters are also great, and built at a difficult scale as well. 

Anyways, thats this weeks ‘not new but still cool’.  For more images check this page.  All of Mike’s creation’s are fantastic so give the whole site a whirl.

FINALLY the pirate ship showed up at the company store the other day.  You may say “Steve, why the impatience, the set only just came out and you got it within the first month of release.”

Okay…yes…I get that, but you have to understand that I’ve known about this set since the early stages of its development (like a year and a half ago) and it couldn’t have come out any quicker and left me happy about it. 

I sat down and started a podcast thats about an hour long and started building, and when the podcast ended I was just finishing.  The set looks really good, and I know I’m a fast builder, but something about finishing a $100 model in under an hour kind of bothered me. 

The building experience was good and they achieved some fun angles and whatnot throughout the set.  The set also has a ton of the new gold color in it for a lot of fun parts. 

I think what got me was the numbered bags again.  I know academically that the numbered bags create smaller projects for a young child to accomplish (target on this was 6-12) but as an adult it just makes the building process easy street. 

I may just dump all the parts into the box next time to extend the build time, which at the end of the day would be just what it was when I was a kid and probably will extend the build time a bit as well.

Overall though I like this set a lot.

Today was the big day in the US, the new president was inaugurated into office in the bloodless revolution that is American Democracy.  It was a historic day for many reasons…but mostly I’m just excited that they finally dropped a new content patch for World of Warcraft today. 

One of the oddest parts of it is that I differred going into work until 2pm (I work till 10 on these days) in order to watch the innaguration at home and I’m slapping myself because I didn’t know the patch was happening today.  Instead of spending all evening figuring out what the new content is, I find myself at work until 10. 

I suppose I have my priorities screwed up a litte, but at least I knew the inauguration was happening today and actually watched it.  The only thing that could have made this more of a day of “messed up priorities” is if it had also been a Wednesday.  To those of you that don’t know, Wednesday is new comic book day. 

Sadly, I view WoW content patch, new comic book day, and presidential inauguration with about the same level of excitement.  I have more affinity for WoW content patch and new comic day because I actually get to interact with those things, unlike the president who I doubt I’ll ever have the pleasure of shaking hands with.

I had a wonky sleep schedule this weekend for some reason.  I stayed up most of Saturday night playing LEGO Batman, which I’m at like 92% complete on and just want to finish it out. 

Its also been snowing like crazy for the last few days so I’ve been spending a lot of time inside.  Come monday we wake up and dig out our cars to go to work.  Its still an odd feeling to me, being from Texas and all. 

You see in Texas we feared the cold.  It happened every year but for some reason we forget about our previous experience with it and it blows our mind.  Its very normal to see lots of people still in flip flops throughout the winter in Texas in spite of how cold it might get. 

The unusual thing is the school/work closure policies.  In the south, if there’s any moisture in the air and a threat that the temperature may drop below 32 degrees farenheit the entire state shuts down.  We’re terrified of ice and snow.  Inevitably this usually doesn’t lead to anything and everything opens at 10am (when offices should open in my opinion), but school kids all got to sleep in and all is right with the world.  A school day doesn’t function properly on a late start anyways.  Everyone is excited and unruly and teachers generally just give up and call study hall.

Now that I live in the northeast I find Texas to be a funny place when it comes to cold conditions.  Offices rarely close up here, and the idea of staying home due to snow is usually laughed at.  Everyone just sighs in resignation that they’ll have to get up a few minutes earlier uncover their car from the 6 inches of snow on top of it. 

Then comes driving.  The one aspect of being from Texas that plays in both my wife’s and my favor is that our natural terror of cold weather conditions makes us better drivers on it.  Mostly because we just go slow. 

The best part though about driving after an ice storm is bombing other cars with all the stuff you ‘didn’t’ clean off the top of your car.  It can be a lot of fun.

Alright, so I built this one today and its a great all around set.  I remember when I started collecting LEGO Star Wars that piecing together the original AAT from bricklink and Peeron was a giant scavanger hunt.  it was very fun, but when I built the set I remember it being kind of thin. 

This new version of the set is anything but thin.  Its a solid build with lots of great parts.  The building experience in and of itself wasn’t the most exciting or interesting one, but the set looks good and I like it. 

I even like the new Yoda who I think has great personality.  Even with the Clone Wars style face I think its a better translation in to minifigure form than the original.