brickzone

We don't have Lego Stores or ToysRus here in Ireland (at least, not in the Republic - Northern Ireland has TRU I think). Nevertheless, I'd love if there was Pick-a-brick at Smyth's Toys, the main toy chain here. They do at least sell nearly the full range of Lego, very well stocked (only major absences are exclusives and some of the accessories like Chess sets, minifig packs, and they only had City advent calendar instore last year). However, it's probably a non-runner for various reasons - although apparently the main Smyth's Toy store in Dublin did have Pick-a-Brick at one stage. I was in Munich last year just before Christmas and Galeria Kaufhof and Oberpollinger (part of Karstadt?) both had pick-a-brick, but fairly limited (still filled up a small bag with trees and lattice fences). I'd earlier been to the Munich Lego store so that also meant I had already been spoiled for choice!

Very impressive. I like the sloping rock section, it's an effect that really captures the image of that kind of rock feature and adds realism to the scene. A lot of the features work really well too, like the cactus from flower stalks, and little things like the technic bushings on the axles. I love the action scene on the interior.

For anyone with Google Earth - you can now see the bank in 3D as Google have added 3D buildings to Dublin.

I think it was a poorly researched article. There's no way they should have included the quote about hard to find a basic box of bricks. I think Lego have never had a greater range of brick buckets and Creator sets - look at the section on the website - 40+ sets. And indeed in my local Smyth's toy store (the one that stocks most of the Lego range) the Creator sets take up an entire shelf segment floor to ceiling *and* the larger ones (Family House, 4956 House, Fire Rescue, Highway Transport) spilling over to take up a shelf at the bottom of even the shelf space alloted to the themed Lego (Indy, SW). Not much discussion either of how the City theme has been driving Lego popularity too. Again, at any of the local stores here it has the most shelf space - perhaps a quarter of the total. Maybe it's a bit different in the US and many places stock mainly Indy and Star Wars Lego? I find that hard to believe though.

Yeah, I may have been mistaken on seeing Creationary and Lunar Command, I forgot Argos have them.

When picking my Daily Mirror promo Stormtrooper speeders up from Smyths, I saw that they had what seemed to be *all* the Lego Games in stock now. They had them on the end of the Lego aisle just opposite the check-outs, so if they are a sensible product proposition at all, they should sell quickly! Very prominant position for such a new product - Lego are getting every help from Smyths at any rate! The prices are the same as S@H. They are listed on the online store - link - (you can check availability in your local store) but there seem to be only 8 of the games there. Nevertheless I think I also saw Creationary and Lunar Command at my local store. The Daily Mirror promo worked for Smyths anyway as I couldn't resist buying Monsters4 for the interesting heads (plus the other parts are useful). Looking at the rule book it looks like fun to play - about the level of a quick and simple card game - a mix of luck and judgment. You have to get a row of four but you have to plan for "jokers" (anyone can count these as theirs) which can be moved again subsequently, the spider (clears off 2x2 spots of the 4x4 board) and the potential for someone to get to move one of your counters. Anyway, if only Smyth's had Lego Exclusives (of course the clue is in the name) and PaB they would be a reasonable substitution for genuine Lego stores. They have almost all the Lego sets and mostly cheaper than S@H.

Well, I did indeed embark on my 20+ km round trip by bicycle to collect two of these. And an effective promotion it was for Smyth's Toys at least, for I saw that they have just got the full Lego Games range in-stock (entire aisle end-shelves) and I picked up Monsters4 for €12.99. I decided I'm not going to do the mail-in option despite the inconvenience of getting to Smyth's, as it is €7.99 that you have to include when sending off for these. And here in Ireland the Daily Mirror costs more too - €1 for today's edition, so I really don't want to spend more than the cost of the papers. €2 for two stormtroopers alone wouldn't be bad value but the parts are great too and its even a cute little model even if not entirely convincing.

Is it definite that the mail-in option isn't available this time round then or are there details in today's newspaper? Just while I consider an hour-and-a-half round trip cycle for this stormtrooper :)

It's a nice model for something built quickly - whatever about individual patchy bits, the overall effect is good and it looks like a great backdrop for castle play or sieges and such. Incidentally I'm very envious of the Cypress trees!

Nice little set - impressively greebly, nearly more so than a real quad bike!

A comprehensive and informative review of what is a fantastic set. I highly recommend this set to anyone who hasn't got it yet. It was my first set of Agents 2.0 (still don't have the others), and it is €19.99 here in Ireland on S@H, in Smyth's Toys, and Art & Hobby shops. The latter may be the best bet as you get a €20 gift voucher with every €120 spent.

Not at all, in fact I posted a thread about how to make the pool table and arcade machine here. Thanks for all the additional comments everyone, I'm pretty chuffed that this MOC/thread is still getting attention from time to time! I've moved onto my next MOC, an Opera House (from the ridiculous to the sublime?) but the Agents HQ is still intact (although I nicked some of the window glass, kitchen cupboards and black bracket pieces used on the arcade machine - those I intend to replace from Bricklink - the other items too pricy to buy extra).

GGRRRHHH!!! €175 for Ireland compared to €150 for Germany. And that's aside from €15 shipping vs. €4.50. It's nearly enough to make one emigrate und nur Deutsch sprechen (actually there are plenty of serious issues that genuinely are an encouragement).

Look at the first panel - Club Exclusive, in particular have a close look at the lightened version on the right.

I was thinking the blanked out windows were a bit like the old Parliament building on College Green (now Bank of Ireland). Looks quite nice although simplified from the inspiration. One change I would make would be 1x4 tiles on the bottom of the "window" insets.

Hmmm... I wonder will the Irish Daily Mirror be doing this in conjunction with Smyth's Toys like last time?

The Thomas Duplo is great IMO. My nephew loves it. I don't think you need too much Duplo to be honest. He's very happy with the Thomas starter set (the one with the troublesome truck and hopper) some extra track (points and 1x set of curves) and various ordinary Duplo sets (the small ones with animals, couple bricks and a person are great when combined with the brick boxes like the one with all the windows/doors).

Also a fan of BURPs/LURPs - I think the only bad thing about them was back in the late 90s/early 2000s when there were some overpriced sets with large parts like BURPs and not enough bricks for the price. Today's sets you mostly get the quantity of bricks you would expect *plus* BURPs. I'm also quite a fan of Technic in ordinary Lego sets, even if perhaps there were too many Technic parts in Vikings. I find a certain amount of technic handy enough in my own MOCs and I like learning some Technic techniques from System sets considering I wouldn't be interested in the more intricate Technic ones. I find some Bionicle-style parts of use in MOCs too (or at least I have plans), but I wouldn't want to actually purchase Bionicles. There are more than enough such parts in ordinary System sets. The parts I've still untouched are the knuckle/rotating joints - obviously building my own Mechas is one option, but I'd like to find other uses for them. At present I have two entire tubs untouched from Exoforce etc. (one of the ratcheting ones and ones of the ball/socket ones).

I'm very partial to a full Irish breakfast myself - although obviously it's a treat to be had every so often (maybe a couple times a month). What's great is the café in town that has it all day on a Sunday - so you can have an Irish breakfast for lunch after church (although presumably for most of the clientele it's actually breakfast). As a student I did go through a whole semester of having fried sausages with toast most mornings... but then, I also had a different semester where I ate Coco Pops (confectionary for breakfast - how did I do it?!) and another where solely brioche and coffee was order of the day. You do these things as an undergrad... Actually brioche was reasonable enough except for using real butter - plus it's a bit sweet and expensive. Now I usually stick to plain old cornflakes followed up most days by toast and jam.

I find bagels a bit heavy and chewy... I did end up having them quite a bit over in the States, but that was only because of the lack of good coffee shop options like SCONES.

Looks like an interesting helmet/backpack. Look forward to seeing more.

It's mostly decipherable anyway, but the translation is something like: Destination located In 2010, Lego dives into the depths of the ocean A mysterious universe, replete with unknown aquatic creatures and buried treasures An ancient legend resurfaces. From January 2010.

Unfortunately UK-only (play.com are one of the places I order DVDs etc. from but they don't export "Gadgets" incl toys).

Presumably they are going to furnish the inside with a lot of the donated Lego? Even just Lego decoration apart from any items that they intend to build from Lego.

Sounds like an interesting idea - even to just act out some such scenario and photo it even if not an actual Brikwar. One of my brothers managed to have a battle between his City firemen and his Dragon Knights. He either found existing rules online or made them up. Anyways, I believe the firemen used axes, fire extinguishers, walkie talkies, etc. as well as driving their vehicles over the knights. From what I remember they were at a disadvantage weapon-wise but the vehicles made up for it and they won.