Shadows

My direct comments are in blue. Stauder@55 answers in bold print. I occasionally add a little comment to some of his answers, in italics. For the call in portion of the program, the callers comments will appear in green. My heckling comments will still be in italics. I also hit the emoticon limit, so if some are missing, don't blame me. *as the commercial fades we hear "LEGO Mania, LEGO Maniiiiaaaaaa!" drifting off into the distance* *show begins, camera fades in, theme music plays* Come right in and sit down. No, not there, in the little chair. *goes around and sits in the big comfy chair* Ah, much better. *looks at the camera* "Today we are pleased to have Stauder@55 join us for a little interview in his own words and spelling, and grammar," he says disclaimerishly, "I resisted fixing too much" Welcome Stauder@55, or, as I intend to call you, Staudie. It's nice having you here. Oh no, it"s completely my honour to be here with you. I mean, I"ve heard so much about you that it"s a thrill to finally meet you in person. *wub* Well, that's very kind of you, but I'm interviewing you, so enough about me. I think he actually said that, but I'm not entirely certain, the notes I made were a bit sloppy. So Staudie, you've managed to build a reputation as the interviewer, annoying or not. What gave you the idea to interview members of EB? I was curious about Hinckley and Sinner, who are our local comedy act, so I decided to interview them for the hell of it. I never thought I"d be asked to do more. So Thank our Dynamic Duo For these interviews. ... and we most certainly do appreciate their antics as well! What's the one question you'd most like to ask people, but are too afraid to? Well, there is one Ive wanted to ask hinckley ... Can I move in? X-D Come on, we all know he doesn't let kids in the LEGO room. Speaking of which, how did you get started in LEGO and what keeps you in it? I had my lego since before I was 3, It was my dads, and some gotten from a garage sale, that"s why I have some old parts, but not the manuals or boxes. What keeps me on it? The desire to build cooler and Cooler things. What does your name mean, especially the @55 portion? Stauder Is my surname. Its a unusual I admit, I belive its german. The @55 part is meant to be 255, because when I signed up on lego my nick was Martin255 You've recently become a knight. What does that mean to you? Nothing except that I spam too much X-D Oh and I"m wearing armour... Sir Stauder... I like the sound of that Now that he's a knight, it's also his Sir name ... haha ha haha, oh shut up. >:-( What do you do when you're not doing something with LEGO, or what would you most like to be doing? Well schools is beginging soon so Studying Maltese which I can speak but am crap at gramatically... If not school, Prolly TV or on the Comp, here on EB... What are you reading right now? How is it? I'm reading these questions... They're intresting... Uh huh, wise guy, I'll make you pay for that later! >:-) What do you plan to be when you grow up? A Lego Designer or A Pilot, I have some experience piloting a small plane, and lots of experience with lego (Over 11 years) Piloting a plane sounds interesting. What are some other things you've done that most people haven't? You"ve never glued your maltese teacher to his chair.... With superglue... Or locked him in the closet... Now there's the stuff I was looking for in the interview! Tell me all about this teacher gluing incident. No... :-P Ye sneaky billboard you! So, you're from Malta, somewhere most of us have never been. Tell us something interesting about it. Malta is a odd place. Intresting, but you grow tired of it after 8 years. Most people here are friendly and helpful. Nice holiday location... Ya hear that! Come visit me! Free Holiday On! *y* At this point in our program we're going to take some calls from you, the viewers. Let's see, first we have andy_0306uk who asks: If you could create a new Lego piece, what would it be and how would you use it? I would create none, just re release the old ones. The fun of lego is that some builds are tricky and you have to think. Andy follows up by asking: What is your favourite Lego colour and where/how have you used it? Blue and white, White stormies and my blue US solder from the Weapons Wagon. And now we take a call from ... I'm sorry, we're having reception difficulties and can't tell who this is ... wait, it sounds like ... yes, it must be MommyStauder, calling her little boy during his first big appearance! She (or someone) asks: Can You sing anything? Yes, but well.. The songs are silly... I know 3 usefull songs, well Now I know 1, have to re learn the other 2... Theyr'e usful to know during exams... 1... 3.. (This one I currently know...) Who else but a mother would ask that? Our next caller, ImperialScouts asks: What do you get if you multiply 6 by 9? Fourty-Two Excellent answer. It reminds me that we need to take a commercial break and let you know all about the upcoming Douglas Adams Vignette contest! Ok, ok, back to the boring questions! :-| Now a call from Sir Dillon. "Hello Stauder, here is my question. If you were surrounded by hundreds of blood thirsty orcs and had no weapons besides a rotting walrus jaw, a wrist watch that doesn't work, and a bit of dental floss, how would you escape?" I'd wake up and go get some tea, or hitch a ride on the nearest sofa... Here we have Mr. Mandalorian (Mandy Lori Ann! *cough* :-P): "All right... which question hasn't been asked? I know: How old are you and do you think you'll be able to keep doing Lego in the future?" Im 42 (Not like you cant read my profile), and yes I hope to. 42 months? More age questions it would seem, this time from Commander Andrew of 501 st who asks, "How old are you?" What do you get when you multply six by Nine and then look into my profile? There's that Stauder humour we've all come to know and tolerate with only small doses of medication :-P Ah, here's a good one! Wobo Ihi asks: Pirates or Ninjas? (non-LEGO) Ninjas all the way... Oh, I'm sorry, wrong answer! We're going to have to ask you to leave now, but you do get this lovely home edition of our game (I always wanted to be a gameshow host). Now we're receiving a call from really far away ... it sounds like Fabuland, which can mean no other than our own Fabulandiest of Fab, Hinckley! Hinckley: Yeah yeah, he made me call in for this, so let's get it done, I've got whacking to do. 1. Do Sinner, Ras, copmike, and I and the rest of the crew seem immature even to a TFOL like you? No, and I think they are loved for that. Figures that his first question would really be about him, huh folks? >:-) 2. What is your greatest building accomplishment with LEGO? My yellow submarine. Oh and my Arctic Ice Breaker with helipad. Will post a pic later 3. What is your greatest LEGO dream? To own lego, rent a army n go crush megablocks... Im sure most agree with me... Oddly, I think most probably drift towards the one with the lifesize Slave Leia minifig, but hey, it isn't for me to say.. *wacko* 4. What are your other hobbies? Sports? School clubs? Interests like comics, or other collections, etc? Bike riding, reading, Shool (they don't spell there, apparently) Drama Club (Ahh... Fiddler on the roof was a good one... ), Asterix and Obleix... Oh and model planes There! Now get off my case! >:-( Don't you have a Comic to go and finish? |-/ :-P X-D Ooh, he's getting testy folks, must be past his bedtime, I think we'd better wrap this up! :-P In closing, I'll ask that one thought provoking question that all good interviewers end with. What is the one principle upon which you've built your life? We are creatures of shoelace, lost in purple. The koala knows... *slides his chair away from the guest* *wacko* And there you have it folks, a fascinating inside look into the mind of our young interviewer, Stauder@55, who will, it should be mentioned, be interviewing me one of these days, when all the important people are either done or too busy to get back to him (honest, I have the pm to prove it) :-P *turns off the camera* Edited to fix a couple of sloppy tags :-|

I just finished editing all of Staudie's answers into the most embarassing things he never said and will publish them shortly. Nah, I'm not even fixing his spelling (too much). He's embarassing enough without help :-P

While I think she covers up most of her age lines with the long hair down the sides of her face, the rest was probably plastic surgery. Get it? Plastic surgery! HA HAHA *cough* :-$

A dead camera and rule #4 insures my inability to enter this one guys... I hadn't finished building it, but it was close. I'll describe it after everyone posts their entries so no one takes the idea (I really think it was a good idea). :'-(

You really have an impressive collection of yellow. What theme of sets do you usually buy? Oh, and I like this one too *y*

What a shocker! The Minnow's radio is smashed! Let's see, who wandered off for a while and returned late, leaving them plenty of time for a little sabotage? Heck, are we even assuming it was ever not-smashed? They sure as heck didn't hear your distress signal, the one you sent on the broken radio. They did, however, know what you said. Listening from nearby, or one of the crew... is a traitor. Fun times ahead on this cursed cargo cruise. Fun times >:-) Oh, Doug... that's one heck of a big sig pic. Now it's just my opinion, and I don't speak for anyone in authority, but you might want to resize it down a bit before someone *cough*Jipay*cough* comes along and tells you to in his oh so subtle way ;-)

A dead on likeness. Do you use software or are you a dithering/shading genius? Nerf Herder On! *y*

Just like last time, I will vote for the best entry (and it will win). It was a very close call last time, and I expect this to be an even wilder contest. Creativity On! *y*

The very first set I ever owned was 6901-1, Mobile Lab, a classic from 1980. To this day I fondly remember building, disassembling, and rebuilding it into all kinds of things. It's what got me started in this crazy LEGO obsession. I would be honoured to wear a Classic Space Tag, if that's acceptable to you. Thank you very much :-)

Excellent, this is shaping up nicely! Oh, and I intend to edit the first post to mention that digital entries will be allowed, within reason (meaning, don't use the rarest parts imaginable, just stick to normal things you might have in your own inventory). I'm doing this out of the kindness of my heart, and for the fully self-serving reason that my camera broke and I won't be able to enter otherwise. :-|

... excellent, and probably the dose of reality I needed to knock me out of the delusion that I'm going to buy one today. I won't think twice about dropping that on LEGO, but I get so little use out of a camera anymore that it hardly seems worth it. I only bought it back when I sold on eBay regularly and knew I needed some kind of pictures. It served that purpose well, but never was suited for LEGO. I think I spent $150 on it, plastic body, no zoom, no lens capacity, no charging, AA batteries and an adapter for "plugged in" use. Despite the name, I don't even think it really took 640x400 pics, or I'm a really bad photographer because I always had to size everything down to get it to not look grainy. Thanks for the great and detailed advice, I know it'll help when I'm ready to make the purchase. I'll definitely keep an eye open for a deal, but until then, I'm out of the picture game I guess. Sorry Hinckley, I'm particularly annoyed and disappointed to have finally gotten this thing built into something I could be happy with and not be able to show it. I know digital models are allowed, but entering the original Chinese restaurant wouldn't be fair, it's basically impossible to build as I've discovered (and would cost a ridiculous amount). Since I can't post it in the entry thread, I will at least give a small summary. The first story is identical to the original except with a black overhanging roof instead of red. All brickwork throughout the model is in dark red, all wooden accents are standard red. Dark red is a pain to get in quantity (I built this whole thing out of 1x2's and 1x6's, I never did manage to get any 1x4's). I did pick up a lot of 1x1 rounds in dark red, and 1x1 tiles and 1x4 tiles in it as well, so everything that can use them does. The entire left side of the building is gone, replaced with a fancy side entrance complete with a Chinese arched entryway, old style red fence and swinging gates, bamboo in the corners, a white fountain with fish topper, Chinese lanterns on each of the 4 corner posts and parrots on 3 of the posts inbetween. A crouching cat on the last post, dead center of the back fence between the lanterns and behind the fountain. Two windows (red train windows of all things) and a door on the side facing the fancy entrance, plus 4 hanging flags (Adventurers Orient design) attached by black handle plates that make up part of a solid black line running along both the left and right side of the building. A red delivery bicycle is parked against the wall (wanted to do a 6-wide typically designed black sports car, but didn't have time). The delivery boy is opening the gate to leave as a family is approaching the door. The family consists of a suited father with briefcase, an I'm-not-sure-how-to-describe-it dressed mother (in dark blue) and their daughter (or a midget!) in a paradisa flowered shirt and medium blue short legs. The hostess (Jing Lee with a different head and black Mary Jane hair) is greeting them at the door. Around the front of the building, the owner, an elderly man with a long beard, is sweeping, a trashcan sitting to his side. He's sort of an homage to the owner of Cafe Corner doing the same thing. A half barrel of flowers sit beside the front door. The right side is just 3 windows and more flags, it isn't really intended to be a particularly visible portion of the building, but it is consistant with the design. Directly above the overhanging roof is a tower similar to the original one, except using 60's era windows (1x2x1 red with glass). Instead of the pointy roof, however, it stops before the top slope and goes flat. On that flat surface sits a classic castle era black dragon, with fire. The restaurant is locally known as the Black Dragon, though officially it would have some other name if I'd actually tried printing something to attach to the front. The front and back of the building are straight walls with red slopes on the other two sides going to the flat black roof, which sits below and behind the tower. On the roof is a jet engine serving as a ventilation unit (pretty effective), a couple of greeblie bits to represent other roof equipment, an orange crate, a chest, 2 covered barrels, all of which the health department kept telling them to move until they bribed the guy. The back wall is literally solid. I just walled the whole thing up, but in such a way that it can be removed. The black roof and tower are also removable, revealing the entire inside of the restaurant. Don't get excited, it's empty except for a basic wall to seperate the kitchen from the dining area. Lamp post out front, never got around to a mailbox or fire hydrant but intended to. Fully tiled sidewalk compatible with Cafe Corner (but no side technic pins for attachment). Whole thing sits of 2 16x32 dark bley baseplates. In all, a total of 6 minifigs: 3 male, 3 female. 5 adults and a child (or midget!), 1 red parrot, 1 pink bird, 1 blue bird, 1 crouching white cat, 1 fish (bley), 1 black dragon with fire wings. Add a little minifig me with a big frown that he can't enter this. :'-(

So, does anyone have a specific camera recommendation, just in case I'm stupid enough to go try to buy a new one today? Yes, that's right, it's 7am and I was getting all set to try to take pictures of the very heavily modified version of my Chinese restaurant (it isn't great, but I'm not unhappy with it) and all my camera wants to display is horizontal lines that get brighter and brighter until they fill the whole screen in a glowing white field of nothing. I turned it on for 5 minutes last night and it looked perfectly fine, except for low battery. Now, fresh batteries and lines. Tried plugging it in to the AC adapter, same thing. It was a PDC640 (piece of damn crap, I'm sure that stood for). I checked the online guide to it and they don't mention this particular problem. I'm still playing with it, but I don't know what to try, it isn't exactly user servicable. >:-( :'-( >:-( *n* *skull*

Lots of possibilities to reuse old stock. Obviously the crusader/chalice room would be easy. One knight, big barrel, assortment of cups and goblets. All old parts reused. Heck, they could clear out the entire Harry Potter library with the book burning scene ;-) Truth be told, all I'm really asking is that they make us a nice minifig scale dirigible. NO TICKET ON! *y*

No, you may not. >:-( I could, however, mention that you wish I did :-P We'd better stop this now or we'll end up with a Hinckley vs imperialshadows thread, and I'm not in the mood for chocolate pudding, or what passes for it around here. I also don't have the head to your standard sigfig. Sometimes I worry that I should have picked a more difficult one for me...

:'-( I was just asking a simple question and you have to go and give a girl a hard time and stuff. :-$ :-/ >:-( *slams the door*

In KKI we had Queen Leonora and Princess Storm. The KKII Chess set features an aged Jing Lee from the Adventurers Orient Expedition as Queen. I'm missing your point here. The Wizard is paired with his undead Queen because she died and he brought her back to life, more or less, rather than lose her forever. Ok, that counts as weird, but touchingly so. I wish I hadn't put it that way. As a side note, the Viking Queen is the only female represented in the whole line. A pity.

To think, all this time that Sinner has been kicking people in the head with his steel toed boots, he's been using a car trunk. *wacko* As for the car... isn't that 8-wide or have I lost my perspective on how to count? doug7172: I love the update. *wub* Hovercar On! *y*

A large and detailed effort. Barring what's been said previously about colours and such, I'll stick to what I really like. Appliances and accessories. Nice job putting in some of the things we all use daily and tend to ignore. I get the impression you're working within your collection, which can be a lot more challenging than just planning something and ordering parts by the ton from Bricklink, and I think you've done a good job of using some things in unexpected ways that still create the desired effect. Very nice job, be sure to update us when you update your work and more than anything, just keep building! *y*

So, Mr. Scrutineer, this being an international site, just when do we consider the deadline to be EXACTLY? The very last minute of the very last hour of the 17th in the very last timezone (just in case someone on one of those little islands in the Pacific wanted to join in (I hear they're big on LEGO there, wherever that is)? Surprisingly, I'm done actually. I made so many massive modifications (read that as reductions) that I finished a good 20 minutes ago, right after opening a random eBay order that included a part I wasn't expecting, that made it possible to do something that I'd considered but didn't have the part for *sweet*. I'm just left to try to get the lighting right for some crappy pics. I'm off to read your thread on the subject, just to see if I can absorb any of your good photography methods enough to make these almost viewable. I hope to have them done sometime in the morning, putting me potentially a whole day ahead. Now go commit to our Douglas Adams vignette contest or I'll :'-( Don't give me that look. You do to know who he is. You haven't read ... no, you've got to be kidding me. Well, don't worry, we have it set up so that even the illiterate er the uneducated the lazy-megablocks non-readers can join in! (good thing I edited that down so it sounded nicer, huh?) >:-) Go on, it's only a tiny little vignette. ;-)

It is definitely cartoonish. It kind of looks like it needs a wind-up key in the back, then it could go BRZZZZZZZZZ as it rolls along shooting sparks from the barrel. Ok, seriously, it's pretty good for what you intended it to be. Do you plan to try a real tank some day? Or Lori. Or An(n). 8-

*vader*: We must find those stolen data tapes! You know, we have the power to destroy a planet, but we're still using TAPES? *chokes a passing engineer* Someone invent a better storage system! Now that I have that out of my system, very nice work indeed! I'm a big fan of the 6-wide car but this makes a pretty nice argument for 8-wide, wish the roads could fit it. Convertable On! *y*

I was full-on buried deep in my dark ages but collecting general SW stuff when I saw the first new sets and thought, "hey, those are SW, I need them for my collection." I wasn't absolutely convinced I would build them and then it all flooded back. The space men, the knights, the pirates... So, there I was, sprawled out on the bed with bits of LEGO rolling around looking for that much needed next part and I was 10 again. I refuse to turn 11. Since then, the prequels came and went in all their disappointment, and I've completely stopped collecting SW, except LEGO. Along the way, I started picking up small sets of other things on clearance. The first Mars sets, some Fright Knights, some random things. They were immediately bashed up for SW mocs and scenery. Now I'm rebuilding my Pirates, Castle, Town, and Space sets (for the moment I'm just restocking as many minifigs and accessories as I can). I always liked having them before, but now they're almost the focus of my collecting. So many good sets now, so much to look ahead to, like Indy, I don't see anything but good times ahead (as soon as the part quality gets completely back to normal). Too many wonderful surprises to count, but those first SW sets were responsible for saving me from a LEGOless future, and that cute little dark lord of the sith himself, Darth Vader in all his minifig glory, was probably the best surprise out of those first new sets. So cute! *wub* So evil! >:-) So *vader*!

I do! *y* It's good to see such interest so soon, just don't unveil all of your creations before we've started. Don't get me wrong, show 'em if you've got 'em, just save the best for last. I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they go by. Figure this to be a fairly relaxed affair at this point. We aren't even certain when it's beginning or for how long to run it, but I'm thinking it should be after the decks have cleared a bit and things return to their normal state of controlled chaos. Do you have a preference? We end with our quote of the moment (the previous one was the quote of that moment, not this moment, so don't get particular on me).

What I think he said was that his back hair was growing. I could be wrong though X-D

It would be thoroughly impolite for me, the free billboard guy, to comment on someone else's sig, even if it was incredibly funny and made me nearly do a Hinckleyesque spit take, so I won't mention post #38, lest people go there (on page 2) and look at it. Nope, not doing it. X-D