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Thanks! By the way, this building right here in my hometown was the inspiration for the bay's shape: Though I decided it looks better when the upper bay is not off-center.

B-OM-18E I originally wanted to present this smaller house together with the police station planned next to it (of which I've shown a little preview before), but with the Modular Madness contest now I've postponed the police station; however since the butcher's house was almost done, I quickly completed that and show it here on its own now. Well, not completely on its own, since it sits next to some other houses you know already: Lets take a closer look: The criminal chased by the police officer on the left is just a joke referring to the police station that I'll remove when it's completed. This doesn't apply to the officers on the right, though – they're entering the house for a reason you'll see a few pictures later... Lots of delicious food... Let's move on to the second floor: Here we see the woman in the second floor apartment, a New Age mystic currently using the golden fish pretending to channel some Atlantean archangel to help her client. It's not the only thing she's offering, though: any spiritual cleansing, faith healing, astrology, channeling, "alternative medicine", you name it – what her customers want, she delivers, using lots of mystic babble or scientific words used far out of context, as usual. While many such practitioners actually believe in their reality-denying nonsense, she's clearly a deliberate fraud, doing it all for her real love: money. But the police is onto her, the officer in front of her door is just waiting for the reinforcement you saw outside. On the right, there's a closer look at her little bedroom with today's fees. Oh, sorry: she calls it "energy balance" (or whatever the typical English term is; it's "Energieausgleich" in German). She's not living here with that small bedroom and small restroom under the stairs, of course – she's got a big mansion elsewhere. Well, not for long anymore... On the third and fourth floor, there's a nice apartment: The resident woman's walking out to the roof-terrace to read the newspaper. And that's it, hope you like it. :) » More images on Flickr

"Xxpress" in the title, "EXpress" in the text – at least one of them must be a typo. And "Polar" could be north or south or both, so there still could be polar bears AND penguins – just not in the same set, preferably. Well, it could be something interesting, but not useful for a (non-winter) city like mine...

I ordered on Friday – just one big SW set – and got the shipping notification mail just a few minutes ago. Seems they have a lot of work with May the 4th orders...

Nice design! And nice enemies for my train aliens.

Or it's the next wave of Monster Fighters, with Godzilla, King Kong and Bunnies – or humans magically turned into them – as the monsters. To quote from the Buffy musical episode: Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes They got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses And what's with all the carrots? What do they need such good eyesight for anyway? Bunnies, bunnies, it must be bunnies!

Ooh, that's an interesting contest – not just for myself but also because of all the nice buildings we'll likely see. It's good that the deadline is far away... but I should aim for June since my long-awaited move into my new apartment with the big Lego room will be in July. Guess I'll postpone the completion of my current double house project (police/butcher) that won't qualify due to its size (48x64 in total) until after my contest entry. Hmm... if category 3 is supposed to be similar to the official Modulars, I better not build as high as recently and maybe do without fully tiled floors, too...

Great architecture and great interior

Well, Europe in total definitely hasn't. :) In Germany, for instance, white and red is still the most typical combination – by far. There's also bright orange sometimes replacing red, and one organization (ASB) also likes yellow and red (and a little blue). I've never seen a yellow and green combination, let alone a checkered one, here, and I guess most Germans would consider this quite a strange sight. :) Typically, yes (cf. Wikipedia). In war and similar situations, it's used as a protection symbol, but in normal use it's indeed a kind of trademark, showing that the car/building/etc. belongs to or is affiliated with the Red Cross, so it can't be used that freely – there have even been legal problems for some people/companies using it in a place where overeager lawyers don't like it –, which may be a reason for Lego not using it anymore. Also, there's this religious controversy and thus the Red Crescent, which might be another reason not to use the cross for a company like Lego... That being said: While I like the hospital's design with the red frame around the glass front, I agree that it's way too small, and I can't see myself buying it. The car park/garage, on the other hand, looks usable enough and the cars actually nice – I might use the gas and service station part for a small gas station and the rest for an underground parking lot. Well, not at the full price, but 20%+ discounts will certainly come again from time to time. :D

Yeah, the factory's selection is really nice, though they're missing some parts in colors I'd have liked. I was there on Sunday - first visit this year - and got "only" one sales-tent bag and 850g at the factory, plus 6 minifigs. Most of the bag was small parts, of course: about 3000 1x1 tiles and plates, 500 1x2, 100 bricks 1x2, and hardly anything bigger (tiles in "odd" colors, for instance). Turned out to be 2.04 cents per piece on average, and that's nothing to complain about. :) Incidentally, the sales-tent bag with mostly 1x2, 1x6, 2x3 plates (old dark gray), small panels (old light gray), small bricks/slopes and some 4x4 round bricks averaged at 2.10 cents. Though if I had checked on BrickLink before, I would have got more than just a few tan 1x2 grille bricks, seeing now that they apparently weren't available in any sets yet...

Go to the Lego Stores overview, select a store from the appropriate country, and one of the four image links below the store info should be "News & Events".

Thanks again, everyone! By the way, regional train company Agilis actually uses lime and gray for their trains – including (since this year) the line that took me to Legoland Günzburg today, fittingly. The people inside didn't seem more alien than usual, though. :)

Well, the store calendar (at least the German one that I know) indeed said April 1-30.

Great! Beautiful architecture, details, installations, nature,...

Great school! Nice outside, nice inside, nice details,...

Well, I agree that a complete line of branded sets, like Shell in the old days, is highly unlikely. But there are more or less singular branded sets recently: the Maersk ship and train, big Volkswagen models, a Toys'R'Us truck (variation of the Lego truck), and airplanes with airline-specific stickers. So why not a City restaurant in a regular and a branded version, too? If, that is, Lego would nowadays want to promote fast food, seeing it's not the healthiest thing around...

Hard decision... 2) The ski jump in Holmenkollen in Oslo (Sleepyhead) Entry (Build by Cecilie) - 1 point 7) Art Deco (Flamenco Dancer) Entry (Build by lisqr) - 1 point 10) My third wish (Genie) Entry (Build by Skafte) - 1 point

Thanks, everyone!

Thanks, everyone! Why "Hops"? I just thought it's odd to have a shop sign just say "shop", so I changed the letters around to say something that could be the owner's name; you can't really buy hops there. :) (I did actually try to brick-build something that looks like a hops seed cone for the corner top decoration, but couldn't find a solution. Pity, since I could have called that a hint to where I'm living: in the Hallertau, Germany's big hop production region...)

B-OM-17D & B-PM-01E Just a quick presentation of my take on enlarged official modulars, after you could already see the (simple) taller Green Grocer next to my Emerald House. Here's my revised "Great Grand Emporium" and the Fire Brigade with a second upper floor; next to them a sneak preview of MOCs to follow (and the aforementioned houses on the right)... That's the old "Great Grand Emporium" that I had built 2 years ago: Now I was wandering how I should add another floor: Just add an identical one? Might be boring. Add one of the same size on top of the ledge? Or add a recessed floor? I chose the latter. Also note that I removed the small section on the left because I needed to save some space in that direction. The recessed top floor leaves space for a nice café and a small outdoor presentation (tent and backpacks) on the left. The top corner decoration was inspired by this photo GRogall posted here; I originally thought about a simple flat top. One floor below, there's the Lego section and a little repair shop in the corner: Down to the second floor – virtually unchanged from the 2010 GGE, though I shifted the escalators to the right: Ground floor: Also the same as before, only added an Alien Conquest brain sucker mask. (Wondering if that's a real one after all... beware of the aliens! They even have trains now!! ;) ) And finally the Fire Brigade's extra floor – not completely identical to the original, but with a little balcony where we see a fireman who just woke up, ready to start his shift: Inside: Shower and toilet on the left, beds (one used, one unused), and a few lockers in the wall in between (not really visible from this angle):

What might happen if the aliens suck the brains of too many train enthusiasts...? ;) I've had this – not really serious – idea of building a train for our beloved green aliens for some time, and with the Alien Conquest sets now on discount, I got some more sets and parts and put this train together. (Would this fit better in the Train forum? Well, I think it's specialized enough for this Sci-Fi forum, but if the mods think otherwise, feel free to move it.) Let's start with the engine – using quite an alien design, of course. :) The aliens decided to use an experienced human driver... Unfortunately, the motor doesn't have enough traction for pulling the entire train; there's just not enough weight on top of it. If I ever really want to run this thing on my upcoming layout, I'll have to change that (move the motor to the next car, for instance)... Communications and crew car: communication at the front, and then the crew listening to their master's orders: Two identical standard gliders from one of the AQ sets: Four capsules (from the tripod set) and two grapplers (from the mothership) to hold and handle the captives: The lab car with the grappler operator in the front, followed by the medical lab for which the green aliens hired specialists from another planet; and at the end the brain sucker breeding section: And finally the big ray cannon. What would an alien invasion vessel be without a big cannon? Uh-oh, I better leave! » Flickr set with a few more images

Indeed a very beautiful building, inside and outside.

I'm not a Technic builder either, so I didn't really follow this contest, but I got to say there are certainly nice entries. 8) 2 points 13) 2 points 2) 1 point 6) 1 point 14) 1 point

"Just a little park" is quite an understatement. Great work with nice trees, fence, and many scenes.

Nice building on the outside, and nice interior with all this rummage, erm, valuable antiques, too. ;)