Zeya

That slit happens when the two hemispheres (two pieces) come together to make a sphere. They had that part in the winter village bakery set. I think they're going to use the same mold for the globe and have a printing on it. The slit is there so you can wedge your fingernail in and be able to pry apart the two hemispheres. If it was one spherical piece, they wouldn't have a slit, because you wouldn't be taking it apart. Also, it's rather out of focus, but to my eyes, I can kind of make out the seam. I could be wrong, but I'd bet good money it's the BL parts he linked, but they're just putting a printing on it.

Undead emo James Dean guy is begging for a Lego mold that will do justice to his sweet hair, that he spends an hour every morning sculpting.

I was wondering about compact fluorescent bulbs, and looked it up. Here's what I found. I don't know if I should be worried about this at all. I use CFLs almost exclusively in my home, except for the dimmable ones in the bedroom.

I was thinking about getting the box4blox, which costs about USA$40 as well. It's got one more level of sorting than the Lego head, and I read some online reviews saying it's pretty good but seems a bit brittle and might crack easily. I think Lego made the head sorter to compete with this one. I decided they're both a bit too pricey for me, anyway. (Also the Lego head gives me a creepy vibe .)

At least set it aside for donation to charity. I'll bet toys are one of the rarer things to get donated to the less fortunate.

Whaat? *Scrambles over to gamefaqs.com* "~~Hard Time Attack~~ 1. Harpoon of Thunder - A long spear with long range and enough power to damage a colossus." Oh so one of the time attacks on hard mode gets you a spear. Man I never knew about these items. I don't think I would bother to get them since I tend to suck at high-end completion of games. (Who has the time? I'm not 13 anymore.) There are all kinds of goodies for the time attacks.

That's a really good point. I kind of enjoy knowing that some of my figs are rarer and worth more money, and I wouldn't want that to go away. But knowing that nearly all female figures are the rare, expensive ones? That's just not fair. That would be totally cool, fairytale sets. Most AFOLs want sets with minifigures that lack faction A versus faction B warfare. Maybe we should start a Disney-bashing thread. It would be cathartic. (Just joking, let's not do that. Or am I joking? I don't know.)

Does anyone know if it sort of lacks a top deck like Brickbeard's Bounty, or does it have a top deck like Imperial Flagship does? They maddeningly only photographed the QAR from the side and it's hard to tell.

MinifigFreak, I think it's safe to say we all feel your pain. It sounds like you're in somewhat of a rural area and it's quite a hike to get to certain stores. Really, your best bet is to buy online. If nobody has introduced you to Bricklink, you need to use this site. It's basically a big Lego database and then people set up online stores. Here's a link to a store I found with reasonable prices (didn't take the time to find the lowest prices, but you can do that yourself): http://www.bricklink.com/store.asp?p=BumblingBuilder&itemID=21499185 At the top end he's asking $4.50 for a fisherman, all the way down to $1.99 for a race driver. Most seem to be about $3.20-$3.50. His store terms say that shipping is through USPS, which should be very cheap since minifigs are really lightweight. It would probably be a foam-padded mailer and cost something like 2-4 bucks for shipping. If you're worried about security or risk, Bricklink has a link by the store name where you can see feedback and quick blurb reviews. He has nothing but positive, and a few of those reviews are from January 2011, so I would feel safe buying from this little store. Again, you can data mine Bricklink to really find the cheapest figs. This is just one example that popped out (I searched for the cheapest Fisherman fig in the USA, you see). But in general, what I did with series 2 is buy 32 packets off S@H, piggybacking off more expensive sets to get the free shipping. Then I bought about 6 figs I was missing on BL. And for series 3, I did bag-feeling at TRU and then traded with someone here on Eurobricks (see the sales and deals forum section). For series 4, I plan on buying a large chunk of packets from TRU, feeling at home, return the ones I don't need, and then buy anything I'm missing off BL or maybe even trade again. But yeah, if availability and lack of will/time to go to TRU every 3 days is a problem, that's understandable. But as I point out, it is very possible to buy these things online at reasonable prices. And let me just say, Bricklink is really awesome and comes highly recommended from everyone on these forums; I feel confident speaking for everyone here.

The QAR looks like a reasonable price; I was expecting it to be more like 140. But 50 pounds for the London set? 72 for Whitecap Bay? Wow. Their structures aren't even that elaborate. I think they're printed as well. Besides, I don't think Lego would be smart to give such small stickers, and on a tricky curved surface to boot. Are the compass 1x1 tiles printed or stickers?

Ah, there are all kinds of photos here from a Disney event. Sorry if this was already posted. http://www.stitchkingdom.com/disney-news/movies/ian-mcshane-joins-disney-reveal-lego-captain-jack-sparrow-lifesize-statue/

Good points, Gryphon. Although your post-apocalyptic scenario with full-on Disney Lego scares brown 2x8 bricks out of my rear end. They would of course sell ridiculously well, as most things Disney do. But that might force out original Lego themes from the product line... but I digress. I would also point out that I'm fairly certain I saw some Winnie the Pooh sets in a catalog leak. (Pooh is now owned by Disney, although it wasn't always.) The Belville line is creepy. Or rather, the girl figurine is the creepy part. It's like they took a look at your standard minifig and asked how they could make it better, and then they turned it into a doll. Okay well, now you're competing with Barbie and countless other dolls, and those products are probably more robust with clothes and accessories. I'm guessing that their market research showed that girls wanted more interaction with "the little people", so they blew it up in size to make it better for accessories. Or rather, they didn't want to produce too many standard minifigures in a set, since they generally cost the most to churn out. But by blowing up the person, they made it so that Belville is separated from System sets. You can't bring the Belville girl into City sets because she'll be Godzilla sized! I don't know, it's all messed up. I guess Belville is still alive and kicking though, so there must be something to it. I can't agree more that we need more female minifigs. And I know why Lego has the ratio all lopsided; it's just a shame though. As an adult, the female figs are almost always my favorites, although I wish more of them had pants with prints rather than a plain slope to simulate a dress. You know, I never fully understood what the deal is with the color pink. And how can it be so universal? Go walk in the girl's toy aisle and look at the color. It's pink on pretty much every product. Sometimes there will be purple, which is really just pink, except a bit more sassy. I guess we as a society just inundate infant girls with pink items, and that becomes "how it is". Hmm.

Hmm. It looks like the same two pirates appear in Captain's Cabin and QAR. And one appears in Whitecap Bay but not the other. They must be part of the QAR crew. But it's too bad that they're the same exact figs in the Cabin and QAR sets; it would have been great to have the smaller impulse set provide additional crew for the ship. I've also noticed that the Jack figure is the same in each set, except for the face printing, which seems to be different in almost every set.

Thanks for the link! The figs and accessories are looking great, especially that female pirate in the QAR set. I see a bucket in the London Escape set I haven't seen before, and a spider on the wall! Also a new soldier torso and hat with white trim on that redcoat. The bottles look great; I think the ship in the bottle has a printing on it, or is there something inside somehow? Those mermaid tails are very weird. I see terrible new <insert that tiresome argument> pieces in the fountain and cannibal sets . Uh, it's still there. Nice and big towards the bottom of the image.

I recently made a set from downloaded TLG instructions in LDD, without printing on paper. I don't know if it would have been lighter on paper, but it was next to impossible to tell black apart from dark brown, or even earth orange (regular brown) for that matter when looking on a LCD monitor.

Hmm I'm seeing 1 month, 0 days right now. Maybe they pushed it back a month?

Those pesky bricks. I have a small collection myself since I just started getting Lego, so I feel your pain. Yeah it would be hard trying to replicate the moss. Lego tends to have sharp edges on everything. Maybe scattering about 1x1 plates (are they called plates if it's just 1x1?) and 1x1 studs would do the trick, and maybe some 1x1 slopes. You would need a lot of them though. But if you intermix them you might get a nice texture. Maybe lay them over some leaves. It's tough though. This MOC needs a horse!

If you can't/won't do the feel identification, I would recommend simply buying a set of 16 off bricklink/ebay. They tend to go for something like USA $60, which is about 3.75 per figure. That's not too unreasonable of a price. Save yourself the hassle and time for a bit more money.

My girlfriend got me a creator Log Cabin.

That adds up to 16 minifigures: 5+4+3+2+1+1 = 16. So the last line should read "The last remaining new collectible minifigure from that set" or, alternatively, "The Sumo Wrestler".

This guy needs to be smacked, palm-side up: eBay Link (selling s3 barcode decoder) I don't know how he has 100% positive feedback with shenanigans like this.

Someone needs to encase a Lego set in jello, just for kicks. Kind of like this:

At my local Lego store, they have display cases, and the things are obviously not glued down, because some of the minifigs and smaller constructions are knocked on their side all the time. I think they get knocked over from people (mostly kids I think) banging on the display case. So I think gluing them down prevents them from being knocked over, more than falling apart. Also, they tend to have little levers or wheels you can spin to make vehicles move and stuff like that, which requires being fastened to a boom or lever, etc. I'm talking about the non-Lego store display cases here (TRU and Target in the USA).

You really captured the feel of the game. I was about to call you out on the spear because there wasn't one in the game (sword, bow, unarmed is what I remember). I would suggest using some dark green to give some of that mossy feel that the game had, and really accentuate the feeling of old stone structures. I love that game so much. Ico was good too, and I can't wait for the next one to come out on PS3. Well there's the "remaster" and then a whole new game coming up at some point in the future. Looks like the remaster of SotC will be out some time in the middle of 2011. Someone might be calling in sick on that release date...

I don't find that having small pieces mixed with big really makes it easier to sort. I kind of like the idea of having that thing split a group of bricks into 4 sections; I think it would make it easier. Certainly not a silver bullet though. The real question is whether or not it's worth the USA $40. I don't think I'll get one right now. I just smacked myself in the forehead for not thinking of that. Fantastic idea.