CP5670

I like the crash dummy actually, as well as the (presumably printed) license plate he comes with. There are only 3 or 4 figures I'm interested in though, and the space guy is the only one I think is a must-have. Unless you can feel inside the bags I will probably end up getting them on Bricklink. I don't like lotteries.

We have had a 1x2 version of that brick for some time now, which in a lot of situations serve the same purpose. The cheese, on the other hand, is something fairly different from any piece before it, and yet still so useful.

That is basically what I was implying. These kids aren't that bad, and there is not much reason to make fun of them when you can easily find similar or worse posts on any large forum. Although on the other hand, I first started posting on internet forums and newsgroups when I was something like 11, and I was much more coherent than the typical poster there.

The point I was making earlier is that a lot of big internet forums are like that, and the fact that the posters are kids is not the only (or even the main) reason for that behavior. Adults and older teens are often just as bad as those kids. Just check out any of the large forums out there like 4chan, Gamespot forums, Anandtech Off-Topic, etc.

I normally agree with you on this, but tiles in general are often used for stickers and you can put bigger stickers on 2x4 tiles without having a sticker covering multiple parts. The 2x4 tile would have been useful with, for example, the mirror stickers in 8880 or the "1" stickers in 8458. Of course, it would be better if TLG instead just made more printed parts again.

I agree with what others have said about the cheese slopes. Those are really ubiquitous these days. I would also bring up this piece, introduced in 2002. It's not used extremely widely, but I personally have found this to be the single most useful structural element (among the ones released this decade) for studless Technic construction. There are tons of places where it comes in handy for holding together a frame. Yeah, I don't like that mudguard either. It looks out of proportion on cars and gives them a strange, old fashioned appearance.

This model is massive, but it actually has a lot of great functionality too. Most models you see of this size are sculptures and are entirely static. Outstanding work. I think it might be a good idea to add the wings on the other side though, with the body of the plane remaining a cutaway. Having both sets of wings would give it the right overall shape and make it look even more imposing.

If it is rendered, it does tell us that we can't reach any conclusions about product quality from that picture. That was how the issue came up in the first place in this thread.

I like how most of the posts there are one-liners. The administration there encourages this with their 600 character limit per post though, which is barely a paragraph. Apart from that, the Lego forum isn't that different from the typical off-topic section you can find on any very active forum. I can see that they are roleplaying way too much, but that's better than the constant flaming and insulting (often from adults) that you usually see at such places, and the overall level of spam/nonsense posts is comparable.

I don't have that set but after reading your description there, I'm tempted to try out that model too. It has been a while since I built it but I recall that the 8479 robot walks especially fast and smoothly, although it's smaller and doesn't need to carry nearly as much weight on its legs as this 8891 walker does.

In reference to my earlier question, I see what you did with the rear axle now. That's a clever idea with the double bevel gears.

This is quite a large model. I like the pendular axles and the engine configuration.

Here's a quick video of the walker I took, just showing how it walks.

Even if you look at the right carrier's website, that might not give an accurate estimate anymore. I've noticed that many ebay sellers have hiked up their shipping charges in the last few years, for both domestic and international shipping. I don't think this has anything to do with actual shipping prices, but is a way to reduce seller fees that ebay increased a lot in 2008 (the fee is a percentage of the item price without shipping). The sellers technically aren't quoting a false cost since the price is for "shipping and handling," and handling can cost anything.

I also think it's a render. The minifig arms, particularly the yellow ones, look too glossy and reflective for a photo.

I was wondering about that too. It might be based on some real-world team. (there are a couple of college sports teams with that exact same style of M, such as those of Maryland or Michigan, but the colors are different) Actually, I would expect exactly this given the non-standard nature of these sets, combined with the big variety in printed parts.

Exactly. Those pictures are too small to make any detailed observations about the part quality. To me, it may be worth much less or much more than $200 depending on what the condition is like.

The plane is the next model on my mind, actually. It looks similar in concept to the 8485 helicopter, but it's more compact. It should also be easy to add a third motor on the plane in order to spin the propellor. A harder but more interesting mod would be to add a turntable and allow it to change heading. I'll try to get a video of the walker tomorrow during the daytime. My camera doesn't seem to work that well in indoor light without flash.

BUMP I have been building some of these models over the last month. Here are a few pictures and comments. I changed some colors when I didn't have exactly the right bricks on hand, especially on the excavator, but the functionality is the same. (pictures and comments moved to first post)

Windows compatibility mode works on a per-app basis and won't help for using drivers. You would need to set up a 98 or XP VM to do that. Virtual PC is free and relatively easy to set up, and should work for this. As others have said though, it's probably better to just use a different camera. This Lego one is supposed to be mediocre anyway.

I imagine that SP3 takes place a long time after the old themes, simply because of the time that passed between their (real world) releases. Maybe Rench's uniform can be taken to mean that Blacktron is still somewhere out there and operating in secret, or that he personally wants to bring them back to power. You can check out most of the catalogs on Peeron and Brickfactory. There is a third site I've seen but I can't remember the link now. It's worth looking at the catalogs from different countries, since they aren't just translations of each other but often have entirely different dioramas and descriptions. The US and UK catalogs say different things about Blacktron II for example. (they are either "spies who want to steal M:Tron computers" or "a strong power in the universe", suggesting that they are some kind of separatist faction or foreign state) Actually, the best sources of information about the old themes seem to be the S@H catalogs and Lego club magazines. I only have the ones starting from 1995, but they say a lot of stuff about Exploriens in particular. I don't know of any place to find scans of these big catalogs unfortunately. Roboforce was the other space theme in 1998 (only in the US though). I believe they fought against UFO from the previous year, but I don't think I have any catalogs showing them in the same scene as Insectoids.

I guess we were too late with it. It was there and in stock last night.

I would certainly pay $4 for any of those figures if the condition is perfect. I always liked these Technic figures but don't have any of the ones from the 80s, which had different faces than the 90s ones. Technic figures are usually not considered to be an essential part of their models the way minifigs are, but these sets are a little different. This Arctic Action line was one of only two "themes" ever made in Technic (the other being Competition), in the sense that it included unique figures and had a specific setting. The sets are otherwise not that mechanically advanced, and in a way the unified theme is what that makes them interesting.

I don't have a real preference between them, but yellow only is an easy choice for me. I'm generally not interested in licensed sets and I don't think I have a single flesh minifig in my entire collection.

Thanks for the update. That does look a good buy. I think I'll pick one up, even though I might not bother building the model itself.