jonwil

Yeah, I think a Subway would look good with this station (and I have seen plenty of service stations with Subway restaurants inside)

I haven't seen a roadhouse with a McDonalds before. All the proper roadhouses I have seen tend to have diners rather than fast food joints (and I have been all the way from Perth to Brisbane and back on the roads of this great country of ours) I have seen plenty of big city petrol stations with fast food joints nearby (including McDonalds). But in all my travels across this land, I have NEVER seen a small town petrol station or outback roadhouse with a fast food joint, its always a diner of some sort (which may offer fast food like chips, hot dogs, burgers and so on) Something else I have seen at a number of outback/small town petrol stations is arcade machines (particularly on routes commonly frequented by tourists rather than truckies). Parents will give their kids a go on the machine whilst they fill up with petrol and buy food and stuff.

Does anyone out there have some ready made templates that are sized for different elements that I can use to create custom stickers without the need to print parts, re-size, print, re-size and so on until I get the sizing right? Something that's slightly smaller than the actual size of the part to make it easier to apply. Mostly looking for stickers sized to fit various bricks.

BTW if anyone is looking for it, the new brick box with the green baseplate lid piece is now available (spotted it in various places)

I have been known to have MOCs sitting there next to me on my bedside table just so I can stare at them as I go to sleep (and think of ideas to make them better)

Some things I have seen at Roadhouses: CDs/cassettes (so people have something to listen to during the long drives through areas with no radio reception) Snacks (chips, chocolate bars, ice-creams etc) Oil, engine coolant and other motoring supplies Newspapers and magazines Lots of fattening food like burgers, chips etc

Not sure if this has been mentioned before but I would like to see a piece that's like the 1 x 2 with one stud except that its 1 x 3 with 2 studs. And the same thing but 1 x 4 with 3 studs. Both parts would be very usefull for detailing work and stuff. I want them both in Tan.

As of earlier today, Target in Morley had not only the new Creator sets (log cabin etc) but also ALL the new Atlantis sets including the big temple with all the grooved column pieces (naturally I couldn't say no to buying that set at 20% off). A few picked-over boxes of figs also. (although Target in the CBD seems to be the best place to find figs right now or maybe MYER CBD) MYER Morley had the Creator stuff, don't remember seeing any figs though (but wasnt paying attention). K-Mart had nothing notable. Didn't check TRU.

Make sure you have a coffee machine in there somewhere (with a big sign above it saying "truck driver coffee here"). Every roadhouse across the Nullabor Plain seems to spend big $$$ attracting business from truckies with cheap food, cheap/free coffee etc (probably because truck drivers tend to be repeat customers)

There is a roman gladiator in Series 5 aparently.

No sign of any of the creator stuff in the Perth CBD or at Target in Victoria Park. MYER and Target in the CBD both had plenty of S3 figs (I am starting to regret the fact that I bought the S3 figs at full price but what can ya do :) Plenty of police, NinjaGo and Starwars as well. If anyone in Perth spots the 2 small creator sets (front-end loader and airplane) please let me know where you spotted them and what the normal price was.

Great start, I can already picture this looking like the roadhouses I saw all across the Nullabor Plain a few years ago when I crossed it in a car :)

WOW that's amazing. I must try and get back to Brickvention in the future (biggest problem is that airfares from Perth cost lots of money :( )

1.More civilian cars as stand-alone small sets. And preferably in interesting colors like green or blue or orange instead of the usual red or yellow so often seen on civilian cars. How about a closed-top sports car in the style of cars like the Nissan 350z, Porsche 911 and similar (rather than the usual convertible that TLG seems to do). Or a pickup truck? Or an SUV? (maybe similar to the one in the horse trailer set). Or maybe a hatchback or station wagon? Each car would come with only the car and a driver, nothing else (so no telephone or whatever like in the recent red sports car set). 2.Barber shop/hairdresser. Could come with a whole pile of different hair pieces for kids to have fun trying different hair on their figs. Would be popular with AFOLs as well as a source of hair. Minifigs could be one barber/hairdresser plus 3 customers (plus the aforementioned hair). Inside the shop would be some barber chairs to cut the hair in, a sink for washing hair, a front counter and maybe a rack of shampoos and stuff. The box for this set would exclaim in big letters all about the play feature of the multiple different hairpieces (could be an excuse to produce certain hairpieces in new colors) 3.A followup to the City Corner set. Could include maybe a burger joint or ice cream shop instead of the pizzeria, replace the bus with a few civilian cars instead, the bike shop could become a post office. Instead of the bus stop, maybe have a payphone. Minifigs would be postman on his postman bike (yellow bicycle would be great or maybe TLG could use this as a way to introduce a scooter), fast food worker, 2 drivers of the civilian cars plus 2 more figs (one of which would be a kid with the short legs)

I like that bee and wish I could get hold of one. Bit disappointed by this years Creator sets though, they just dont have the appeal of sets like the model town house, family home or beach house. Give me a Creator House (or any other Creator set with lots of basic parts for that matter) with as many pieces as the Model Town House or Family Home and with the right colors and I am SO there. Neither the Apple Tree House nor the Log Cabin have enough parts to make me want to buy.

That boxer looks great, cant see enough of the others to know for sure if they are any good. Maybe I can add boxing gear to my yet-to-be-built sports store :) Although if I keep waiting until I have every piece of sports equipment that exists, I will be waiting for a long time (every set so far has had sportspeople of some kind)

Any idea of a release date for the bank set or the police chase?

I think I remember a correction sheet from my 8444 Air Enforcer and I think also from the NASA Discovery Mars Mission Rocket set.

Something else to remember in the exchange rate discussion is that the exchange rate may not remain favorable in the long term. So in 6 months when the next containers full of police sets or NinjaGo or Star Wars or other 1h2011 sets get ordered and imported, the AUD may not be as good and therefore (even assuming no change in wholesale prices in USD terms) the wholesale AUD price would have to go up, putting pressure on retailers (who for obvious reasons cant raise their prices)

WOW this is a nice set. Not interested in it myself since I dont build train much and since it doesn't have enough Maresk Blue to do anything usefull with (and since I have so many other wishlist items this year like the Atlantis temple and Diagon Alley) but I am sure the guys at the club will be interested.

Nice MOC. Although it feels a little large compared to the size of the figs IMO.

Another thing is that the big retailers (regardless of how good the dollar is or what wholesale price they pay) don't want to have the new product (which may have been purchased at a lower wholesale price for a given size set due to the favorable dollar) on the shelf at a cheaper price than a similar sized older set (e.g. compare the new police station to similar sized sets from last year that may have been bought when the dollar wasnt so good)

What I dont get is that we have declining sales of LEGO AND we have an exchange rate that is far better than it was this time last year yet our prices go UP (and I dont think it can be explained by the price of oil either). Raising prices in the face of declining sales isn't exactly a good business model...

The dots on the ones I bought yesterday matched the codes.

Nice job although I think it would look better with some kind of observation/end car (the kind with the wraparound windows or the open balcony at the back) instead of the caboose. Were cabooses normally found on passenger trains?