Zeya

Lorentzen, your backgrounds and water effects are amazing and really capture the imagination. We really appreciate your hard work putting this review together. I like how you give it an 11 out of 10! I noticed that the Peeron and Bricklink piece counts are different. Does anyone know why that is? I don't usually notice people citing both stats in reviews. I'm pretty sure I have a BSB and a Caribbean Clipper in a toy bucket at my mom's house, and I know one day I will be able to resurrect it from its tomb, and maybe piece it together and order missing parts on BL. One day... one day...

This is so cool! It's really entertaining. The lighting really sets the mood here. You must be using a blue LED light? I like this action shot. I like how you stuck his sword under the strap. And I'm jealous of your white and brown vines; I need some of those. Hehe.

Omg I'm sorry. I totally don't remember that at all! Sheesh. Well... Uh... *walks away quietly*

This is an interesting perspective. I think the fact that there is a near-uniform distribution of figures when compared to the rarity of a special baseball card makes it sort of a different animal. I would get angry and jealous too if there was a special figure, say a chrome gold C3P0 that was in one out of 200 packets and people were "farming" those. That type of thing would make me stop buying CMFs altogether, or just curb it back to buying a couple here or there from resellers. I think TLG has a disincentive to go the hard-plastic-hotwheels route; they would likely see sales drop. Hotwheels probably wouldn't do packet packaging because of the fact that the cars are made out of metal (punctures the bag) and possibly because I assume a hotwheel car costs more than a minifigure. It's very unfortunate that people just crack the case on the store shelves. Shame. If TLG were to package in plastic like that, I would stop collecting the CMFs. If they make it any harder to get what I want, I'm out. I already use the technique of buying ~60 packs, identifying my 16 or so figs and thus returning 44 or 40 of the duplicates that are unwanted. I do feel a little dirty, I admit. But all I want to do is get my set of 16. I'm not turning a profit or screwing over an eight-year-old's birthday party with that. Again, if there was a more extreme rarity distribution, the combination of the hassle and my resentment at the marketing technique would drive me from buying any of them.

I have found some lost pieces in my back yard from the previous occupants. One is a red 2x2 brick that is faded on one side and a bit chewed up. I also found two old light gray pieces; I'm not sure what they're called - it's like two-wide plate bent at 90 degrees so you can have studs hanging off the side. It's an older mold that I haven't seen in the sets I've bought since my dark age. I haven't really lost any parts yet. Whenever I drop something I fetch it immediately. Don't want my pet dogs picking it up or something. I was rummaging through the build-a-mini bin at a Lego store once, and this little girl picked up a minifigure head and paused for a moment... before popping it in her mouth and swallowing! It was pretty funny.

I don't understand the "PaB Wall Price" column. The total there is $11.58 - is that the price of the PaB cup, and then you divided the cost over each of the elements equally (equal price per part)? I just busted out a calculator and I think that's what you did, right? Nice work. I'm getting more and more tempted to visit my local PaB. I keep finding myself wanting grass, flowers, and "bamboo" pieces (I didn't know that's what they were called). I also need way more 1x1 and 1x2 tiles in earth tones and gray.

At one of my local Targets a couple days ago, they had these in the Lego aisle on a display just like that. I didn't price check it, but I know they didn't have the clearance sticker on them. So I would say YMMV. Nice score though! This really makes me think that CMF5 is right around the corner... any day now... P.S. 500th post! I'm a knight now!

I watched the first 3 parts of Ken Burns's "Civil War". It's like a 7 hour documentary about the American civil war. My dad made me watch it when I was a kid, and maybe not quite old enough to appreciate it, so I started it again for father's day (a holiday here in the US, not sure about the rest of the world). Excellent stuff. If you haven't seen a Ken Burns documentary, they're really a cut above your average "history cable/satellite channel" documentary. I would also recommend Ken Burns's treatment of WWII in 2007 with "The War". Everyone should watch that.

I like this. It's not perfect, but for the complexity of a Brickbeard's Bounty sized ship, it's pretty good. I would like to have seen some dark brown instead of gray; they really could add a little more color just to break up the monotony. The black sails are fantastic! Look at me with a straight face and tell me you weren't yearning for black sails. (Okay okay, you can just cut them out of black cloth at any time. Fine.) I don't see anybody mentioning the true gem of this set - check out the statue on the bow! I want to see some detail of that. I wonder if she has a face print and what her torso looks like! Does her dress have a print? And of course the minifigures are top notch. I wish they were all exclusives, of course. If I could trade one out, I'd swap Will Turner for an undead monkey.

Here is a MOC that I built this weekend that I call "Outpost Seventeen". (This title gives the impression that it is one of many, and also leaves the door open to make some other outposts if I want.) I didn't take a ton of photos. Here's a view of the whole shebang: And here is some detail of the top of the tower: As you can probably tell, most of these parts are from Kingdoms sets, and this MOC might fit right in with other Kingdoms sets you would find on the shelf in that line. This was my intention. I'm still new to MOC'ing and I wanted to make a small creation and not get too ambitious. The other reason for that is because my collection is new and small, just around 16k bricks, according to Brickset. I found myself running low on a few types of bricks, such as smaller tiles and "cheese wedges". I built the tower first. My first pass at the tower top was too narrow and bland. I also had some gaps on the side at the top of the wall corner pieces. So I redid that, and got the idea to stylize the castellations, making them taller and putting red tiles on top. I also love that lion brick piece and wish I had like 3 more of those! Next I decided to make a little horse shed / tie-up to go along with the tower. I started adding greeble to the roof using the technique that can bee seen on the POTC "The Mill" and "Whitecap Bay" sets. I found this really gave it a feeling of age that I liked. So then I turned back to the tower, and added some vine elements hanging down. I realized that really matches the stickered corners that have vines printed on them too. I also added some trans-green 1x1 tiles I got from the Pick-a-Brick wall to represent some moss in between the castellations. That's about it. I'm happy with how it turned out. People will probably ask about the interior, but there really is none. In fact there's not any stairs either! Maybe for a future MOC I will add stairs and a hinged side that opens up.

Sure, go ahead and show us! I love hearing about people discovering their old collections. I hope to find my old Lego collection one day.

I took advantage of the TRU sale and got: 7188 Kingdoms Kings Carriage Ambush 5770 Creator Lighthouse Island 30023 Lighthouse polybag

I took advantage of the TRU sale and got: 5770 Creator Lighthouse Island 7188 Kingdoms Kings Carriage Ambush 30023 Lighthouse polybag

Thank you for the wonderful review. I'm more excited about this set now. I'm really looking forward to the blacksmith figure and that plain pearl armor is going to be great for generic knight mocs. Ooh, I don't know if you should let the kids around this set, seeing what that blacksmith hammer did to your thumb! Haha, awesome. I totally agree. They should put dragon knights in the Creator house sets.

I have a few reasons: - The CMF series lured me out of my dark ages (along with the Winter sets), so it has a special place in my heart - I enjoy the collect-em-all aspect, although I generally don't collect the way SW collectors do, and I open everything I buy (in general). - I like how there are subthemes across CMF series, such as the halloween/monster theme or circus theme. I especially like the "warriors" (spartan,dwarf,chief,elf, etc) - They're just generally pretty cool and fun Reasons I sometimes consider not collecting them anymore, even though nobody asked: - We seem to get a new wave every 3 months. It's getting expensive quickly. - The blind bagging is heinous. The rigamarole we all have to go through to save money and get what we want is tedious and frustrating. - Start thinking maybe I don't need every single one. One skateboarder would have been enough, etc.

Oh wow. That totally explains why I only got a $5 coupon when I was expecting more like 10 or 15. Thanks for pointing that out.

Excellent. That makes our pearl versions rare and valuable. I use those terms liberally.

I'm thinking about getting the Lighthouse and King's Carriage Ambush, since both are $40 at TRU. But from your list, I might go for the Marina and Mill Raid because both of those look like fun sets. I'm not even really a City fan, but I'm tempted to get a Marina. The only of those sets I have is the London Escape. It was an average set, maybe a little disappointing given the price. I would suggest one of your other match-ups.

Of course the Gladiator and Dwarf are the rarest. Royal guard the most common though? Hmm.

I'm talking about the "RewardsRUs" system. The way it works is that you get a TRU club card and they scan it whenever you make a purchase. For every $150 purchased in the time period (couple of months) you get a personalized $5 coupon that is only valid for you (your card number). Here's the link to the program: http://rewardsrus.toysrus.com/ Today is the day that the personalized coupons are available to print out. I just wanted to remind everyone.

I haven't seen that one yet. My girlfriend told me about the ending, which I kind of guessed what it was anyway. Still want to see it though. If you want to see what I imagine is a similar movie, check out The Road. It isn't a perfect movie, but it's got that post-apocalyptic danger thing going on and I liked it alright.

The TRU reward coupon is available today, at least here in the US. You can print it out, and you have to use it before the end of the month.

Consider yourself lucky that you have ever had them knock. They usually hurl the package 20 feet toward my door and run away; I'm not even joking. Good thing I never order anything truly fragile.

Silva, are you the blogger on this site: http://thebrickblogger.com/2011/06/lego-building-technique-inverting-studs/ I saw this article in my RSS feed this morning. I learned about using those half technic pins for inverting studs from you today! I think for this MOC, you've got a big sideways plate that is begging to have something put on it, perhaps more branches or a wheel/pulley system and a hole to transfer goods into the tree.