Mirandir

I think we're getting a minifig sized Bellville-ish theme... I believe Atlantis are getting a half-release in january kind of like Power Miners did this year. There are a pretty big chance we're getting Pirates of the Carrebean. A new police line seems kind of likely too. I don't think we're getting any more World Racers, it kind of seems like a one-off theme to me. I don't think we're getting any more lamborghinis. :( Kingdoms will of course get at least one more wave. This time with a Castle for the Dragons. I'm hoping for: more civilian sets for both kingdoms and city. Creator will bring another House, car and aeroplane/helicopter.

It's allright I guess. But not as good as I hoped it would be. :/ Me too. But since it's an American who are designing theese sets I guess we'll have to wait until he runs out of the US buildings first...

Hasn't this been up from time to time? However I don't think that there's a simple straightforward answer to this. There are so many things that plays a part in this. Here's just a couple of things that I can think of: VAT, value of the currency, staff wages, transportation costs, general prices on toys in that country, sales figures etc. etc. I also get a feeling that LEGO prefers to not raise the prices on sets already released. Instead they seem to prefer taking it out in prices on new releases. I believe that PaB on S@H is ridicously expensive because the orders are handpacked by staff rather than by machines.

3563 includes the three minifigs as well as a stand and a "background card" for each of the minifigs. (Inventory listing on Bricklink) 3500 includes just the Kobe Bryant minifig and a basketball. (Inventory listing on Bricklink)

Well of those "two" the latest Community Workers are the "best" with 31 minifigs compared to that Death Star's 24... However there are sets with more minifigs than that. This chess set for example. It apparently has 33 minifigs.

Set with most pieces is 10189 Taj Mahal. The former record holder and, I think, the biggest set in size is 10179 Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon.

Unfortunatly there isn't much of this at all. There are a little graffitti but not much. And I'm trying to stay true to the original with a thirties feel. The bricks seems quite sturdy as there aren't that much damage at all. After all the walls are two feet thick (a bit more 50 cm) and I'm sure there are at least two layers of brick used. There is of course the large stain of, what I think is, grease from the hot bulb engines exhausts where it's exhaust pipe has been sticking out through the wall.

Im thinking that the marketing appartment at LEGO is going for some kind of viral or something like that. They let people get sets in advance so they can review them and create a little buzz...

Thank you both for the kind words. I appreciate it.

Near the railroad in the village where I live you can find this old watertower. The tower's water where used to refill the steam engines back in the days. The tower were built around 1911. So, I foolishly decided to build it in minifig-scale with a full interior. Maybe I bit off more than I could chew because this has been a slow and often frustrating build. (It's almost two years since I first began working with it) I can't remember how many times I've dismantled it to start from scratch. But at the same time I've learnt a few tricks of the trade. And that's probably why I'm still at it building this thing. ;) However I was close to canceling it not making any progress whatsoever for quite some time. So I decided to put it aside and do other things instead. So for several months I haven't so much as thought about it. It's just been sitting in a closet gathering dust. However now I felt it was time to pick it up again. And I'm feeling back on track again. But I would love to get some feedback on the progress this far and preferably sugestions on how to improve it. So here it is. All pictures are links to bigger ones. First of all: the outside. The outer walls are built with 1x2 bricks with 2x2 and cerain places to sturd it up and secure it to the inner walls. The biggest concern I have with the outer walls are that they'll pretty much just be big flat surfaces of red nothingness. I plan to swap the bricks for 1x2 plates in red, dark red and reddish brown. Only problem is that it ain't gonna be cheap. And those arches above the ground floor door and windows...? Well they need improvement... And these smaller windows are the sole reason why I'll most likely change the colorscheme to have white windows instead. This snotted window just ain't looking right. And that's it with the outside. Time to checkout the interior. And of course we start with the ground floor. Here seen a little from above We start out wit the bathroom/dressingroom. It has a bathtub, a mirror (of course) and a seat as well as a radiator. The radiator design is stolen directly from Green Grocer. But here they're in black. The, in my opinion, beutiful dark red tiled floor is sponsored by no other than our own ambassador Copmike! For the heating of the tower we have this fireplace/boiler. It's the end result after numerous rebuilds. It's simple yet effective. I guess it's kind of smallish considering that it has to provide five radiators and a bathtub with hot water. But all bigger designs I've tried didn't really work that well so this is pretty much the final design. Here we have a Hot bulb engine that drives a generator which in it's turn drives the electric pump that fills the tank at the top of the tower with water. Missing from this is an exhaust pipe that will lead out through a hole in the wall. The hole is there, I just need to fins a hose that works out as the exhaust pipe. The final thing to see at the ground floor is of course the staircase leading up to the next floor. I'm pretty pleased with how it's turned out but there are still things that could use some improvement. A railing for example! ;) So, next up is the second floor. It's not much. Just a balcony and a small office of sorts. Here there are a lot of things that remains to do. Next planned step is actually do dismantle it and start over from scratch. Even though I'm sure that some of the things that are there now will turn up in the next version as well. Here's a closeup on the balcony. I'm pretty satisfied with it's turnout. The piping isn't finnished as I ran out of pieces. One change I'll have to do is to move the pipe that's one stud closer to the camera back to where the other pipe bends upwards. The reason for this is because it pretty much bends and goes out the wall in the roof of this floor. And I realized that thats kind of problematic if there's another pipe in the way... Also I need to get me some of theese in black to use instead of the dark bley that the lamp is currently mounted on. Just as in the real thing the office/lab/whatever's "outer" wall is black. Actually it seems like the wall has been in a brownish color at some time. However now it's painted black. And that's the color I decided to use. And to avoid it being just a big, ugly flat, black surface I choosed to exaggerate the walls texture by using log bricks. And finally we have the office space. It has a desk, a small shelf, a cupboard and a sink. The floor should actually be tiled with 1x1 tiles but I only have a few left after building the tiled walls in the downstairs bathroom. Therefore it's currently tiled with 2x2 tiles. And that concludes this tour. Finally I just want to once again say that I'll be happy to hear any advice on improvements or just some encouraging words.

Since 99.9% of the sets I buy are to be reviewed on my blog I open the sets after I get home and hav had the time to photograph the unopened box.

Aha! That explains why the sets are so cheap with the battery box... :(

Judging by the pictures on the set boxes they include this battery box.

Oh, I'm pretty confident they will be released. Just not if it's this year or next year. The guess was that they would all be TRU exclusives.

I'm guessing all three sets will be TRU exclusives. Neither of them is in the retailer catalogue that I've looked in. Which suggests they are either exclusives for TRU and/or S@H or that they aren't being released until next year.

Well, there were a cargo plane out not long ago. I'm pretty sure it can still be found in some toystores. And I believe they don't mention the train because it's not released yet. Regarding no mention of a toy store is because this isn't the TRU set. This will be available for all stores.

Well the source has never been wrong so far. So it's pretty reliable. However I guess the info is liiiiiiiiitle bit vague and doesn't directly rule out the possibility of there being more things included in the set. However the wordings of the statement makes me doubt that there is anything more. But of course I'm hoping that there is a small diner of some sort that my source just forgot to mention.

I also thought it was funny that "Truck Stop" would be a "truck stopping at a delivery point" truck stop rather than what everyone is thinking of I should confess that I'm not 100% sure that it was the actual "Truck stop" set that was reffered to. I assumed that as that was the option I were refering to in my question (as the rumored winner of the TRU vote). My source said that "they will have their own truck with a small toystore". I guess now that I think about it, it *could* also be reffering to the third option "city square". But I don't know why there would be a truck in that set.

Oki so I got some info on this TRU voting stuff... According to my sources all sets from that TRU-vote will be released. Wasn't sure though in what channels though. (If they would be TRU exclusives or not.) But they're being released... According to my sources the truck stop set includes a TRU-truck and a small toystore.

Can't you get a Visa/Mastercard without credit? My Visa-card doesn't have any credit associated with it. I can only pay with funds available on the bank account connected to it.

It's a Fabuland Tree.

No, theese figs are not the same as the ones you get in normal sets. If you look on the "neck" of the torso you'll notice that it lacks the normal marking and also inside their arms they've got square indents with numbers inside. Those two things proove that the figs are cheaper figs manufactured in China (Or so it's said). And yeah my nurse's torso has a milky white color rather than the normal white. :/

I doubt that the free shipping is a US only thing. I doubt that they would have gone through all the trouble to make the offer currency specific if it wasn't. Besides they wouldn't want to anger the whole non-american market by offering us just a lousy sticker sheet and nothing else...

I'm not really that concerned about the barcodes as I've heard that my favourite shop has plans on setting up a kind of market with theese figs where you can swap your doublets for other figs and maybe even buy the figs you haven't got. Which I think is a superb idea.

Fortunatly it's only the last third of the barcode that actually differs. Atleast thats the case on the five bags that I've got in my possesion. So I think it should be relatively easy to keep a closeup pic in your cellphone to compare with.