ZO6

Very true. What I didn't like about the situation though is that often the parent will volunteer to buy the kid a Lego set, the kid will then pick out a 15-25$ set and the parent will freak about the price. As expected I got into the TRU in Newmarket earlier today. Seems as though much of the city section had already been raided by those taking advantage of the 20% off sale. When I got my passenger train last weekend, there were about 7+ copies in total - they were all gone today. Come to think of it, there were a lot of empty spaces where sets had completely sold out. I managed to get the train station but they didn't have the level crossing in stock (I wouldn't be surprised if they just haven't gotten anymore in since last week). The whole Lego section was quite busy and sets were flying off shelves - it always puts a smile on my face to see people going for the brick. Asides from a major restocking of the newest Star Wars sets, nothing else was new at the store. The wait is still on for the series 2 minifigures...

There seems to be a whole range of customers at the Newmarket TRU. Most of the time when parents are there with the kids, the parents are pretty stingy with the cash. Quite often a kid will make a dash for the $140 Star Wars set, to which the adult will respond with "Are you out of your mind!? That costs a fortune!". It's a pretty harsh response, but mostly understandable - $140 isn't exactly small change. Now, what makes me sad is when the kid goes for the $15-$25 set and gets shot down with "No way we are spending that much money on a toy! That costs way too much! Put it on your Christmas list and maybe you'll get it then". Also, I hate to see it when a kid has $5-$10 dollars, and is extremely excited about buying a Lego set. But then of course pretty much everything costs more than that and the adult won't give the poor kid a couple bucks so he can pay for the tax on the $10 set. Next there are the stealthy buyers that snatch up everything and leave nothing for others. First example: the 1:9 scale F1 Ferrari eventually went on sale for I believe $80 (normally $110). One day when I was in TRU and spotted two copies of the set left, I convinced myself to finally take the plunge. Knowing I was going to buy a copy, I decided to go to the cafeteria first so I wouldn't have to carry something that big around. By the time I got back from eating the two copies were gone. Those last two copies had been sitting there for weeks at the discounted price, yet the day I decide to get one they are both sold off. Another example: I stumbled upon the series 1 collectable minifigures one Saturday. I immediately checked the bar codes and picked out 16 unique ones so that I'd have the full set. Later that day I went back to get a few more zombies but all the figs were sold out. Luckily I can across the figs again the next weekend and was able to get the ones I wanted - I even managed to help a few kids pick out the ones of their choice. Finally, on a number of occasions, I've seen adults go into the Lego section with a shopping carts and literally fill them with sets. They usually either go for the city stuff or Star Wars sets, so I'd assume these are AFOLs who are shopping for themselves. Regarding 8043, I've got a bad feeling that the TRU in Newmarket won't ever stock the set. I've bought a number of technic sets from that store, but I've never seen anyone else buy technic sets. A combination of the unpopularity of technic sets plus the high cost of the excavator leaves me to believe chances are low of seeing it. When I move back into Toronto in a few weeks I'll likely pick it up a one of the locations that it has been spotted. I should be at the TRU in Newmaket tomorrow morning (Saturday), so I'll report anything of interest. Cheers (note, sorry for the nonsensical rambling in this post, I had too many thoughts and couldn't express them the way I had originally intended )

They must have had mighty low stock of some of those sets to have sold out so quickly. Funny how that happens... My local TRU in Newmarket has been pretty well stocked with everything, and has been on the ball in terms of getting new releases. I was however a bit surprised to see all of the new wave of Star Wars sets sell out within a matter of days. Most of these sets were between $55 -$160 too, so it's not like they were cheap. Either there were a bunch of AFOLs just waiting for them to be released, or else a load of kids had some mighty valuable gift certificats on hand. Personally, I wanted to pick up the level crossing when I got my train last weekend but they were sold out. If they are in stock in store tomorrow, I'll be aiming to get that level crossing and train station. Hope that those of you looking to buy city stuff on sale have a bit of luck finding what you want. Finally, I know I've been saying this for the past couple of weeks - remember to keep your eyes out for series 2 minifigures, they're bound to show up sooner or later.

I'm personally very satisfied with the set. It may not have the same wow factor as the winter toy shop, but I'm extremely pleased TLC has put the effort into putting out a similar product. The set is very pleasing to the eye and will no doubt look great on display - particularly when combined with its predecesor. Thanks for the high res. pictures.

It's about time! I'd just about had my fill of 20% off all the fire stuff, where is the love for the rest of the city sets? I had a feeling that when I went out and bought that train last weekend that they'd put it on sale now. Oh well, plenty of other stuff I'd be glad to pick up at a discounted price. Happy shopping everyone!

What is the appeal of a day with no moderators? I've had the unpleasant experience of seeing a once prosperous and well loved website/forum die off because of a lack of admins and moderators. It's a sad sight. I'm not saying EB would completely go up in flames in just a single day, but everyone would have that much more work to try to get things back on track. Be thankful that we have such a wonderful team to help hold this site together for all of us to enjoy. If you want to cause chaos, do so elsewhere so that others don't have to suffer. By the way, I fully support a moderator appreciation week, or something along those lines. Heck, I appreciate them being around everyday - and I try to help out by contributing on the forums in a positive manner and not giving anyone any extra work.

You said it. I decided to compare the Star Wars sets for this year and found that we have to pay 20-40% more than in the US. This is ridiculous considering that our dollar is basically on par. I know lots of other countries around the world get shafted even worse than us, but hey, we are just across the border from the US - give us a bit of a break! Regarding the 20% off sale at TRU for Atlantis sets - I personally have not bought a single set from the theme yet, but all these sales must be nice for those who have been collecting. Though the sale makes me very tempted to get a couple of sets, I'm finally going to be getting my first train set this weekend instead. I'm sure TRU will finally put ALL town Lego on sale in the near future, but I've been waiting a long time for the trains to make their way into stores and just can't resist any longer. Don't forget everyone - keep your eyes peeled for series 2 of the minifigures if your interested in collecting them, you never know when they might pop up on shelves.

Thanks for those additional angles and the close up. That high-res. picture really does the set so much more justice - as expected, there is an incredible amount of detail in there that we just could not see from the first pic a while back. I'm very impressed, looks lovely.

I like the new additions. Everything seems very well designed/logical and the amount of functionality is marvelous. Thanks for sharing. Hope to keep seeing updates.

I was outside testing an old light meter earlier and decided to take some pics while I was at it. Here are a handful of the ones that I took: Good old Mr. Forestman out hunting amongst some tomatoes: Meanwhile somewhere else... Perhaps not the best choice of transportation to get away from zombies Time for their hard earned snack

Wild race today! How about that rush to the pit stop when the SC was out? Kubica being released into Sutil, Rosberg having his tire fly off - yikes! Glad to see no one was seriously hurt during all of that. A number of retirements today that I didn't want to see happen, but it seems that Hamilton paid the biggest price. The Red Bulls sure were fast this weekend, so I was pleased to see Alonso finish 2nd, and Massa not terribly far behind in 4th. Along with some other fines to Renault and Mercedes, it seems Schumacher will be receiving a 10-place gride penalty in Spa for his stunt practically running Barrichello into the wall. Again, glad to see no harm come of this, but really Schumi? Barrichello had you, don't be such a dangerous driver! The 3 week break until Spa will surely be worth the wait. The rest of this season could be mighty intense.

Hang on, let's not get too carried away here with TRU price rants. MSRP is the manufacturers suggested retail price. Regardless of the product, some stores sell items for more than that, others for less. What dictates how much a store sells something for is whether they want to be competitive or not and if they can make the sales. There is also obviously the relation between the seller and the manufacturer (ie. if there is an extra man in between that drives up prices more etc.) There is a lot of fuss over the 'price gauging' from TRU, but I'll give some examples to put things into perspective a bit more that TRU isn't so bad. Let's consider computer hardware - most brick and mortar stores sells pc components for horrible prices. They may sell a video card for say $300, when I could easily get this from another completely legit source for a 2/3 the price. Across the board, these stores charge significantly more for parts. The average consumer can't be bothered to either shop online or look at other stores where prices would be much lower. The average consumer is well familiar with these brick and mortar stores, and they are oblivious to what else is out there for their shopping needs. Now, let's get back to Lego. First, I think there is a huge exaggeration concerning the mark ups on items. Look at the 2010 releases for Lego between TRU prices and S@H. There are very few sets that have been marked up, and even so, they are only up by a couple of bucks. When you buy from TRU, you pay tax and that is it. When you buy from S@H, 5/6 of the year you have to pay shipping on top of tax. There is not a single case in which paying shipping on a Lego set is less than the odd markup on a set at TRU. Free shipping from S&H is a great idea, but also quite often your box gets crushed. TRU has sales on Lego every couple of weeks. This is usually 20% off certain items, or they may have some sort of equivalent to a BOGO sale. With 20% off sets, this equates to $2 off every $10. Now, I know in some bizarre cases, TRU places a large markup on relatively cheap sets, and therefore even when they are on sale this still only comes out to around MSRP. However, this is rare. Again, look at the 2010 sets and you'll see there are very few markups, especially with the second wave of releases. So, I know it seems all the rage to bash TRU, but for us Canadians, they really are not that bad if you just stop for a minute and actually do some price comparisons. (Note, I don't like it either when TRU marks up a price, but I've learned to either bite the bullet, or else find an alternate means to get what I want for the price I want)

They should be $4.99

Update on Lego sales at the local TRU: -All the new summer Star Wars sets were in stock for MSRP (which is still ridiculously expensive...) -Public Transport and Passenger Train were also in stock, both at MSRP as well No series two figues yet, hopefully they appear soon

Nice to see they are on S@H. Guess that confirms that they should be hitting stores just about any time. Small price rant - Ouch! It's one thing to know the prices of pretty much everything beforehand and think they are expensive. But then to actually see those prices attached to the sets for some reason really makes you cringe. The Star Wars prices are really ridiculous, and to make matters worse they are hardly ever on sale. PS. Don't forget the series 2 of minifigs should be available very soon as well.

I was just on Brickshelf a minute ago looking at your layout before discovering that you had posted it here - it is very nice. You have a good variety of sets to make it seem like a fully equipped and operational city. Thanks very much for sharing!

Thanks for this review I considered getting this set when it was first released, but instead went for the somewhat similar Exo-Toa. I agree with your rating for this set, it is pretty easily recognizable and looks to be fairly stable, but it does not have much functionality and overall just is not very spectacular.

I'll fully admit that I was too lazy to get out my scanner, but I did take some quick pics of one of my magazines from 1998. Why 1998? - There has been some talk about the Adventurers theme, and this is of course when the Desert subtheme was released. Here are a couple of pics from the Jan/Feb issue. The rest of the magazine, along with larger photos can be found here. (Note: sorry about the blurriness of many of the images) The front cover: Character bios: Random page: Random page from the comic:

Those boxes look great. Thanks for the pic, Def! It is great that TLC is remaking these sets and then throwing in lots of characters - it really makes it so that the various sets can be tied to multiple movies. Can't wait to see these guys popping up on shelves in a matter of months!

Thanks for this review, The Cobra! Congrats on the acquisition of those sets. This is one of a handful of Paradisa sets that originally belonged to my sister but has since been passed over into my possession. Sidewalk cafe is a really nice little set. The main model incorporates nicely into just about any town layout, and the set itself is a decent parts pack. I really like the printed ice cream tiles, I believe they are exclusive to this set as well.

Nice review, Oky! I picked up this set a few weeks ago primarily as it's a cheap way to get a LGM. While I expected the mini ship to be pretty much a throw away, it has received A LOT of swooshing action! I haven't been able to bring myself to put the ship alongside the rest of my TS display yet as I always like to have it close at hand for playing around with. One thing that did bother me (not really a complaint about the set itself, but instead parts quality - I apologize) is that all three of the round 1x1 pieces are slightly different shades of trans-neon orange. Anyways, nice pictures, and thanks again for the review, Oky.

To further explain my reasoning for being disappointed by the lack of play features in the set... First, as Def mentioned, having wheels on a set does add a level of playability, but I don't consider it much of a play function. This leaves the trap door to be the sole function. On a near 600 piece flagship set for a theme, wheels and a trap door seems extremely lacking. The minifigures of course add much to the playability of the set, but the train itself still doesn't have a lot going on. Now, yes it is just a train, who's functionality is to transport people or goods from one location to another. But how often does TLC have a set only 'do what it's supposed to' and not add extra random features? Let's start by looking at 6497 Twisted Time Train. It's a train that can be pushed around, however it's got a lot more going on - When the train is pushed, the following happens: 1. Flames pop up and down in the smoke stack 2. On the second car, a viewing platform moves up and down 3. On the third car, two accessories rotate, and wings at the side flap The Twisted Time Train has just over half the amount of pieces that the Western Train chase does, and yet it has many more functions. Going back to the Toy Story theme, even many of the other sets have the same amount of functions or more than 7597. Take Woody's Roundup or Pizza Planet Truck Rescue, they both feature play functions that were never seen in the movies. The Pizza Planet Truck shoots pizzas! Sure it's a silly function, but it still helps to bring you back to the set to play around with it. Now, don't get me wrong. I really like the Western Train Chase, or else I would not have gone and bought it myself (even after reading reviews), but I just simply feel that the set could have been a lot more fun.

Sorry, I guess it's easy to misunderstand my use of the word 'clean'. I meant it in a much more literal sense, as in there were relatively few accidents, there was not any rain and so cars were able to stay on the track without too much difficulty, there was a normal amount of pit stops for tire changes (unlike in Canada when most teams had top stop 3-5 times). Also, Ferrari has a car that is much more competitive now, hence the 'well done'. I don't have anything against the fine, it was pretty obvious what the team did, and as KimT said - hopefully it will dissuade teams from doing that more in the future.

I've been subscribed to the Lego magazine since the mid 90s. Back then, each issue was dedicated much more to a particular theme that was released that year. There was often a couple pages showing off the sets, including a set up story for the theme (when applicable), character bios, set functions, and other trivia. Then there was often a comic which showed off the sets in action. These magazines, up until sometime around 2002 or 2003, were only around a dozen pages long. The 'upgraded' magazines around 2003 were around 30 pages long, and since then each issue length has varied. I personally find the old issues (mid 90s to early 2000s) more informative and entertaining than current stuff, but I'm not going to get into that discussion. Another way to find out about the sets and themes were from catalogues and tv commercials. Finally, boxes for medium - large sized sets often had a lift up panel with a paragraph or two about the set or theme. I think the official Lego site went live around 1996 or so, and it has been much easier to find information regarding products since then. Note: I'll see about scanning a couple pages from some of my magazine issues as soon as possible and posting them here.

Groovy. I'll definitely be keeping my eyes open for the little guys. I know I'm definitely grabbing a complete set, but I haven't decided whether I want any doubles or not. I certainly don't want to be greedy and ruin any chances of kids getting their hands on the baggies. Guess we will find out soon enough what distribution is like for this series...