Shadows

You're misunderstanding what we're saying. Halloween was commercialized from an originally non-commercial event, but to me that's fine. All of my halloween memories are based on the commercialized version. The majority of the public movement away from it has been as a result of religious groups. The part that strikes me as sad is that for years there were very few complaints along those lines, with churches themselves being a source of some Halloween parties/hayrides and such. It's only been in recent years that I've seen fanaticism move in and declare the whole thing evil. Thus my comment about that. Christmas was originally non-commercial, but has turned into a huge non-stop selling event, to the extent that it now overruns both Halloween and Thanksgiving (US version) and literally appears in stores in September. If anything, a lack of religious focus would be the problem there, with people more interested in gifts and lights than the intended meaning. Two seperate holidays with two seperate forms. Only thing they have in common is that the stores love making as much profit as possible off them, and in the case of Christmas, they don't care that they're mostly selling Santa Claus and dropping the rest. Better?

Sometimes I can't believe I do interviews with this guy... *shakes head* :-| *easter eggs Staudie's house* >:-)

Imperial technician: We've found the hidden rebel base, it's on Carpeteria. General Veers: Dammit! Those rebels are a sneaky lot. They know our walkers are useless there! >:-( ;-)

Has LEGO ever produced a church? The closest I've seen them get to religion in any form are the Christmas items, and they're fairly limited. I always viewed their religious stance similarly to their race stance. Avoid, mostly. Until the NBA franchise, they'd managed to avoid race completely, now it's gone wild. I think they'd do the same thing if they ever released a church. Suddenly they'd feel compelled to produce other religious structures to represent other faiths, and things would get needlessly complicated. I kind of like avoiding it entirely.

Now that I've had some sleep, and a bit of time to think out my feelings more, I'll explain, on a less emotional level, what I mean. I'm glad that some people want a print edition and are getting it. I don't understand it, but I can't argue the point. I loved printed catalogs and such as a kid, they just do nothing for me now except destroy trees and take up space. I download the digital instructions to all of my LEGO sets, though I do keep the printed ones since I already have them. I wasn't the least bit annoyed with the sets that didn't include instructions and opted for a download instead. I like the convenience of PDFs, and I will probably buy these in that format. In my heart, I doubt that the number of people who will be happy with this will exceed the number who won't. We'll never know for sure, unless this whole thing folds quickly (something I don't want to see happen). My initial post was as I came away from the publishers site, annoyed at being expected to blindly register on a site I knew nothing about, to download a file that had previously been a simple, one shot thing. Sort of a buildup of anticipation followed by a letdown. I've always looked forward to the magazine, though as I think about it even now, I don't really see where it's packed with so much information. To be honest, I can't remember anything that ever appeared there before it did here, or in one of the other major forums. Still, that's not really the point (though it's becoming one in my mind as I type this). I'm sure they at least had some new pictures or something I must be forgetting. If this was a simple matter of, "please pay to help offset the bandwidth costs of providing this, here's our Paypal address," I'd already be a subscriber. They obviously had all of the staff necessary to put it together before, so that angle seems a bit off for me. Ted: I don't think we're going to see this sitting in the newsstands attracting new/old fans, like a train or hobby magazine. I'd love to be wrong on that, and I guess it's impossible for anyone to know until some time has passed. As for the 'theft' angle, I wasn't advocating anything, I was just stating what will happen in the real world, as already hinted at by a post in another forum. Hinckley: I guess my point is a selfish one, since I don't care if he had to hire a staff to move to print, I never wanted it in print in the first place. I was quite satisfied with it in digital form, and don't have a huge desire to support a staff structure to do something I wasn't interested in, when I think they could have done better simply charging for PDFs on their own, without involving an outside company that will take a healthy chunk of any income. Holodoc: It was that registering that got me in a bad mood about the whole thing. I'm really not easy going about my private information being given to someone I don't know. Ultimately, some of my feelings are the same and I honestly can't remember the big movement for this to be printed. Maybe I missed it. I'm sure it happened, it sounds like the kind of thing people would ask for. I'll be curious to see if they regret that or not. Either way, I'm going to review some of my old issues, since I've saved them all along the way, and see what I got out of them to determine if I'll continue. I probably will. Doesn't mean I have to be happy about it :-P Wonder if these are my final thoughts on the matter. Probably not. *wacko*

Well, Brickjournal #9 is out for download. I haven't read it yet though, and not because I don't want to. It comes as no surprise to me that the whole venture was being done with future profit in mind, and that's clearly the case as they move to print for issue 10. Ready to pony up $32 for 4 printed issues? No? You'll still be able to download it as well, for $4 an issue. All of this assuming you're somewhere that can use Paypal (for the downloaded one). I have no idea what the international readers are supposed to do for the printed one. Oh, and if you buy the printed one, you also get a download of the PDF... How long before one person subscribes and then redistributes the PDF to his entire LUG? I don't think this is going to be a successful venture, but hey, I could be wrong. I didn't think Galidor was a good idea either X-D Now I understand that there is a limited audience for this sort of thing, but those prices seem a bit high to me. First off, I don't want a print copy. I've got too many things lying around now. I desperate wish LEGO themselves would make all of their publications in PDF and just let us download them, save a lot of wasted paper and space, and keep the information right at my fingertips where I want it. In an age of technology, we should be moving away from printed waste instead of embracing it so we can charge $8 an issue for a magazine largely made up of contributions by the fans themselves and the LEGO Group. But that's all beside the point. The download. Well, you go to the new publisher's site, where you're supposed to add it to your 'cart' and then 'checkout.' I knew that was going to be trouble from the moment I read the words. I am not registering with some company I've never heard of to download something free. Forget it. From what I've read, this is going to have a mixed response much like the whole Brickshelf affair (though where did that ever go? I still haven't noticed paid pages). Read all about it for yourself: http://news.lugnet.com/publish/brickjournal/?n=185 So, what do you think? (Edited because the link didn't linkify the first time, for some unknown reason...)

I'll take just about anything suggested here, including conquistadors, Aztecs, and even the whole South African idea (wouldn't sell for crap in the US though). I'm still trying to figure a way to encourage my Zorro theme, but it can't be part of pirates no matter how much I twist it. It could, however, be a great sub-theme of a Spanish sub-theme. If the whole ill-fated Studio line was around, I'd suggest just that, but it isn't and it didn't work anyway. Based on real Caribbean history, very little of it is appropriate to aim at children ... slavery, conquest, disease, destruction of native populations, you name it. That's why the basic Pirates vs. Imperials worked, and it's the only way it can work again. I don't know if the Dutch would inspire enough interest to sell well, but the old torsos in green would, as long as the story was kept fairly open. To be honest, almost any uniform design would sell, as long as the pirates are piratical enough and there are big ships. Now the issue. Cannons. There is no chance we'll ever see the classic cannons again. I don't think flick missiles (even if they used a trans technic axle and tried to make it look like it was just the ball being shot) or those blasted technic things are even close to tolerable. But this is a dream thread, and dream we must. As I said, I'll take any of it. At least they could now include a decent Blackbeard with the new dwarven beard design. *y*

Good news from the prize front! I have received word from Starwars4J that he would be most happy to provide a title to the winner, and it would seem that he intends to select it himself 8-

A quick trip to Snopes tells you just how much these things have become legends, with very little basis. They devote an entire page to poisonings (none that weren't specific murders) and another to pins/needles/razors (very very few) in nearly 50 years of tracking. Full size bars, huh? That big kid in the vampire costume knocking on your door will be me. FULL SIZED BARS ON! *y*

Now, all holidays are an excuse to sell crap. The biggest of those is Christmas, which is already shoving the Halloween merch out of the way to pile on the biggest and gaudiest display possible. Easter is just the spring equivalent of Halloween now, a big candy fest, though I did like the zombie Jesus cartoon *skull* Halloween, however, was not originally intended for commercialism. Here is the Wikipedia page, which goes fairly in-depth about the origins and traditions involved. Halloween itself has been in decline in the US as well, from what I've seen in my life, mostly because of fake tainted candy scares and religious fanaticism. >:-(

I'm indifferent to TRHPS, mostly because I've never been interested enough to watch more than a few minutes. If I want campy Tim Curry fare, I'll take 'Clue' over TRHPS, any day.

Before Cafe Corner was even shown to the public, I had to call about something and the conversation worked it's way around to a point where I mentioned the set and talked about it some and the girl on the phone was telling me things that she liked about it. Then I asked about the availability of some 2007 set that I knew was out, but hadn't been able to find on the shelves (battle packs?) and she give me the whole, "we can't discuss products that haven't been officially released yet" and I couldn't help but laugh, since it was out and we'd just finished discussing one that wasn't. I've also noticed that some of them get a slightly creeped out tone in their voice if you reveal that you're buying for yourself. Get a clue people, train your employees not to do that, you just might lose a sale one day over it. Bottom line, they aren't always the brightest bricks in the batch. :-|

Very nicely done: simple, direct, effective. I especially appreciate the cartoon effect of a character trying to hide something larger than themselves behind their back. You can just picture him rocking back on his heels a bit and whistling innocently, which is probably what got the skeleton so mad (they hate whistling, don't ask me how I know this, but it's a fact). *wacko* Hammer Time On! *y*

Jabba with an ipod? *wacko* Welcome to EB, you'll fit right in! ;-)

I didn't really think it was creative (though I did think the avatar you made was appropriately subtle ;-) ), I was just saying that it was funny to imagine how bad it could have been had you lost, then I realised that win or lose, it could be as bad as he wants, and it isn't that bad. I think that means he lost the title contest too. 8-| I also think I should leave here before I anger the natives who carry big boomsticks. 8-

*makes a note that if we ever meet, we're hitting the stores for LEGO* ;-) Just based on your extended explanation of things, especially the whacking and the wooshing and the dumping and all, I guess that fits a confession that isn't really much of one, but it still needs to be done. When I first came out of my dark ages, I used the excuse that it was Star Wars, and therefore part of my 'official collection,' nothing special, just another part to go with the rest of that particular obsession. Of course, being LEGO, I had to go ahead and display it, so that required building the sets. Well, you can't just have them built without putting the figures in place, and that means coming up with a story, and then things get swooshed and next thing you know, it's all-out playing. I never meant to play with LEGO again, I really didn't, it just ... happened! I'm innocent, I tell you, innocent! *wacko* My other rule was a simple one... only SW LEGO. Nothing else. I think I broke that within a week, under the excuse that I was 'picking up other cheap sets to use as parts to make new SW things for "the display" and nothing else.' I lie so badly to myself. I knew I was lying. I didn't care. LEGO completely consumed my soul and now I don't collect anything else. No more 'action figures' or any of the rest of the SW madness, just LEGO. *wub* And video games, but I'm pretty selective there. I'm 12. I might as well just act it. X-D

Exactly why I voted for Orc as well. *y*

When we first saw the name for this set, and the minor amount of inventory we could gather, I couldn't help but think of the old Town Plan sets, I even mentioned it in that thread, but I never imagined we'd get this ... 8-

Some great confessions here folks! Every time I read one though, I either notice something I do that is similar, or wonder if I should, because it sounds like such a good idea! You're all going to make me a compulsive nervous wreck! *wacko* That said, my latest confession concerns new sets. I'm not sure I've mentioned any part of it before, but just last night I added to the formula a bit, so here goes. Whenever I buy a new set, I have to open it that night, find the minifig parts and assemble them. Once I've put them together, I glance through the other parts for anything special (printed parts mostly), then put all of the slightly opened parts bags in a ziplock and slide those carefully back in the box, using them to keep the instructions flat (a lot of sets have been including curled up instruction books lately). Then I take each minifig and put it in it's own tiny little ziplock and slide all of those in the box before putting it away. Assuming, of course, that it isn't a set I intend to build immediately. I started this with the idea that it would be a good way to verify that I'd received all of the more difficult parts in new sets, since quality control has been a bit weak lately, but in reality I think I just like looking at the cute little people. *wub* :-$ I'm really glad so many of you are sharing and enjoying this little thread, and maybe it's a bit of group therapy at the same time. Plus I'm getting a kick out of some of the comments here. Right now, I'm picturing this scene ... Location: ToysRUs Hinckley: Oh look! This one is soooo cool! *sweet* Jocko: Uh huh. |-/ Hinckley: But this one has new parts! LOOK! 8-

Considering his current one, I'd hate to have seen Hinckley's title if he hadn't won ... 8-

Hey, thanks for the vote (and to all of you who saw fit to bestow some honour upon my entry), it's seriously appreciated. That alone will keep me from whining that the contest was not poorly planned and didn't almost fail horribly (except that I think I did the same exact thing at the end of the entry thread, so I'll just :-X there). It's beginning to look fairly safe to declare Doctor Sinister our winner at this point, but it isn't quite over yet, so we'll just keep up the suspense as long as possible (until I know how the awarding will go). A very well chosen scene, perfectly portrayed, and with a cute-as-heck Marvin to boot. *y* Now I can't make any promises here, but I do think an attempt should be made to procure an Adams related title for the winner, so I'll ask for suggestions as to what it should be. Any ideas? I guess I should start begging now, since a title without a kind Admin assist isn't very useful. :-$

*stares* *wub* *regains senses* This is exactly the kind of thing I'd like to see in my frequently mentioned Zorro theme. He could go from rooftop to rooftop, sliding down the beautiful tile roof, dueling with the army, romancing the damsel, returning money to the old man. All kinds of potential there. But yeah, what's up with those Cafe Corner windows? (blame Hinckley for drawing attention to it ;-) ) Other than those, I love everything in there from that tile roof I mentioned to the custom cannon, the chickens, the exposed beams, even the clothesline. It all blends perfectly to give just the right feel. Planning to expand? Please share! *y*

I could have sworn that someone mentioned doing this very thing previously, some really smart guy who always has such great ideas ... Wish I could remember who. *wacko* Oh well, I'll remember where I saw it, until then... great idea! *y* *y* *y* :-P

Oh, don't even get me started on that one. I still want a city women pack. What's in there, you ask? I'm glad you did! ;-) a woman grocery shopping her daughter 2 working girls. One along the lines of a mail carrier (with Indy's manbag), shop keeper, or waitress (carrying a whole damn turkey! *wub*) for Cafe Corner, the other with a less clearly defined occupation and a halter top, perhaps being hit on by some turkey *sweet* 8-| Ok, ok, I know... :-| I hereby apologize to the entire female population of the planet. Hookers Working Girls On! *y*