Doctor Sinister

Well, I went there this morning - am now at home in the UK. Quite an impressive LEGO section, WAY bigger than my local TRU - not much in the way of new sets for me to look at though - I made a conscious decision NOT to buy any Star Wars sets as I'll get those in the future, but I grabbed about 5 sets, including some of the smaller Castle ones. And my children loved this DUPLO racing car! Dr. S.

Hi all, Am currently working my way back to the UK after some time in Spain - we drove through France to get there and are on our 3rd stop on the way back - the one and only TRU I've passed is near Rouen, where I am typing this from now. My local TRU at home is rather limited in LEGO - is it worth checking out the TRU here in France or should I not bother? Would be grateful if anyone could give me some advice as there are other things I could be doing...but I feel the urge to check this TRU out and satisfy my LEGO buying needs! Thanks! Dr. S.

From the Tabletown News page... 01/08/07 - Tabletown Aviation Authority decries in-flight repair schedule The head of the TAA today launched a blistering attack on the "lunatic" policies of airline operators who are apparently forcing maintenance operatives to perform hazardous in-flight repairs. "In an effort to maximise profits, the airlines are turning their planes around so quickly there's just no time for maintenance on the ground. The staff are under enormous pressure to undertake repairs whenever they can - only yesterday it was drawn to my attention that a repair worker was seen clambering around on the wing of a plane in flight, ostensibly to repair a faulty fuel line. Things got even worse when it transpired that in order to fix the pipe he'd have to REMOVE THE WING - which he proceeded to do, all before the plane had landed. To make matters worse, half-way through the procedure, the airline dispatched a helicopter to drop an assistant onto the wing to help him out, along with a Supervisor, a Tea Lady, a Time and Motion Executive, a Manager, an Auditor and a two-man film crew assigned to tape the job for a training film so that future operatives could see how it's done. I tell you, there's going to be a serious accident soon." Dr. S.

My local Post Office has a sign up lately that says if you are collecting a parcel on which you have to pay duty, you now have to pay an additional

I'm definitely getting my hands on this as soon as I can. Dr. S.

It's really great - the vegetation looks VERY natural to me - overgrown, teeming with life. As for why there is a fort there - my guess is that the island was once much bigger, but seismic activity caused it to lose some of it to sink into the sea. Well, it's nice to speculate anyway... Dr. S.

Maybe we should have a Dalek poll? Dr. S.

It's difficult for me to say as I scored several thousand pieces at one of the Red Letter Days events, so whilst it would be very easy to knock up a figure based on my set listing...I am not sure about this extra figure. In summary...no idea. Dr. S.

It's perfect! Dr. S.

Either good ol' Darth Vader or Bespin Han - his outfit is really nice and it makes the smirk on his face even funnier because he KNOWS he looks super-cool. :-D Dr. S.

Hey, I like your Daleks! Dr. S.

It was in a special for Comic Relief - it's not canon. Dr. S.

Is that how it's been retconned? Interesting. Thing is, that throws up a whole load of new problems - like how come the Rebel Alliance didn't find out about the DS until just before it went operational - if it moved around so much then that means that so many more people would have been aware of it... Dr. S.

Wow, what a great review! I'm dead impressed that the whole thing can be picked up from that central point - awesome...and I never realised how BIG it was! Dr. S.

I believe in the Radio Series the DS is meant to have vapourised the planet Despayre around which it was built. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe the official LucasFilm guide for canonicity is that the films come first, then the radio series, then written works - i.e. if there are conflicting events, whatever is in the films takes priority and so on down the line. So, if the radio series says the DS destroyed Despayre, then it did, unless the films say otherwise, which they don't. BUT...all this is thrown into doubt anyway with the prequels - since it's made clear that Tarkin DID NOT come up with the idea for the DS as stated in the books, and it was NOT built in the Maw facility after all, but started by a bunch of insects. :-D Dr. S.

I would love to have stopped off, but I was transferring to St Louis from London - I live in the UK, and that's the only time I've ever visited the US. :-( Dr. S.

I've put some pictures of this event on the Tabletown website - just go here and click the "Special Feature" link. A couple of pictures as a taster: Dr. S.

Very good and awfully clever! Good quality pics too. Dr. S.

Hmmm... How would you know it was actually complete? I think we need to explore this more thoroughly. Ever hear of the "Schrodinger's' Cat" thought experiment? It's an exercise in quantum mechanics. Now, on the same basis as the cat theory, if you shook up a Creator container - it's theoretically possible for the kit to assemble itself - but there's no way of knowing if it has or not until the box is opened. So, if one follows Schrodinger's thinking - until the container is opened, the model is both assembled and unassembled in equal measure. Thus...we have the "Schrodinger's LEGO" thought experiment. I shall publish this in scientific journals immediately! Dr. S.

I was going through some old paperwork and found my LEGO ModelMaking Experience certificate! Here it is! What a great day that was - we were behind the scenes at LLW, met the chief modelmaker there, had a guided tour, saw how it all works in Miniland, got lots of building tips, even got to hold and examine some of the models from Miniland itself. We went into the Modelmakers' inner sanctum, and even got to tiptoe through the stockroom (we weren't really supposed to take things from there, but of course we did and the staff turned a blind eye). And then...we had an hour to fill carrier bags with as much as we could from this lot: (BTW - the table in the corner of the room is made from LEGO too :-) ) I took home several kilos of LEGO which it took me hours to sort through - including HUNDREDS of custom-made "silver" LEGO blocks which had been made for a special job - I made a building in Tabletown from them - they are pretty cool. This was at least the second such event - did anyone else from EB go? I have more pictures if anyone is interested - I have to scan them in though as I didn't take my digital camera on that day. Dr. S.

I saw it! I saw it! I held it in my hands! Basingstoke TRU has two at the time of writing - but I didn't buy one. Dr. S.

I demand more pictures! *sweet* Dr. S.

Wow - is that what they really do? I didn't see anything other than the airport when I stopped off at Chicago - although I did fly over that rather nice enormous black skyscraper. Dr. S.

I do have three sort of speedy-looking pursuit cars that I guess I could keep for traffic enforcement, but the other cars are not nearly as nice. I could convert a couple of them to act as security for my football stadium - I am also of the view that you can't have enough Police, but their equipment needs to be standardised in my view. I'm tempted to pick up the station that's on sale right now - but I know there's another new one coming out, the only thing is that the current station has the same Police logo as the vehicles I want to stock up on - small point I know, but I'm all for uniformity right now. Dr. S.

The number and diversity of vehicles operated by the Tabletown PD has reached ludicrous proportions - there are about a dozen completely different squad cars rolling around and who knows how many bikes and trikes. It must cost Tabletown PD a small fortune to keep all these different vehicles on the road. AND all the "Police" letterings are totally different - I used to view my PD as an evolving creature, like any regular department, they get new cars in every so often...but this is silly. Oh, not to mention that my Helicopter transport looks just awful now that the new 6-stud width trucks are being introduced. And it must be quite unnerving for the residents - I mean, how do they know they are getting pulled over by a real Cop when all the vehicles are so different? So I've decided to rationalise the department - order in a whole new load of vehicles from the current S@H range and "retire" all the older vehicles. I reckon four squad cars, four bikes and two vans should do it - the helicopters can stay in the air and with all the old vehicles being retired, the number of foot patrols will increase by an awful lot. The only problem will be in restraining myself from buying any new Police cars in the future. Reckon I can do it? :-D :-D Dr. S.