jonwil

No sign of the Fire Brigade at David Jones in Perth as of Tuesday.

For the small car, you could build something like an Astra or Cruze. As for the Ute, here is a 6-wide commodore UTE design I built that may give you some ideas (although if I was building one now I would build it differently) http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3795042 http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3795043

Nice gas station. As for the sign, I dont think its too big, especially if this was a gas station located near a motorway, freeway, highway or other major road (many of those have really big signage so they are visible from a far off distance giving people time to switch into the exit lane for the gas station)

You will find that you cant buy all the parts from other sets as there are some parts (including the sticker sheet and green rock pieces) that are exclusive to this set.

FYI, the new technic pneumatic log loader and the new technic buggy are now available in David Jones and Target (if not elsewhere). The log loader was ~$100 in both stores and the buggy was somewhere near $50 Those prices dont bode well for the motorized excavator and mobile crane due out later in the year (both of which have more than double the amount of parts in the log loader and one of which has a fairly large amount of Power Functions parts)

When you make the chemist, you should make a sticker promoting whichever flavor of chemist weight loss treatment goes with the chemist brand you pick. Seems as though you cant walk into any chemist anymore without being assaulted by marketing and push for all kinds of chemist based weight loss solutions (and not only is it wall-to-wall in the stores, its wall-to-wall ads on the TV these days too)

To me, if TLG was to produce a new kind of "elevated train" (or a tram for that matter) they would be best off using the Indiana Jones Temple 6-wide train track and producing 4-wide vehicles to sit on top of that track. It is the cheapest option and new shapes could easily be added to the track lineup if required. There would not be the option to motorize these new sets but it wouldn't be needed (if you want motorized, buy the new passenger train or freight train) As for those who say that its disappointing the lack of City sets, note the large number we have gotten already this year. Total city sets known about so far in 2010: Advent Calendar Small Car Seaplane Repair Truck Tanker Truck Passenger Plane Airport LEGO truck Helicopter and Limo Fire Helicopter Fire Boat Fire Station Fire Off-Road Truck and Boat Farmer impulse Traveler impulse Pig Farm and Tractor TRU Delivery Truck Level Crossing Train Station Passenger Train Cargo Train Family House City Public Transport That's 20+ sets for the year in the City theme.

If these (series 1) are really comming out in Australia by May, that would be great, means I got a chance to obtain the ones I want (skateboarder, magician and maybe the clown) for use in MOCs for the next club train layout (the skateboarder torso and maybe hair and head will look good as a "punk teenager" for use as bus passengers, amusement ride passengers, go-kart drivers and other places. I need more generic civilian torsos for people like businesspeople, kids, teenagers, old people, bus passengers, amusement park visitors etc :) Now all I need to hope for is that someone comes up with a way to make a rabbit sized to fit the Top Hat piece :P Hey, with the handcuffs piece I could do Harry Houdini :)

Nice job on the baseball player, looks great.

Great signs, perfect. For lower signs you could use the setup used in the new traveler impulse set. It has the 2 x 2 tile sign base (as seen in many sets) with the new 1 x 1 brick with stud on side and then attaches a 2 x 2 tile with computer screen on the side stud. You could easily stick a 1 x 2 tile on that stud and make it work.

Disney is well known for spreading licensing around between companies. For example, LEGO has a license for Price Of Persia, Toy Story and Cars but Mega Bloks still has a license for Micky's Clubhouse (as Duplo-esque sets) and possibly for Disney Princess and others.

Nice bank, very batman looking. Now you just need some nice villain breaking into your bank...

Looks good. Needs Bacon and Cheese though :P

Bah, yet ANOTHER product to add to the list of "things Australia gets later than the rest of the world" (LEGO and otherwise including movies, video games etc) :(

Are you sure you mean 7998? 7998 is not a train, its a truck :)

If you are going to build a milk car, you could build it in blue/white and stick PURA milk logos on it.

Whilst I dont see a MOC built by an AFOL as something TLG could sell, what I think could work would be for an AFOL-aimed technic set (something like the Emerald Night, Town Plan and Imperial Flagship but as a Technic set). Something more interesting than cranes, front end loaders, backhoes etc. Something we havent seen done in technic or havent seen in years (for example, how about a plane similar to the one in the 4593 fast fliers only in technic with working movable wings, movable wing/tail flaps, landing gear that goes up and down etc. Whatever internal rules allowed the 4593 and the new fighter airplane comming out later in the year to be made (even though such sets are of "fighter jets") could also allow a technic set to be made Or a large scale "working" model of a V8 engine where you can see the pistons move up and down, the crankshaft rotate, the cam and valves move etc. Or another technic super car (as good as the 8880)

If you re-built it in white instead of red, you could brand it as a Muzz Buzz drive through coffee shop.

Prototypes from LEGO are essentially NEVER allowed out of the company. Whether they are destroyed or stored in the LEGO archives/vaults I dont know (and it may differ depending on the prototype)

That helicopter reminds me of a steampunk version of the copter used by Inspector Gadget. That might be an interesting moc actually, "steampunk inspector gadget" :)

I tell everyone about it, friends, co-workers (well if I had a job I would tell my co-workers), family. In fact there was one job I interviewed for (but didnt get because I didnt have the experience they were looking for) where the head guy (small web design firm) is a LEGO fan.

If you want the heli/limo set, just find someone from Australia willing to buy and send you one (with you paying them somehow of course)

I think a Circus theme would sell GREAT. Different sets with circus performers like a strongman, acrobat, ringmaster, trapeze artist, clown, band etc. Plus animals like elephants, lions, horses etc And of course things like a big top and maybe even a circus train. The downside is that many parts of the world are banning circus animals (and many animal welfare groups are fighting circuses with animals) so releasing a circus theme may not be the best idea...

You buy sets now even though you know they will be cheaper if you wait a while. You buy sets because they are cheap even though you never had any real interest in them. You buy a set because you think you might use the parts later (and then never do of course) You buy a set to get a few parts even though you could just buy the parts on Bricklink for cheaper (as was the case with my recent purchase of the truck garage)

I saw some copies of the City Bulldozer marked with "clearance" stickers with only a small useless discount.