SheepEater

... inside individual technic sets? For me, for sets 2003 and later: (each line representing a ziploc bag or tray) - pins & bushes - axles - connectors & gears - thin beams - thick beams - miscellaneous bits. (standard bricks & plates usually go in there since there's so few of them now) for sets of the 80s and 90s: - pins, bushes & connectors - axles & gears - small plates - large plates - short technic bricks - long technic bricks - miscellaneous bits. (includes thin & thick studless beams if they're included)

About color and walls: Yes, that's a good point. I do have a large quantity of white bricks from having so many town sets. However, you have to admit it would still look silly to have a village of Bree populated with modern dressing townspeople, race car drivers and construction workers, and defend my Rohan and Gondor kingdoms with policemen & firemen. And they'd have to defend themselves with shovels, brooms and small tools. Because that's what my minifig collection is made out of at the moment!

205 from sets, plus around 40 loose, so around 250 total (2/3 of my collection is technic)

Between the 4207 and the LOTR sets, my wallet is gonna be crying in 2012...

Kind of. Let's say I wanna create the Bree village. I'll never have as many gray/brown or medieval themed pieces that I would have if I had a decent Castle/Kingdom collection.

Well, if you buy them for collecting only, sure. But the minute I'll wanna start MOCing with those sets, that's when I'll wish I had a few castle/kingdom/fantasy sets.

Having read the book in the late 90s before the movies even came out, I was drooling when Lego announced the new LOTR sets. My problem however is that I was never into castle. I buy Technic & Town(City,Trains) sets exclusively. I imagine those sets must be much more appealing to AFOLs who already have a sizeable castle collection. Sets like Helm's Deep will be much better if you already have a sizeable collection of: 1) castle walls 2) brown/wooden parts, wooden wheels etc 3) minifig soldiers 4) farm animals to expand it to.

I had issues with the chain getting stuck too AT FIRST, but believe it or not, the more I played with the bike, it seemed to "dull" the chain enough to stop skipping. I noticed exactly the same phenomena when buying new chains/gears for real like bicyles.

Hi All! I'm new to Eurobricks, though I've been on Bricklink and Lugnet for 10 years now. Few people ever managed to build the giant truck from 8889. Yeah, the one with only 3-4 photos and NO instructions. One guy did, and posted pics on Brickshelf. http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=277620 If anyone else would be so kind as to not only build it, but also take step-by-step snapshots, that would be so wicked...