MAB

No prize for me this year :-( Congrats to everyone that got one.

Yeah, angry birds is the future of history.

Squeaky bum time.

The pics of the farmer - his gaze and the direction of the pitch fork. Does he really look after them or do something else to them?

You can do much better than that... Go to online PAB and order a 6p brick with your bricks and pieces order. It comes separately, so you get the brick and a bubble wrap envelope to re-use. :-)

Remember they are complementary not complimentary. Yes, they are opposite each other on the colour wheel. That means that together they are high contrast, or could alternatively be described as vibrant or jarring. They clash. Analogous colours (ones next to each other on the wheel) create much more harmonic / comfortable designs.

In many of the original stories he was just described as being part bull, part man. Not the head of the bull and the rest normal man. Remember these myths were coming about 2000BC but weren't written down until 1000 years later. Many Greek statues and images of ~1000BC depict him as head of bull, with a man's body but also tail of bull. Although there are some depicting him as more bull like than this (larger chest, sometimes cloven feet). But these were images made many years after the original stories were being formed. There is no right and wrong here. The Minotaur is a fictional character that is not scientifically possible.

When the 17th day winners are announced, we would have had about 50:50 chance of being picked as a winner.

That looks like the Hungarian version of Futuron. Flip it round to green white red and you have the Italian one :-)

Yes, the new since June parts have been missing until about 10 days ago. At least, that is when I placed some orders for new parts. It's been a very narrow window this time before they closed it again for the Christmas complaints.

It's Lego red and Lego green, so there is something about Lego in there. I don't like the colour combination but do like dark red and dark green. But then I don't really like Lego red or Lego green on their own either.PS I thought green and red were used a lot at Christmas due to them being available in nature and hence used as decoration. So leaves and berries.

Lego is weird when it comes to Christmas. They seem to want punters to buy the stuff released in autumn at Christmas time, then have a launch for new product on 1 Jan. Especially the exclusive stuff.I guess they want people filling stockings with £12 sets, not CMFs.

They are likely to remove many of the licensed parts over the downtime or soon after. Last year, the ghostbusters torsos were free for a few days but then got changed to a real value, then disappeared.

Yes, it grew out of replacement parts.

The legs are considered an assembly. However they often get prices wrong (always the 5c ones) and just charge you what it should be rather than what it was listed at, without telling you. There are a few torsos like that too.

Remember "he" (the minotaur) didn't exist. Even in Greek times there were different forms of him in the myths (and statues), usually with a bull head and tail at minimum, in some cases the rest human and in some cases just a human torso. And his form has changed with fashions throughout history. For example, Dante's Minotaur has the top half of a man and the body of the bull (much more like a centaur than the classic minotaur).

Because in the CMF designer video they explicitly stated that they try to make the ones they think are going to be popular the most frequent ones. I think that this is the only public statement they have made on frequency (apart from their actions).

Traditionally he was part bull, part man. However, a lot of modern fan art depicts him more bull like with the upright form of a man. I quite like the shaped legs on the minotaur.

It's not quite that simple (if woman aren't standing for election they cannot be voted for, etc), but that is a whole other debate not for here. Plus I doubt many people would want generic minifig politicians - they are fairly boring outfits. At least lego are giving us women a little more frequently now (in variety not number), it is just such a shame that recent history shows that they think they are unpopular in the CMF series. This can be the only explanation that they are giving female characters the less frequent numbers in series. It's not really a problem for someone that buys loads, I have no difficulty getting the characters I want. Fortunately there are a good number of torsos appearing in City sets these days for it not to be too big a deal if you like to mix and match. Again, good for bigger spenders but not great for younger girls wanting to get female characters in minifig (rather than minidoll) form. I like the way that playmobil do their collectable characters series. They have a girl theme and a boy theme. Of course nothing stops boys buying girls and girls buying boys, but at least a parent can easily choose the gender of the character if they are just buying one.

Obviously depends on your age. Johnny Weissmuller is known just for Tarzan (and swimming). He played Tarzan many times. Whereas Christopher Lambert doesn't really spring to mind when thinking about Tarzan, and Tarzan doesn't spring to mind when thinking about Christopher Lambert.

But does contain a common (in real life) farm animal in a cheap set this time.

Really? Fossil hunter's body parts and headgear, Indian's turban, evil wizrad's robes, the egyptian, the King's body, crown/hair and beard, battle goddess, princess, hun, lifeguard's torso, jester, wizard. And that's just thinking about historical / mythological ones. Add in fantasy and there is the goblin. Add in City and there are some good new figures such as pizza guy, gamer, carpenter, etc. There are so many good figures in S12 and 13, I cannot see how they can be labelled as awful. Anything that is a "3" will be desirable anyway. Even if a character is unpopular, making it a 3 drives its desirability. The algorithm to decide frequency seems to be quite easy to understand, at least for assigning the low frequency ones: Female? 3.

I bought the set for £50, then sold the figures at £5-6 each and Smaug at £45. So I got paid £15 or so after fees to take all the bricks. :-) And in the brick vs molded design for Smaug, I'm definitely on the side of molded for the general set. A nice brick build one would have been nice as a static display piece (probably away from the sets), but not for play.

The problem is it is only existing fans that would buy them (at least initially at full RRP). It's getting people that didn't originally buy into LOTR lego to buy them that will be tricky if it is known that there will be no other new sets containing eg. the Fellowship. I would also love to see them, but I doubt it will be through regular sets. The only real hope is through Dimensions now.

What proof do you have that they are less quality plastic? They aren't different plastic. The fakers are ABS too. And also the $5 bag is not necessarily any worse quality than the $1000 Gucci bag. For example, in jeans / denims manufacture, many superstore brand jeans are being made in the same factory as high end designer jeans. Often from the same material stock on the same machines. Just different designs and different labels are sown on.