snefroe

i'm surprised to hear that the yellowing process can be reversed. as Gyl said, it's a chemical process, but i'll be doing this experiment next week as well. unfortunately i have lots of subjects to test it with... :'-( still, i think you're damaging the plastic, tho... one question : you're adding bleach to water, right? are we talking about hot or cold water and would it make a difference?

still, lugnet is degrading tho... how many of the links on their "links" section still works, you wonder? i'm too tired to figure it out, but the website needs some serious maintenance job! and i guess that's what's wrong with it: there just is no community anymore that's holding the site together and i think there are 2 reasons for that: 1) Lugnet was around when all the other, specialised websites still had be set up. Lugnet was your only choice. Now we have dozens of sites. Lugnet, as a forum, or even a database, is no longer essential to the larger community. 2) as, for instance, a castle mocer, you're beter off showing your mocs via brickshelf and announce it at the classic castle website. after all, many builders want feedback of castle builders, not the sw freaks, belville lovers or bionicle addicts. So why bother going to Lugnet? The people you want are on classic castle. but i agree about the EB problem, we need more active members. The thing is, they're difficult to find and i don't think the board can do more then they're doing already. it's just a question of time, really...

my question is this: where does this part come from? if this part is in no other set then this, wouldn't that suggest it was specifically designed for this set?

i never understood why people were so hang up on this old grey - new grey change. Sure, you're used to the old color, but really, that must be about it. There are truckloads of old grey on the second hand market.

hm... let me see... 1) 2x4 racers fore apo and aredhel 2) 1254 for hobbes 3) 3x1254 for jon 4) for yoda: an ep2 starfighter, two white pods two airport mechanics 5) pay 28

I agree completely on that purchases of entire sets part. Yet I don't think Lego is unclear about the minifigs' popularity among their fans...I mean just look how they advertize: Whenever you come across a Lego-ad somewhere it shows figs. Whenever you visit some toystores you'll probably see a minifig, when there is a display for according themes. A local department store where I live even has oversized plastic minifig construction workers in a display (and that for as long as I can remember...). Then the whole merchandizing: Plush-figs, minifig as a sculpture-set, all the different keychains (!!!*)...you name it! I don't quite get why Lego is so stingy with minifigs in sets lately (although it was worse a time back), but as I said I'm pretty positive about Lego knowing what kind of iconic character they have at their disposal. *would Lego REALLY produce their keychains with a focus on figs if thy didn't knew about their appeal and popularity? I doubt it! As for minifig-packs: I think we should get these again as they were in the 70s and 80s. Small 6-figure assortment for the major lines. Lego could jazz those packs up even more, if they introduced collectible bonus-figures (1 per pack) randomly packed. Those bonus figs would be even more appealing, if they had odd parts with them (like differently coloured/printed helmets, special chrome accessories...whatever). Lego has done that kind of thing already for their Bionicle-line, so why not do it for System? Hell, those random figs could even be introduced to regular sets, so you get 1 fig more per set, yet your don't know which one of the random ones (which are predetermined and limited of course! And there shouldn`t be more than, say, up to 10 different random figs per theme) 1) i think they're seeing one of the new vikings sets as a new minifig pack (the tower + 5 minifigs). they probably know by now that minifigs are important for the fans, especially for army building themes. 2) they may be expensive to produce so maybe profit margins are smaller

if i'm not mistaken, even on annual reports there is a booking of costs/profits from the year before. the reports are online so you can easily look for it ... i don't think going to china or india is going to solve anything. the costs are no longer wages of people working in the factory. the lego production room is highly automated; it's all the others that increase costs: administration, designers, marketeers, customer's service,... most of those people are very well educated with rather good contracts... If there wasn't such a strong link with the billund community and denmark in general, they'd probably be moving to great britain or Eastern europe all together, but the far east is too far off. You can't run your largest market from china or india... besides, relocation to far east is too expensive and lego can't afford it right now to set up a new plant. they've even closed one in Korea i think... i think they should just continue the strategy they're following now: increase eficiency, cut costs where you can without going too far. Exo force is a perfect example: prices are low, it's popular because of good quality: it sells... lego's situation is not that great, Gyl. if you have to sell your crown jewels (legoland parks) then you're in serious trouble! don't forget, they had major cash flow problem last year, banks refusing new loans AND a shrinking toy market... nono, it's been pretty bad, especially if you see what they've done so far to get back on track: closing down of plants in switzerland and korea; lay off 100's of people,... that's crisis management... But it was after all, bad management that brought them into trouble in the first place, not bad sales... and it's good management that's bringing them back. you can clearly see in the balance sheets that revenues for 2005 are down compared to 2004, but they've cut so many costs and had extra money coming in (sale of property, shares,...) that turned it around. in fact, they themselves say 2006 will not be as good as 2005...

hm... i normally don't work with this canopy but your problem reminds me of the same problems i had with the classic canopies. they were also pretty low and you also had to use the panels in order to have some room for your pilot's arms. The system didn't allow much flexibility there either. you may want to try the classic bracket: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemPic.asp?P=3956 4 of these plus a 4x4 plate should be able to give your pilot a little bit more room, but then, you'll have to build your ship around that construction or it might end up to be pretty ugly... btw, suvie, that's a very cool gun that minifig is holding...

Brilliant pics I might add. Nothing sold LEGO to me like those little catalogs. Just seeing some of the possibility to those sets made me long for more LEGO. The new viking sets have a similar effect on me except that they are only found at TRU and sadly mine closed so it is a 2.5 hour drive to the nearest one and that instantly adds $25 to the cost of the sets. I could go with onlnie but then shipping and well it just isn't the same. Though if LEGO has free shipping this year I will probably get the new viking sets and at least the current catapult. Back on topic (though really off topic) I too hope longingly for a new LEGO space theme. Something more classic but with all the great parts and extras LEGO has made in the past eight years. I hope that the uniforms are in dark teal. *sweet* yes, those catalogs were amazing!! it usually started with a new guy on the cover, you wanted to see more so you skipped dublo , basic and i even skipped town and castle and went straight for space! i never bought space ship, set 6980, tho. it was rather expensive and my parents said "no".

i bought aquazone set 6175 today, even tho i'm not really happy with that. i went to the shop for an insectoid set. the lego sets are very close to the entrance and for some reason they seem to think every customer wants to run off with the sets without paying; so when i got in, the lady went straight to the door, practically looking over my shoulder to see what set i was going to buy. Of course, no insectoid, no set to buy... i was so embarassed by that idea that i just bought this brand new 6175 for 33euro. according to bl prices not bad at all, but i wished it was the insectoid, tho... damn!

hehe, i like your theory, perhaps we should ask them if we can just take over here in Europe and let them worry about the US :-P lucky for us, Europe IS by far lego's main market, based on sales of 2002 and 2003 in the financial report of 2003. if you take the new structure into account (only two market sectons in the world) we're even bigger... the reason why everybody thinks the US is the main market is because US culture dominates the world; it's become practically impossible to sell anything non-US in the US. Take movies, for instance, what turns a film into a monster success or just a very good success worldwide, is the way the US market responds to a film. a film of "Tintin" for instance, would never sell in the US, so why bother to get a lego-license for it? "Smurfs" wouldn't sell either... it's so much easier to sell a US-based product like spiderman or batman in the rest of world, (the easy market) than to sell a non-US based product in the US (a very difficult market); Basically, it means lego is trying to get very good sales in the US and she makes it easy on herself by producing US-based products. that way she increases her chances in the US, and Europe just has to follow, and to keep Europeans happy, they'll even produce "vikings" in order to defend her market share in Europe; it's quite clever, really...

hehe playmo did a book on that...

40 eh? wow that's the oldest lego fan i know! :-P happy birthday!

of course, but there's a choice here, you can just go along with the myths and stereotypes or you could at the same time ad something that brings everything into balance

no they're not really "doing" damage, just as the film "titanic" didn't "do" any damage, they just: 1) support popular believes that are simply not correct and if it's just about a historical detail then sure i can live with it, but it tends to be more than just a minor detail. it can influence the way people look at entire civilisations. for instance, Lego's viking series more or less supports the notion that vikings were nothing more then ancient pirates, barbarians... That's not good 2) it doesn't really inspire people to be critical of what they see around them. it teaches them to just "take" whatever 's getting on their plate...

it's quite simple really, lego is no longer a danish company. Denmark is no longer a privileged market for the company, it's just in the periphery of Europe, their main market... :-( :'-( X-O *sing*

well, there must be some sort of difference because playmo does not only appeal to boys but also girls. Why is that?

Lego is even doing damage to history. take the vikings: the helmets have horns: a myth; the longboats have faces of mythological creatures: a myth; The entire theme is about vikings fighting mythological creatures, that surely didn't happen... At best, lego popularises hollywood's version of history, but they're very far off from actual history. sure, adventures probably came closest to acurate historic models, like the airplanes and cars. there's no doubt in my mind that lego IS educational. the things you learn when playing with bricks, building models,... can't be ignored, but they probably over estimate that aspect in order to sell more. After all, every young parent wants the best for his/her child, lego just tries to use that feeling...

fabulous! 8-

well, in any case, i think there's a better place for this on eb then here.... no need to offend any one who doesn't wanna see this.... or strongly disagree with this

yep they were the story started with the space police theme that portayed the former blacktron 1 minifigs as pirates or thugs of the galaxy. that story line was supported by the Mtron theme as well. m tron were transporters of valuable goods (basically printed letter boxes) so the story goes: blacktron 1, and presumably blacktron 2 as well, stole goods from m tron and the space police went after them and locked them up... it was all pretty basic, tho. i don't think lego created that story when they first released blacktron 1, they just needed a bad guy when space police was produced, and blacktron was available at that point. there was interaction between futuron (the theme before blacktron 1) and blacktron 1 also but that was nothing more then just a few pics in a catalog

i think there are grey and black wheels also

i don't think it's difficult to find out who's interested in lego and who's not. for instance, how many girls/women do we have on this forum? an absolute minority. and how many wives/girl friends of EB members are actively involved in lego or EB as well? I think most accept our hobby because they like/love us, but couldn't care less about lego. let's face it, building things is more of a "male thing" than a "female thing". there are btw, also far more male ingeneers than female engineers... i remember i manipulated my sister into buying lego when we were young, like the old hospital and the snackbar, but she almost never played with lego at all... So yes, we can assume 99% of lego's customers are male... lego has also tried to expand to the female world but failed time and time again. Paradisa for instance, and what do apo, yoda and jon have in common? they all buy Belville, even tho that's also a theme for females... Sure, it's not always great to hear they're making decisions about our hobby on cold numbers and especially now, when times are difficult, i don't expect them to take yet another risk by adding more female minifigs...

i wonder how your car would look like if you'd replace the wheels by four brown coach wheels or the wheels in this set: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemPic.asp?S=6497-1

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