ResIpsaLoquitur

I gave into impulse and bought the Imperial Shuttle polybag 30246 today. For some reason, I've developed a fascination with mini-scale vehicles lately.

Just curious if anyone has been to the Brickfest events in the U.S. They had one in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, and just had one north of Baltimore last weekend. I took my daughter, and it was OK, though perhaps not as good as the Virginia Brickfair a few weeks ago. Highlights from what I can remember: - 9 holes of miniature golf. These were simple small golf courses made from lumber, but the borders were decorated with Lego elements. Play was free with admission. - A large display of various ships--mostly freighters and battleships--made from Lego. My impression was that a local LUG had done these, but I'm not sure since we didn't get a good look at them. - An area where kids could sit and make Lego mosaics. (I don't think you could keep them.) - A number of vendors from the east coast/Mid-Atlantic area. I grabbed some polybags that I've been having trouble finding, and we grabbed some interesting elements from some Pick-a-Brick stands. (Sadly, we ended up with a few clone brand pieces, but most of what we got was legit.) - Some city displays where kids could build and add their contributions. - A stage where they did Lego trivia. I didn't get to attend this part, so I don't know if they gave out prizes or anything. - A section where kids could build race cars and then race them down a ramp. Again, we never made it to this part, and it had a long line. - A wall covered with Lego plates which kids could decorate. - A video game section where kids could play games such as the Lego Movie Videogame or Marvel Superheroes. This section was, of course, very popular. So, the event was OK, though maybe a little overpriced at $22 per ticket. (I think Brickfest VA was $12 and was probably the same level of event.) I think the kids had fun, though an AFOL might not if you were planning to do anything other than shop. One complaint I have is that the Brickfest merchandise was rather overpriced. They mostly had t-shirts and minifigures decorated with the Brickfest logo. I would have bought a minifig just for the heck of it, but it was priced at $10. At $5, I would have gotten one, but $10 is pretty steep for a traveling festival's logo on a generic figure.

If you want to see shocking ads, look up "Wilkins Coffee" to see an early version of Kermit the Frog shooting people. No, they're real.

I just got my copy of DK's Lego Star Wars: The Dark Side and noticed that there hasn't been much commentary here on the figure. So, here's Palpatine. Ta-da! Lego Star Wars: The Dark Side retails for $16.99 US, but you can get it for $10.70 on Amazon USA. I'm not going to spend any time on the book--it's written for kids and has lots of little factoids on the Sith, including profiles on notable darksiders including Palpatine, Maul, Dooku, Ventress, Jek-14, Galen Marek, and Vader. I'd say a third of the book is spent on Vader, and there's many "silly" bits like Vader's personal photo album. I don't think it's a worthwhile read for an AFOL--more "serious" books would be the Visual Dictionary or the Character Encyclopedia. However, I have a kid, so she's more than happy to read the silly bits in the book. Anyway, you bought this book for the figure, so let's get back to that. Palpatine comes in five pieces: legs, torso, head, cape, and hood. There's no accessories included, such as a lightsaber or staff. It's just Palpy. It's a little disappointing that an accessory can't be included. Notable features: this is the first Palpatine with tan skin, probably trying to get a closer approximation to his appearance in Return of the Jedi. It's also the first ROTJ Palpatine with leg printing. Palpy actually has the same skin tone as LOTR's Grima Wormtongue, so this isn't the first. And hey, their appearances are actually a little similar. Could Palpatine be an older relative, or even an older version of the same guy? ...nah. (Although Dooku and Saruman have a striking similarity, don't they?) There's nothing special on the back, which makes sense since Palpy was always robed in ROTJ. However, he does come with a two-sided head. One side is grunting, while the other is a little more smiley. I'm not sure that either really captures Ian McDiarmid's expressions from the films (a sarcastic "Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational..." version would have been fun). But hey, it's Lego--they're obviously going for cute rather than film-accurate. I actually would have liked to have seen Palpy in a printed skirt piece since it's done so often with female figures. To the best of my knowledge, only Saruman has gotten the male-skirt feature. Here's what Palpatine would look like on a sloped piece, though obviously, this lacks the leg printing. I get why it's done this way--a skirt seriously reduces the figure's playability. Still, I wish we'd have the option. Overall, I like this figure, minus the shortcomings of no accessory and no skirt (which people may want to debate). I think the tan looks better than the grey Palpatines we've been getting since 2005. The robe details are a little different than the prior two ROTJ Palpatines--not better or worse, just different. I think his neck clasp is a little more visible on this figure. Is this the right figure to include in this book? Obviously, you want a darksider to go in here, and one unique from what appears in the playsets. I saw some grumbling that the robed Palpatine from Revenge of the Sith isn't in here, and that is annoying since we've never gotten him in a set (unless Lego ever gets around to doing a Senate Duel set with him, Yoda, and a Senate pod.) The only other figure that could have worked would be a Vader with Luke's head under the helmet, but wouldn't we want a unique mold of Vader's helmet cracked open? Lego wouldn't waste a mold on a book-exclusive figure. I guess this version of Palpy is the best we could hope for. He's really not bad, and if you can get the book on sale, then it's not a bad price for the figure. For fun, here's all the book-exclusive figures we've gotten so far (except for the one from The Yoda Chronicles, which I never got). For fun, I'm throwing in the two movie-exclusive figures. From left to right, top to bottom: "Employee of the Month" Vader (The Empire Strikes Out film); Young Han Solo (The Padawan Menace film), Stormtrooper (Minifigures Year by Year), Ceremonial Han Solo (Character Encyclopedia), Palpatine (The Dark Side), Classic Luke Skywalker (2014 Visual Dictionary), Ceremonial Luke Skywalker (2008 Visual Dictionary). Verdict: Buy it, but supply your own staff or lightsaber.

Yes, in the U.S., taxes are applied to the base price, and the sales tax varies depending on what city and state you're in. I can't account for New York, as I've never bought Lego there. Most states have a sales tax of around 6%. Some individual cities add their own sales tax, so you might pay an additional 1% based on location. A few states have *no* sales tax and you're just paying base price. Delaware is about 2 hours south of New York and has no sales tax. I occasionally take trips through Delaware, and the Christiana Mall is off exit 4 of Interstate 95 and has a Lego Store, so I like to stop there for some tax-free shopping. That's probably not convenient for your purposes, but keep it in mind just in case someone does go to Delaware instead of NY. Your best bet for buying Lego in the U.S. are places like Wal-Mart and Target since they sell at the advertised base price. They will occassionally have sales where a few dollars are knocked off, and you will also sometimes find sets on clearance for 30 to 50% off. This is not something you can rely on, but I have scored some good prices at both stores.

Just needs some flickable missiles to make it a true Microfighter. Also, now you need to make a T-16 Skyhopper in MF style to fight it. Nice work.

The 2002 Star Wars Republic Gunship was pretty bad. First, it has a load of stickers all over everything. Second, this was when Lego used pretty lousy stickers, so when I took the ship out of storage a few years later, they'd all cracked and peeled. I finally sold the ship a few months ago (used it to finance the newer model), but it was stickerless. I wonder how much more I would have gotten had it been intact.

Has anyone tried the OYO brand yet? For those unaware: Oyo has the license to make bricks for American Major sports, like Major League baseball and NFL football. They may be exclusive to sports stadiums, as I've never seen them in stores. I took my daughter to a Phillies game today, and the promotional giveaway was an Oyo Phillies dugout with a Phillie Phanatic minifigure. It's free "Lego," so I won't complain about that. It's something like 40 bricks, including the parts that make the figure. The figure by himself retails for $12.99, so that and the bricks I guess make for a decent value (though as a Lego set, this would probably be a $4.99 polybag--the licensing fee must be through the roof). What we got looks something like this (the actual colors turned out to be a little different): I will say the following: one, it's free, so I don't have a lot of room to complain. Two, the bricks seem a little harder and I wonder if they'll prove to be brittle over time. They don't seem to have the same slight flexibility that actual Lego bricks have. Three, the printing on the dugout roof is lousy. It's literally printed right on top of the studs and is only readable if you're looking at it directly from above. At least Lego would have used a tile with studs only on the border. Four, the minifigure isn't great. Aside from the facial printing (Lego would have made a full-on Phanatic head), he really doesn't hold together very well. The arms and hands pop out of their sockets very easily. The feet do plug into studs, but you REALLY have to press to get them in and he's otherwise inclined to lean backwards on his loose feet. I was tempted to buy another Oyo set at the ballpark, but the prices are pretty high and I'm dissatisfied with the quality of the parts. I do, however, wish that I'd gotten some baseball players from the CMF series to get some ballgames going in my city.

(Note: Darn the title length limit on these threads! The full title was supposed to be "What's your oldest minifigure, how has it held up, and what are you doing with it?" I'm curious on what EBers out there do with their older stuff--your Lego which really hasn't stood the test of time, but you still have in your collection for whatever reason. Going through my collection, I discovered that we have an old, beat up Town minifig which I probably got in the mid 1980s. I'm fairly certain he came from 6699, Cycle Fix It Shop, and for all I know he's the only surviving part of that set still in my possession. (I have some classic brown hairpieces, so one of those must be his, but I can't positively match them up.) So yeah, he's pretty bad. His joints are loose, he's got lots of nicks and scratches (I can only assume that I bit him at some point), the paint is badly faded, and he's got lots of discoloration. He has bits of glue on his legs from when I cemented him to a sculpture are part of a high school art project. (Don't look at me like that--you glued your Lego too.) Still, he's an otherwise functional minifigure and I didn't want him to go to waste. So, here's how I cleaned him up: I decided to make him a Vitruvius-type character for our town. Since he's an old figure, he's become a sort of grizzled old man for our town who fixes up things (like recreating a Classic Space robot) or building wacky inventions (like this flamethrower). I grabbed a spare hat, beard, and back clip, and it's amazing how just those few additions made him look a lot cleaner. Yes, I could subject him to the peroxide whitening process, but somehow I think the yellowing gives him character. We've named him "Ancient Bill" (forget "Old"--I bet this guy predates most of the people who post here), and my daughter's Friends minidolls regularly go to him for advice now. I'm curious what the rest of you do. Do you have a weathered old minifigure in your collection? Who's your oldest minifig, and how are you utilizing him or her after so many years?

I do, particularly since my daughter is now into Harry Potter and wasn't a few years ago when the theme went away. We JUST got in on the tail end of things. The two HP polybags were still hanging around Target a few years ago, so I grabbed them as gifts for my wife, who was a HP fan--they eventually went to our kid. The mini Hogwarts Express is still available in a number of Five Below stores around here. And you can still get the two DK HP books--the Visual Dictionary and the Character Encyclopedia--which both come with a Harry figure. I did find the last Hogwarts set on clearance a year ago, so we snagged that and my kid got it for Christmas. Regrettably, I haven't found any others. I still keep hoping that I'll find Hagrid's Hut or the Dark Forest somewhere out there in the wild, but no luck so far.

I haven't built any Heroica yet. A few weeks ago, I got four of the Heroica sets on MASSIVE discount at Toys R Us--something like $5 or less for each set. (I also got the Harry Potter Hogwarts game for the same price. Thank goodness I waited on that one.) I haven't opened them yet, as I'm curious if they're worthwhile games, particularly as one massive build or not. We only own a few Lego Games: Monster 4, Ramses Pyramid, and Creationary. Monster 4 and Ramses Pyramid are both OK, but you play them a few times and then get bored with them. Creationary is loads of fun and is really the model for how Lego Games should have worked--being creatively focused. I hate to say it, but I found a lot of the Games series to be more useful as a cheap source of pieces when I've found them on clearance. I nabbed very-discounted sets of Magicus and Sunblock. I bought two copies of Magicus, one for cheap parts. The other we played a few times and then sold in a yard sale. Sunblock, I never played--I just had a project where I needed those particular parts. Anyway, back to Heroica--I'd like to know how well it plays as a board game.

I'm hoping Creative Ambush goes on clearance sometime soon so I can get this guy: He's one of the more film-accurate MMs, no?

Last year, I found some Harry Potter Hogwarts (the last, smaller set) and Quidditch sets on clearance for around $10 US. I got the Hogwarts but not the Qudditch, thinking that my daughter only needed one. Why didn't I get both?

Well, this is true of a lot of short minifigs. I bought every dwarven Hobbit minifigure so I could recreate the dinner at Bilbo's, and they're all standing on the stools.

DOUBLE. DECKER. COUCH. God bless the good people at Lego if this is in a simple, affordable set. Double bless them if Benny is included.

I have no idea what the committee is willing to pay. I imagine if she has a lot of potential artists out there, she can solicit bids.

I got my ship today! I can't believe how much fun it is once the whole thing is assembled. There's a bunch of leftover pieces like extra orange studs which are intended for the blasters, but I just hid those inside the nose of the ship. Does anybody have recommendations on the best way to seat and store the characters? There really aren't any weapons racks on the ship, so it's a little awkward to store Gamora's swords and Quill's helmet. Also, Rocket doesn't really want to sit comfortably anywhere (and there's, of course, nowhere to store Groot other than to have him stand on the roof Metalbeard style).

So do commissioned works usually require blueprints or building plans? I don't know if she does or doesn't have those available. I'm sure there's plenty of photos of the site available. I believe this is the building: (Again, I'm not soliciting for bids or anything here. I'm just trying to get a sense of where one would go to find an artist.)

I wish the Lego Store would put 4 x 4 black plates back in the PAB wall so we could stock up on Micro Manager parts...!

Looks like Target has the Milano for $5 US cheaper this week. I guess that works out OK for me--I almost bought it yesterday but decided to hold off. I'd prefer to get it at the Lego Store to get the points, but it was sold out at the one I frequent. EDIT: It's $70 on Target's website, but not in stores. However, Target will price-match its own website if you bring it to their attention at customer service.

Feeling silly today.

Oh gee, I just noticed this thread. Put me down near Annapolis, MD.

Yeah, listen. Let me reaffirm a few things: - There is nothing wrong with collecting Lego. - There is nothing wrong with building and enjoying your own masterpieces or highly detailed cities. - There is nothing wrong with teaching your kids to respect your stuff. (That's a good and valuable lesson and should be done.) The movie was about none of those things. The Man Upstairs had two problems. One, he wasn't just a collector, but an obsessive one. It's very obvious that his desire to build the ultimate Lego display was disrupting his relationship with his son. Lord Business is very obviously the personification of how Finn perceives his dad: as an OCD megalomaniac. That was incredibly, 100% obvious when Finn's dad came downstairs wearing his big, red tie (which is what Business' helmet and cape looks like from behind). The dad did not have an obviously good relationship with his son. His anger at Finn's creations was based less on "touching my stuff" and more because his perfect little world had been rearranged. Think about it. Have you ever seen two kids fighting over a toy, and your reaction is to teach the toy's owner to share? We'd probably be completely in the right to tell the second kid that the property belongs to the first kid, so buzz off. However, we realize that there's also value in charity and generosity, and destructiveness in being selfish. Yes, kid #2 needs to respect kid #1's stuff, but what a cruel world we'd live in if nobody shared. I think the Dad gets this when Finn explains his storyline and he picks up the Lord Business figure. The Dad very clearly looks at the Business figure and realizes that it's how his son perceives him: as a cruel, collecting-obsessed jerk who's putting perfection over relationships. Dad is looking in a very awful mirror at that moment and realizes that he needs to lighten the heck up and spend time with his son. Hence, the second issue: Finn is a very creative kid and Dad doesn't really notice it. Dad is horrified that Finn would put Batman and a Dragon into a City scene and thinks that the Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP! is a mess. He can't conceive of a world without borders. Finn has perfect childlike imagination where Batman, Ninja Turtles, Gandalf and Star Wars can all team up. BE HONEST: everyone here thinks that a Batman/Star Wars crossover would be the stupidest thing ever and there's no way to pull it off believably. If I told you two years ago that there would be a movie were Batman meets Star Wars, 90 percent of you out there would think it's impossible and there's no way it could be done. Except...the Lego Movie did it. That's the point. Finn was supposed to be incredibly creative and able to see his own world beyond the instructions. There was nothing wrong with Dad's world--Emmet made that point when he told Business that he was ALSO the Special. But Emmet/Finn were special too, and Dad was completely missing that in his son. Fortunately, he got that in the end when he finally came to appreciate Finn's creations. (And let's face it, you appreciate them too. You were totally cheering when the citizens rose up against the Micro Managers.) I see that with my own kid who's a budding Lego builder. She doesn't want things to be precisely according to the instructions. She's constantly pulling apart the Lego Friends and trying to rearrange their outfits into new ways. She's made a horrible house out of a mishmosh of green and pink bricks, but it's her house and she loves it. Even better, I'm her dad, so if she's serious about building then I have a responsibility to teach her some Lego tricks so that she can be a Master Builder herself. Sure, I can build my perfect City and tell her to keep her hands off, but in the end I'll be left with a frozen brick city that doesn't love me back, and a kid who won't love me back either. There is nothing wrong with collecting and MOCing. There just isn't. However, it's still just toys. It can't substitute for a relationship with your kids if you have one. Your bricks don't love you back. Your kids can. If you want to designate what's yours and what's theirs, go ahead and do that, but don't forget to spend time building what's yours, plural, you and your kids, together. That's what the dad missed until the climax.

I found the Lego Creationary Booster Pack at TRU for six cents today. You read that right: six cents. It's not the world's greatest find, but we enjoy Creationary and we've probably already gone through all the cards.

...yes, but that's why I also said