mostlytechnic

They were giving out the new store calendar at my local store today, so here's the May calendar. Personally, not exciting. Nothing really new revealed - all the sets shown are already out. The only interesting thing to me is the TWO VIP early release sets mid-month.... (click links for higher-res versions) IMG_9356.jpg by mostlytechnic, on Flickr IMG_9361.jpg by mostlytechnic, on Flickr

I think it's because it's a given that figs will be printed. And figs usually get their own discussion in reviews. So they're left out of the "printed" section. At least that's always been my logic. Same reason I didn't mentally include the brush in the printed stuff group - they're always printed, so nothing special to report unless it's a new style. You're right - that exact fig is from 1994 (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?M=pi022#T=S&O={"iconly":0}) I suspect they were thinking about Captain Red Beard (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?M=pi055#T=S&O={"iconly":0}) since that's the first use of those legs. Why wouldn't they have gotten that right? And why wouldn't they have used Red Beard - has the same hook and leg, but looks so much cooler than the pirate used.

You are (technically) correct :-) - I was mentally excluding the microfigs just like we don't count minifigs in "printed parts"

I also wondered about that Arctic fig - that's part of why I added the photos of the timeline, to see if the EBers had explanations for them. I get that Ninjago has sold a ton of sets and been popular. I still don't think of it as classic in the way the rest of the microfigs are. I didn't factor in the cost of the purchase - I was comparing it in my mind to other freebies. Assuming I'm spending $50-100 on Lego anyway, I thought this was a way cooler freebie than most of the ones I've gotten over the years.

Lego 5005358 Minifigure Factory As part of the 40th Anniversary celebration by Lego, they're giving this set as a freebie with $75 purchases in April 2018. I got mine for buying some sets I wanted and figured I'd share this cool free set. Name: Minifigure Factory Set Number: 5005358 Pieces: 86 Price: $Free (with $75 purchase) Minifigs: 1 (plus 5 microfigs) Theme: n/a Year of Release: 2018 Links: Bricklink Brickset The Box An unusual box, since all the normal print is a paper wrapper around the actual box. The Back of the Box That is a massive number of warning languages. The Wrapper and Box The wrapper slides off, revealing a printed box underneath. The box itself is not sealed at all - it just has a tab in a slot on the top. The Contents Inside are the manual, a printed interior, a grey plate that's glue into place in the box, a printed card, and the bag of parts. Interestingly, the bag is not the normal type of plastic that Lego uses. This plastic is softer and not crinkly. The Minifigs The Lego worker is a GREAT figure. The choice of yellow for the shirt is awkward though. I know it's the standard employee shirt (such as in Lego stores), but on the yellow-skinned fig it's weird. Is it a long sleeve shirt? If it was short-sleeved would we even know? Or is it sleeveless? But enough about him. Check out those microfigs! I think the white "hat" on the policeman is weird since it's not an actual hat, but I can overlook that. The Minifigs' Backs There's no second face on the figure, and limited printing on the microfigs, but I can't complain. The Build, 1 Not shown, you first build a little red cart. The main part of the build is shown like this - building on the grey plate - but the actual plate is glued into place in the box. Makes things a little more difficult for the big-handed among us, but nothing too hard. The Build, 2 The Build, 3 The assembly line itself. 2 of the 3 printed parts are shown here. The set includes 1x2 printed tiles in the yellow/black stripe pattern (4 of them), a 1x4 tile in the same pattern, and a 1x2 tile with a segmented arrow that's from the Boost and Ninjago City sets. But why green paint on the brush? They made a new paintbrush with medium azure paint on it for the Easter set - why not make that set and this one share a brush in a more common color, like red or blue? I'm thinking there must be another use for the medium azure brush coming, but that's just me thinking Lego wouldn't have made a custom printed brush for that one freebie set. Then again, they did custom print the egg for it.... The Build, 4 The assembly line sits onto the base and then pins are inserted from the back.... I sense a play feature coming! The card goes onto the pins and is held in place by Technic half bushes. Unfortunately, the card covers up the 2 printed photos on the back of the box (or at least one a time, depending on how the line is positioned). I love the detail Lego put into these - it wouldn't be a Lego set without a coffee cup, and they tied the green paintbrush in with the left picture. The Build, 5 This is why that card was added. As you slide the line back and forth, the picture in the window changes to match the microfig below. Simple but so cool of a feature to add. And nice representation of the minifigure patent hanging on the wall. The Build, 6 And we have the figure in his spot, working hard inspecting the microfigures. Not shown is one big flaw that I can't believe made it to production. You cannot slide the line far enough to the right to have the Pixal image fully in the window. It needs to go another stud over, but it can't. There's a stop on the underside of the line, plus it's hitting the side of the box. The End of the Manual The end of the manual has a 2 page spread of the history of the minifigure. The End of the Manual, 2 This page covers some more recent minifigure advances. Short legs, baby figs, but why is Mr. Gold on here? He was part of Series 10, so not the start of the collectible lines, and he's a figure that many fans are bitter about since he was so hard to find. The Conclusion I love this freebie. The microfigs are great representations of classic figures (well, most of them - I'm not sure that Pixal is worthy of inclusion) and it's a clever set. It closes back up nicely for storage, but this is one that will be sitting out on a lot of shelves I'm sure. The Ratings Value: 10/10 - It was free with purchase. And you get a custom box, custom printed microfigs, a cool minifig, and nice play features. Design: 8/10 - The box is great, but the line can't slide quite far enough to the right. Minifigs: 10/10 - IMHO, Pixal should have been something else. A castle fig would have been better, but I suspect Pixal was chosen both to represent Ninjago AND because the purple stands out. Playability: 8/10 - Small and simple, but clever design. Parts: 9/10 - I always love having the printed hazard stripe tiles, but these will be staying in this set. Otherwise nothing special, but nothing more was really needed. Overall: 9.5/10 - It's hard to complain about a freebie, but I do wish the line slid over further and they'd picked a different last microfig.

Just got my VIP Black card today! Looks nice, makes a nice little souvenir but little actual value (ebay, etc) since they're customized. Although I just looked, and there's actually been a few sold on ebay and they go for an average of around $100! (some were $150, one was $15, etc) The weird thing to me - it mailed direct from Budapest Hungary. Surely it would have been easier/cheaper to print them in Hungary, ship a big box of them to the US, and then mail them out here?

Is the twisting tower possibly as simple as 2x2 jumpers stacked and rotated slightly each time? It looks like about the right scale for that.

Gotta start saving my pennies for that Mack truck. (checking VIP account... woo, I've got $60 there, so that's a good start!) Have to say though, it's sorta weird to me. Looks like a very American tractor, but very Euro trailer. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that here in the USA.

Great job! Looks good anyway, and you did a great job copying the reference building. Any shots of that grand piano? Was it something you designed or something you got somewhere?

It's like they don't even try - they obviously took the real EN box and poorly edited it. You can see that the N in Nemerald is different than the rest of the word, and the 10194 is still visible on the front of the train, etc. Oh, and you can clearly see the 19104 under the windows of the loco too.

Very cool model! I may have to build one of them myself...

Interesting design. I can't say I've ever seen a forklift with that mechanism - it works, but yeah, it's not the most sturdy design. Clever though! And probably easier to automate than a string-based lift system.

I'm sure you COULD go without the middle two supports, but it'd take more rebuilding of the internal framework to make it hold the weight of a train. I still might try it though... I do agree it'd look better (and be way more impressive...)

I do like your changes - the double-lane version looks great, just too bad I don't need that :) And yes, I'm definitely making the towers taller to get more clearance for trains (and look a little less weird on scale). One thing I did was add a block in the center to attach the suspension cables to - fixing it in the center makes it "hang" a little nicer. I'm also planning to change the bases, since the open ends look odd.

In my situation i need exactly the 6 tracks long and one end is coming off a cliff face, so this bridge layout is what i need. I'm making a big U shape so I'll have two of these with a half circle between them. I've just gotta figure out the semicircle part now. I already have the area covered in blue baseplates so I'll add some white and blue water hitting the base. I'm also going to add more of the suspension rope to the outer ends and make that look better.

My train layout needs a big bridge - I have a wing of the table that is lower by about 4 inches and has 6 straights, a semi-circle, and 6 more straights supposed to go over it. I'd thought about getting some of the rare girder pieces from the 7900 Heavy Loader set to make a steel bridge, but I didn't think I'd really like the look. When the first pictures came out at the beginning of the year of the Spider-Man Ultimate Bridge Battle set, I knew I had my bridge. Sadly, for some reason, the set came out in Europe months before the US. Thanks to Amazon.de, I fixed that problem AND saved some money :) The US price is supposed to be $100 for the set, but I got 4 sets shipped from Europe for about $360 once VAT was removed. And shockingly, they arrived in 3 days! I put all the figs up on Bricklink to pay for my addiction, and started building. I first built them all stock, and then I looked at combining them into a longer bridge. Let's face it, the designer 100% KNEW people would do this. The set is HALF a bridge after all... and it's got a number of ways it was well designed for this usage! First, here's the stock set in case you don't know it: That breakaway section where the taxi is crashing looks like a potential problem, since it's a weak point. And the broken off end of the bridge will clearly have to go. So that's what I did - I took 2 sets, removed the broken end (which is a separate piece and comes off easily and cleanly! See, told you it was designed for this!), connected them end to end, and then started modding away the breakaway. It was pretty easy to do without needing extra pieces. The only pieces I ended up needing from my collection were a couple dark grey 1x2 plate with clip to extend the red/grey cable arch all the way. Enough talking, here it is: IMG_2298.jpg by mostlytechnic, on Flickr I'm still going to mod a few more things (take off some of the spiderwebs, change the base a little, etc) but it's about 98% done. There's a few flaws, like having 4 pillars under the bridge that's supposed to be a SUSPENSION bridge, but oh well. I didn't redesign it enough to take those middle pillars off without it breaking when weight is on it. But it's exactly 6 track pieces long and it's sized just big enough for stock Lego train sets to work. The actual floor of the bridge is 10 studs wide, and all the stock trains I have will fit through with minor adjustments: IMG_2300.jpg by mostlytechnic, on Flickr Maersk loco fits just fine. Scale's a little off, but it fits cleanly through. IMG_2301.jpg by mostlytechnic, on Flickr The yellow 7939 loco fits, IF you fold the pantograph completely down, and then it has a tiny tiny clearance. I'd probably just remove the pantograph completely. IMG_2302.jpg by mostlytechnic, on Flickr The red 3677 locomotive fits except for the horns on top. Pull them off, and you're through. IMG_2303.jpg by mostlytechnic, on Flickr The Maersk container cars fit though too. IMG_2299.jpg by mostlytechnic, on Flickr Then end of the bridge never seen on the box looks like this - clean and ready to attach to whatever, with both Technic holes for making a good connection. Even though everything fits, I'll still probably add a couple rows of bricks to provide more comfortable clearance and in case I run any taller loads around. Anyone else planning to do this?

I agree, I liked the restricted PM idea. I think a NO pm game would be tough, but something where you have to slowly build a group would be cool. Or smaller groups like this was. There's lots of ways... but basically, something to keep the game from turning into a mostly-via-PM event.

Thanks for the fun times, and for the unexpected extra day I got to live, and for letting me survive for a sequel :) I was optimistic with the scum team at the start, but once we had one caught the first night, I knew we were in trouble. And in retrospect, I'm sorta kicking myself for the vig claim. I was too worried about being rolecopped, and I should have risked it and not claimed. Oh well... it was fun.

You "giving me a chance" and me voting for you have nothing to do with each other. I answered your chance - there's nothing left for me to say. As I said, either you or Godalupe is an ultimatio, so I have to vote for one of you two. Neither has posted enough to have a solid read, but my gut says you're more likely. That's the best I can do.

What more do you possibly want me to say? I've been open and honest this whole adventure, worked to hunt the Ultimatios, and already explained my vig actions each night. Nothing left I can pull out of my backside as evidence or I would have shared it yesterday! We have a rolecop, blocker, and tracker, who have pretty well proven themselves and cross-checked each other. So that leaves Alarico or Godalupe as "vanillas" - one of which is really Ultimatio! Neither one has been very talkative this game, and so I'm just flipping a coin and going with a gut feeling... Vote: Alarico Leyva (forresto) because I almost killed him off night 1 from a gut feeling, but didn't because we had too few people to risk it

Ah, that makes much more sense now. I think the clear answer then is to lynch John McClane! Seriously though, that does help. Believe me I do understand the drive to lynch me today, and I know you all probably will, but it's a mistake. I don't know why we have competing vig claims - that'd only make sense in a small game if we had alternating days or something, and I had no limitations on my kill ability, it's just a normal vig role - but I can just tell you all the truth like I have been all game.

So I thought about this a ton while driving to work today, and I still can't figure this out... To be honest, this seems logical, except I know it's not true. I assume Adone failed for some reason since I'm still here, but I'm not an Ultimatio. So don't lynch me or we'll lose our vig. I'm struggling to believe this, because I was successful in killing Adone. Are you sure you submitted to block me and not Adone?

And for the record - I was SHOCKED to see him flip mafia! I have no idea why he was lying, because I'm the vig and I'm not ultimatio. So I assumed he must be. Is it possible that we had 2 vigs? Odds of us targeting the same people seems low, but not impossible, since sometimes it's the logical thing to do, but I'm struggling to accept that we could have had 2 vigs in such a small game. And if we were both the vig, where was the scum kill last night? Is there any scum role that shows town even when they're dead? That seems like cheating it'd be so powerful.... We need some clarity on who was blocked last night and what anyone else did/saw, so that we can figure this mess out.

Yeah, we need to get that stuff straightened out, because all I know is I'm the vig, I submitted a kill on Adone last night like we said we were going to do, and he's dead and I'm not. Oh, and I was told that my kill on him was successful. So I wasn't blocked, at least not successfully.

Since we're the only 2 still talking... Yep, I was the last vote on Frank. It was pretty obvious he was going to get lynched, so if I was his scumbuddy, I'd have thrown my vote in earlier to prevent exactly this accusation. Like you did. If you go back and look, I was consistent in defending him against what I thought was a poorly thought accusation. I still think it was not the best logically, but it did work out. But the thing that changed my mind finally was Masharin's tracker claim, since that made it clear that Frank was scum. So as soon as I saw that, I voted against Frank. Check the record from yesterday - the first time I posted after the tracker claim was when I voted. I simply wasn't online earlier to do it. Speaking of yesterday's vote - where did Frank put his? On Adone. Seems scummy in retrospect. Yes, it's some serious WIFOM, since Frank's good enough to know we know that he knows that we know that his vote could be taken either way... so was he trying to deflect suspicion from his scumbuddy? Or not? Again, everyone's call to make. And it has been fun dueling with you Adone. One tip for the future based on your post above this one - it's a game, not personal. Don't feel bad killing people off. Don't feel bad playing as a scum and killing loyal townies off either. And don't feel bad if you're ever the vig and get a call wrong and kill a teammate. I've done it. It happens.