The Middleman

There are no LEGO pigs (one-piece, at least). I do think you should try to make pink ones, though. Nice work otherwise!

Let's assume that when we discuss their cultures, we're discussing Scandinavian Vikings and Caribbean pirates - the two main cultural groups of each one (although really, they're the same thing). So was viking, at the time. When not raiding, they were called Danes, Northumbrians, etc. Viking has only gained historical significance as a culture due to the extreme power and cultural impact of Scandinavian Vikings at the time, and due to the fact that after Vikings settled down and gradually stopped raiding, there were no serious incursions of sea raiders until the upswing of the classical pirates hundreds of years later. The word was most likely lost as a regular noun sometime in that period, so they made a new word for sea raiders. If you wish to discuss this in a LEGO sense, then we should probably start debating the superiority of the Vikings' horned helms over the pirate bandanas, or perhaps the power of the Viking spring-loaded missile launcher over pirate cannons. ;) Or maybe, I could start insulting you over how every other pirate seems to have an eyepatch, a pegleg, or a hook, and how that indicates their lack of fighting ability. Not to mention the total absence of proper armor and extremely fallible ships! :P Yoda- you can stop that now. ;)

1) I know you never wrote that, I reversed what you said, because it still holds true. 2) I think we're really having two debates; pirates and vikings in the context as Carribbean pirates and Scandinavian vikings, and the use of the words 'pirate' and 'viking' themselves. Let's do keep them divided debates - this'll become even more confusing if they're mixed. In any case, smuggling by sea wouldn't make them a pirate, unless the goods were stolen by them as well. 3) Of course you're right about that, and I said that of course there were conflicts of Viking vs. Viking, but since they were the most feared people in Europe at the time, and could basically take any land they wanted to (although they did fail to take over the last quarter of England when they tried), I doubt that there were any large conflicts within their ranks. They were surprisingly civilized amongst themselves. 4) Because Vikings (as a culture, not as a word, same for your pirates) were trained from childhood to wield the weapons of their people, and to use them effectively and mercilessly. Pirates, on the other hand, usually picked it up as a sort of profession rather than beginning it from birth. It'd still be a fair contest, but I'd expect Vikings to emerge on top. 5) Privateers had permission to attack enemies and raid them, that's about the only difference. They were basically regulated pirates. Of course, some of them were merchants that outfitted for privateering as a legal, but more profitable, alternative, but a good majority of privateers were pirates. Now that, that could be considered a type of pirate. 6) I was never even discussing this in a LEGO sense. 8-| This isn't over yet. ;)

I like BURPs. One of the better <insert that tiresome argument> pieces LEGO's made.

Phes, there is an EDIT button. ;) 4+ is a horrible line, one of LEGO's worst decisions. Horrible figures and pieces, save for the accessories. Oh, on a side not, this is the first line with a real gun piece in about a year, and it's intended for toddlers?

Wow, the Tri-Fighter is awesome. Gotta pick that up!

There was a really cool one LEGO did a while back for Spiderman, with real bricks. It was awesome. Think it was on iFilm or something. Look it up.

I'd estimate it carrying about 12 people, not counting the cockpit and without the speeder inside.

You could do the trials. That was always my favorite part. :-D

A Roman/Greek theme (other).

I don't think anybody will know until the first tour.

What about Last Crusade? That's the best one! You should do one for the boulder scene, too. Keep up the good work, Indy rules! \m/ (>_<) \m/ Oh, and nice new title. ;)

Well, white bricks are easy to come by in my collection, at least, and I could probably scrounge up those yellow bricks as well. I'll bet he got the jail doors on Bricklink, though. In any case, it looks splendid! I'll bet it's really imposing when it's done - can't wait to see what the roof looks like (my favorite part of imperial creations). Keep up the good work!

Maybe I'll get a couple more tomorrow. ;)

I'm a master of Civilization III, and both its expansions. I always play as Lord Ragnar Lodbrok of the Vikings.

Man, if I was in your situation I would have been walking away with all 6 of these sets! :D Jon. I felt like going back and getting more, but they were still trying to contact the toy lady, and I felt that saying 'uh yeah, I'll take 6, 2 dollars each' might get them a little suspicious. ;)

I don't know if I'm going to watch it. I have a feeling it'll make me cringe.

I'm just getting it for the clone commander and the scout trooper in green. Why are you guys so upset over phones? :P

Well, Wookiee Attack comes with two, and that's $30. Not too bad. Comes with those nice treads, too! But who needs wookiees when you have... clones? I just picked up the Clone Scout Walker at Wal-Mart. Here's my story. I scope out 4 Wal-Marts. Last one, I'm despairing, thinking I won't find anything. I find the (revamped) LEGO section, and am about to leave when a black box up top catches my eye from behind a Quatro bin. I push it aside, and find about 6 Clone Scout Walkers. Only had money for one, unfortunately - or maybe not? So I walk over to the register, and they're ringing it up, and on the price screen it flashes up 'SALE NOT ALLOWED'. My heart turns to ice! She calls over her manager. They call up the lady in charge of the toy department - no answer. They ask me the price - I know it, thankfully ($10) - and they enter it in as a new item and charge me $10 for it, and let me walk out the door with it. KAPOW! BANG! Take that, Wal-Mart! :-D And I must say, it's a sexy set.

And pirates commit acts which allow them to fit the definition of a viking, eh? My resource for 'vike' came from the afterword in The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell (good read, you should pick it up), and since he is a highly respected author in historical fiction (before you use the fiction part as evidence, his afterword explains what was true and what wasn't, and gives several interesting facts about Vikings), I'll trust that as a source. Perhaps the word did become obsolete, or perhaps it was never ported over to the English language. As far as exploration and mapping, that's more what I meant in the first place - Vikings got around a lot more than most ships did back then. And let's not kid ourselves about pirates not having much of the world left to discover - pirates were concerned simply with raiding and looting, while Vikings wanted to settle the lands they conquered as well. (it's funny how we're now debating both the words and pirates/Vikings as people). As far as the honor code, I think I can safely assume that there were few, if not none, unscrupulous Vikings - why would they defy it? Freedom to basically do whatever they want except kill/steal/wrong each other and die dishonorably. Not really strict enough to disobey. Sure, there were probably the occassional wrongdoers, stealing another Viking's pig or something, but nothing really serious like Viking crew vs. Viking crew. The ships - frigates may have been able to down longboats, but that's just technological difference. Without cannons, Vikings would have won. It's a simple matter of times changing, as you said. I'm not trying to compare them with Scandinavian Vikings in a cultural/technological sense in any case. Besides, how did it get to this point? My point is that since a viking was a sea raider long before a pirate was, vikings are, in essence, the predecessors of pirates, so long as we take into account that viking means pirate and pirate means sea raider. I was arguing against your original statement; 'Vikings were a form of pirate'. Vikings and pirates are essentially the same thing, so Vikings should not be considered a subset of pirates.

Those are indeed phones in the LEGO sense of the word. I'm guessing they're just generic circuitry in the set, though, not anything specific. ;)

http://fbtb.net/toyfair/2005/sw/7261_5_m.jpg http://fbtb.net/toyfair/2005/sw/7261_6_m.jpg That's all I could find. I'm sadly a little short on cash right now, after buying Castle of Morcia, and with the PSP coming up. Guess Episode III LEGO'll have to wait. :'( EDIT: *devil* The big triple-six! *devil*

Treasure Island is great value - awesome accessories. The rest are pretty horrible.

You had me all excited that they had revealed the villain! But it's just the actor... Hey, at least it's not a girl - that means Black Cat is out (it was rumored). On a side note, Sam Raimi was in an interview a while back, and the interviewer had the villain's name whispered into his ear, and then turned to the camera, and said 'Well folks, now it's all clear in black and white.' and Raimi looked angry. My money's on Venom - I hope they do it.

From an unlikely resource - the HC Andersen website! From your own resource. National Geographic. Stormfront.org. Tempknak.home.att.net. You bold a few words in this sentence - but did you even read it fully? ;) Viking is not a name for 'the people or culture in general'. Who's the pointy-helmeted Scandinavian now, eh? As far as them saying 'a viking is a pirate', this is because you don't hear many people using 'viking' and 'vike' as normal words. It's a short way to explain what vikings were - since essentially, viking and pirate are synonyms, which is what I have been saying. But, Vikings undeniably came first. ;) Area covered by Vikings, you ask? Well, there was quite a lot of it. They did, of course, cover Europe, and discover Greenland. Leif Erikson traveled around Russia and all the way to the west coast of North America five centuries before Columbus - not to mention that they settled midwestern America as well. They reached the Mediterranean area as well as Italy and the Holy Lands. And while pirates may have covered more area than vikings, vikings DISCOVERED theirs. Pirates just sailed through and raided. As far as your weapons discussion goes, if you think it's an unfair comparison, then you shouldn't have made it before. ;) Vikings in the isolated sense of the word (Scandinavian raiders, not just raiders) were driven by religion in their honor code, so no - there were no unscrupulous crews, really. Of course, their idea of scrupulous was fighting, killing, destroying, and taking as much as they could, and if they had to die, doing it honorably was required as well. And, finally, Viking longboats in comparison to galleons. The galleons did not dwarf the longboats - the difference between them was about 24' (76-90). And while galleons were larger in width and height, this gives them a DISADVANTAGE against viking ships. Longboats sported a unique design that allowed them to sail in extremely shallow waters without trouble, and also to move extremely fast. Oh, and longboats were sportier than galleons, what with the dragon heads and all that jazz. :P Can't wait for the next installment... :-D