Partially Obvious

I actually haven’t blogged anything I’ve built for a few weeks so things have stacked up.  a couple of things I’ve built I can’t talk about yet (bwahahaha).  I did get to build the 10195 Republic Dropship and AT-OT.  I actually built the one that was presented at Toyfair and got all those fantastic pictures of it (god I hope the stickers were on there right). 

Itwas a fun build…I think…I was in such a rush to do it I think I cranked it out in 3 1/2 hours.  Some of the people downstairs literally thought I had mixed a potion to make time stop, I think I really blew their minds.  Sadly though, I haven’t leveled my alchemy up to nearly the level of being able to make the time stop potion yet, but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up trying.

The set itself is really great.  The neck to the dropship is really complex and fun to build.  I messed it up initially and the cockpit section just would work (lost a goood 10 minutes trying to fix it).  The whole thing looks great though and is really big when its done.  It does begger the question though about things of that scale and whether or not people will be able to buy it in the same way they would a UCS model thats all display piece lookin. 

I think its worth the money.  It’s basically a combo of the AT-TE  and the Republic Gunship ($90 and $120 respectively). For only $40 more you get a more impressive bigger model.  Some people have been complaining about the cost and I think its actually pretty close to being what it should be. 

Anyways, I recommend it if you’re into Star Wars.  I’m a big fan of the Episode II style clones and their equipment so this was a big coolness for me.

Going back to numbered bags for a minute. I always forget how nice numbered bags can be when I’m using them. I just get annoyed that I built something so quickly. The difference ends up being huge though when you don’t have numbered bags.

literally it can stretch out forever if you’ve got to do that much more sorting. sigh, just random I suppose.

There’s a few things in this world that I get all giddy and weird about in terms of wishing I had such superfluous amounts of cash that it never mattered how much I spent on silly things.  One of those things is this:

It may seem silly, but the new stories they’re doing in Green Lantern are right up my alley for wacky-cool-fun-sci-fi-adventure-my-wife-makes-fun-of-me-because-she-just-doesn’t-get-it-ness.

Having a display case for all of the different rings which follow along the different colors of the emotional spectrum all in preperation for the upcoming story line ‘Blackest Night’ may seem silly, but I can’t think of a better ornament for our coffee table. 

The only thing stopping me from indulging in this frivilous use of my hard earned (yes I actually do work) monies would be the $250 price tag.  my sense of reason snaps back into place upon seeing that. 

I’ve always been a collecter which as most of you who read this know, is the downfall of any well thought out budget.  I’ve been able to hold myself in check for a long time simply out of necessity, but every once in a while an action figure will sneak into my house uninvited, or I’ll suddenly be buying two or three more comic titles than I was the month before. 

All in all I think its healthy to have a hobby.  I’ve always said that its the only way to be easy to shop for.  There’s always people in everyone’s life who when they have a birthday you’re at a total loss.  Then there’s people like my sister, who like Disney and Giraffe’s.  If I find a mickey mouse themed giraffe montage, I know I have the perfect gift and that my sister will be happy with it. 

Then there’s the other people who don’t want anything (which is a lie, everytime and you know it) and give you no clear direction.  Some might think its just more of a challenge, but it makes me feel better about having a hobby (or 8).  Buy me anything with Star Wars, Green Lantern, LEGO, or Warcraft related and you’re safe with me.

I just wanted to post up what events I was planning on attending this year real quick in case I might get to meet some of you guys:

BrickFest PDX – Portland, OR – March 26-29

First LEGO League International Convention – Atlanta, GA – April 16-18

BrickWorld – Chicago, IL – June 18-21

NMRA – Hartford, CT – July 10-12

San Diego Comic Con – San Diego, CA – July 23-26

BrickFair – Washington D.C. – August 21-23

BrickCon – Seattle, WA – October 1-4

Somewhere in there I get to go on vacation a couple times and have a wedding anniversary.  It looks like a fun busy year though so I hope to see some folks out there

I never thought I’d be so excited to see the words LEGO and Disney back together again.  They announced at Toy Fair this last weekend the new joint licensing agreement between disney and LEGO and pointing out that there will be Toy Story stuff, some Cars Duplo stuff and some Prince of Persia stuff. 

Its funny that my main reason for being excited about this was…my mom loooooooooves Toy Story toys and now I have an excuse to buy her LEGO sets (it gives me an easy shopping target for Christmas and Birthdays lol). 

Anyways, I haven’t actually seen anything from the upcoming lines I just know that its a fun new license that I’m excited about.

So I try not to complain very often about LEGO products because, like I said, I know too many people who design them and would hate to hurt feelings.  This isn’t really a design complaint its just a frustration.  I just bought and built 8183 Track Turbo and its really pretty cool.  Its a big chunky Remote control car chasis with not a lot of pieces but the pieces that are there look great and its a slick little car.  What I like about it the most is that there’s so much cool potential for MOCs with the drive chasis on this thing.

Okay now to the frustration.  the remote takes 3 AAA batteries.  All I have here is a 2 pack.  Why would it be three, thats so frustrating, but that’s really all I have to complain about.  Great set over all with lots of fun potential.

So I’ve always been interested in dragons in general, so when LEGO puts out dragons in sets I get all giddy.  I’ve got them sitting around my computer here at work and its just fun all the different directions they’ve gone with making dragons.

There’s the solid mold smaller guys from the 80’s and early 90’s, the technicy vikings dragons, and the bigger molded ones with detachable arms and legs from the new castle stuff (and Harry Potter I guess). 

I just spent 30 minutes trying to put good pictures together for this post, and I decided I was done creating a visual.  I like dragons…thats it.

I headed to the New York Comic Con this weekend with my buddies Mark and Pete are both Master Model Builders for the LEGO Group (though Pete is currently working as a graphic designer, I still count him).  We headed towards New York at about 6am friday morning (ugh).  We always drive down to New Haven, CT and take the train from there to Grand Central Station. 

We were all wired by the time we got on the train so Pete and I just talked the whole time and Mark wondered how we could possibly talk so much.  We got to Grand Central and took the subway to times square.  We bummed around Toys R Us for a little bit and then made our way to Midtown Comics. 

It was really busy since it was the day of the Con.  Most likely people trying to grab anything they may have forgotten or that they needed to get autographed.  I bought a couple of Green Lantern action figures and Mark got a sketchbook.  We then went to Red Lobster because…well it was right there and we were hungry.

After lunch we grabbed a cab to the Javitz Center where we got into the “line of death” for entry into the Con.  Basically they put everyone into a convention hall and make the line wrap around the whole place.  and take you right back out the entrance to that hall to move towards the hall everyone wants to be in.  Its kind of cramped, but it sure beat being outside (super cold on friday). 

I headed over to the Video Game area when I got there and got introduced to some snazzy people from Sony Online Entertainment (via a connection of mine).  They walked me through their upcoming game D.C. Universe online, which I happen to be pretty excited about. 

After that I walked over to the artist alley where I’d be spending the next few hours getting books signed.  I scored a great Power Girl print from Amanda Conner who is one of my favorite artists. 

Its on my wall over my computer now (sorry for the glare on the photo, its behind glass).  My wife’s not as big a Power Girl fan as I am…I don’t understand why.

Anyways, this whole process went on for a few more hours and we eventually went back to Connecticut.  We stopped at Friendly’s which has become our tradition.  We even had the same waitress as last year. 

The funniest thing that night was the group of 9 year old girls across the way from us who were just being loud and silly to the point of annoying.  I just kept pointing at them and telling Pete (who he and his wife are expecting a little girl in May) that, “this, this is your life from now on.”  He then responded that he was not planning on letting his daughter have friends and that would solve the whole issue.  It would wouldn’t it.

Here’s more pics from that day.  Hope everyone else had a fun weekend.

I’ve been thinking about it, especially since now it seems they’re pushing to sell off anything exo-force, that it was truly an interesting product line over its time.  I remember watching it be developed through the last few years. 

 The first year was fantastic parts in somewhat unstable and seemingly unfinished mechs (no backs on the things).  Year two saw some more interesting mechs, but with more chunky parts to solve stability issues. 

The third and final year of exo-force finally started to look really fantastic like the designers had really fallen into a groove making interesting models with great parts…but again it was the final year.  Its been sort of a bummer to see them languish in clearance, especially since I found year three particularly innovative and interesting .

Overall though I think Exo-force was a grand test of a different market.  I was well aware of the story as it went along, but often wonder if the story hadn’t been there, would I have noticed. 

So if I had to give an overall judgement to the line it would probably be a ‘thumbs sideways’.  It was pretty good all the way through, but it didn’t hook me like I hoped it would and by the third year, when it was at its best, I couldn’t build up that much interest for it.

It was neat to see the LEGO Group try something very different from their past lines though and I think I’ll have fond memories of it.  It was the first line I heard about before it came out when I started working with the LEGO Group as an intern in 2005.

So I’ve been trying to build a bunch lately…cause I think its fun (and its darn good blog fodder).  I’ve built severl things over the last week which I’ll get to soon, but the first one I want to talk about is the 7682 Shanghai Chase.

I’ve always been an ardent Star Wars guy, so for some reason when Indy stuff came out, I was intrigued but didn’t lap it all up like a lot of people did.    I mean it was cool and I built a couple of the sets (the truck chase and the snake temple thingie), but I wasn’t super compelled to purchase the rest of the line. 

Not so with this 2009 stuff.  I’ve already built the first two sets for this year (flying wing and shanghai chase).  My favorite of the two has been the Shanghai Chase.  The Flying Wing was cool, but I just enjoy the cars that much more.  The Tan car in particular was a smart build and looks really good.  The black car in and of itself would not be in my list of favorite, a bit too boxy for me, but the tan one more than makes up for it.  lots of figs too. 

Set has a lot of play value as well because you really can’t beat cars for play value (strangely though I don’t really build racers).  Overall just a neat little set.