ResIpsaLoquitur

I did. The clearance section has done its annual transformation into the garden section. I did take a few items from the Lego section to the price scanner, but nothing came up at a good price except the Lone Ranger set.

Not a bad list, but picking 10 from a line as diverse as Lego is a bit...ambitious. And yeah, too many of the sets are from recent times. I don't doubt that Lego has improved with age as part selection has increased, but it still feels a bit weird to see few sets from before 2000. I'd love to see a ranking based maybe on price range. What's the best collector's set? A-ha! Now we have to judge the Taj Mahal, UCS Millennium Falcon, Tower of Orthanc, Death Star, and all the others against each other. How about: what was the best polybag ever? The best set under 50 parts? 100? 200? 500? 1000? ("Price range" might be a good category, but licensed sets would be priced out of too many categories, and we'd have to adjust for inflation.)

Found a Lone Ranger Colby City Showdown for $21 at K-Mart today. Nothing else seemed to be on a significant scale, though. The Star Wars Yoda vs. Dooku set was $2 off...yay.

I'm not sure if the film makes clear what the criteria is for being a "Master Builder." There's certainly a number of characters who are rattled off at "the Dog," but I can't tell if the MBs are supposed to be *everyone* that we see in Cloud Cuckoo Land, or just the ones in The Dog plus whomever had been captured by Lord Business. ....I don't know how to do spoiler tags, so I'll just type a little bit below if you want my thoughts. Scroll past me or just don't read if you don't want to be spoiled. If we're going with everyone that we see in Cloud Cuckoo Land, the Dog, and President Business' "Think Tank," then it seems like the #1 criteria for a MB is anyone who's a distinct, unique figure in Lego history. In other words, generic characters like basic City or Castle dwellers aren't included. It seems like the bulk of the MBs are licensed characters (the DC heroes, the Ninja Turtles, the NBA All-Stars), characters from the Collectible Minifigures line (Cleopatra, Lady Liberty, Robin Hood, etc.), or characters with unique personalities from specific toy lines (like the Swamp Creature from Monster Fighters). You'll note that all of these figures end up in Business' "Think Tank," which appears to be a metaphor for the minifigure display panels on Finn's Dad's wall. Look at the photographs of Finn's basement--what minifigures are on the wall? The Master Builders. Think about it--Finn's dad is a nutty Lego collector perfectionist. He's going to collect highly-sought after figures and probably wants complete sets of all the CMFs. Of course they end up on the wall, so of course Finn perceives them as "unique" compared to a regular City dweller. So in Finn's story, his dad's prize figures are the Master Builders who keep getting captured. Now, I said that generic figures aren't included, but we do see a classic ghost and some 1980s Space characters. My guess is that Finn's dad also prizes "vintage" characters who haven't been around in the last 8 1/2 years. (Wink.) Finn's dad probably prizes some mint condition classic characters--hence, the ghost and the classic Space guy. Why Benny is prized in his condition, we don't know. Maybe he's Finn's dad's first minifigure, became discarded in his condition, but Finn took a liking to him. I'm curious as to what Benny's real-world backstory is--heck, maybe that could be a prequel: how Finn's dad became who he is before the first film?

Nice review. In the States, this is showing up at Target in the Easter section for about $3 to $4. Since Easter ends in a week, daring polybag collectors could wait until Easter Monday for the clearance slash.

Quick update, I added a shot of the parts breakdown. Ugh. That's what I get for doing this review right before bed last night.

It's that time again! The first Tuesday of the month means that the Lego Brick-and-Mortar Stores have put out their Monthly Mini Builds for the kids. The Stores do these once a month (at least) to get you into the store and spending money. However, you do walk out with some free bricks and a possibly functional model. I recently reviewed all of 2013's MMB's in this article. I also reviewed January's model here, February's here, and March's here. I plagiarize my opening paragraphs from my past articles. Life is just easier that way . If you're sad because you don't have a Lego Store near you, that's ok, because Lego publishes the instructions for each month's builds on their website. If it's not up yet, it should be soon. This month, we're reviewing a small helicopter. Lego has made lots of small helicopters before, so how does this compare? Read on! Set Title: Helicopter Set #: 40097-1 Theme: Monthly Mini Build Pieces: 44 Minifigures: None Year of Release: 2014 Price at release: Free. Here's the card you get while waiting in line at the store. It makes a nice display item for the kids when they put their model out at home. The back of the card has the parts inventory, which is nice if you lose a part, I guess. Here's the standard sheet of directions you get every month. Actually, this sheet was particularly large. I'm pretty sure the instructions for the last few months were on a much smaller sheet of paper. Back side of the instructions. Here's the parts breakdown. It's a nice motley selection, but it's pretty much only good for making a helicopter. I do wish they'd given us some 1 x 6 tiles instead of plates for the rotors--studded rotors look weird. On the other hand, maybe they decided to keep it consistent and just throw in a bunch of plates that were all the same. The spares are in the lower left and are nothing shocking--two plates, a tile, and a switch. There's not much to tell in the building process--this set comes together nicely as a little minifigure-sized (more on that in a bit) helicopter. Structurally, it's very similar to a lot of other small helicopters Lego has put into polybags in the last few years, like 4991, 30014, 30222, or 30226. (Weirdly, those are all police choppers.) They're similar in their basic structure of a cockpit, the rotors on top and in the rear, and some form of landing struts. I do think it's odd that this design includes the "up" snot plates under the main rotors, as nothing goes on them. I guess they're just decorative, and they're nice to have available, but I wish that they had some other purpose. Here's the top view. One other thing that's throwing me on this model is the red 1 x 1 tiles on the rotors. Maybe they're meant to add color, but they look odd against the overall white, blue, and black that make up the model. I'm not sure why they were included. One of the draws of this model (for me, anyway) is that it's minifigure-compatible. I've included Emmet in here to illustrate the point--he fits in there very well. (I originally put Batman in there, but the ears wouldn't clear the glass.) This is a nice change, since the Monthly Mini-Builds are usually small brick-built models of things like animals or buildings. This is only the second time in recent memory that they've made a minifigure-sized vehicle, the other being November's lawnmower. Maybe the Store model designers are realizing the popularity of minifigures and are changing their strategy? On the other hand, there's always a ton of kids in line for these builds, so I imagine they'll draw the same crowds no matter what the build is. One problem I did find is with the cockpit design. It opens just fine.... Because the mechanism is so tight, it doesn't close all the way when you push the lid down--there's a small gap. You really have to push down-and-back to get it to close tightly. This led to the cockpit popping off a lot. There's nothing securing the clips, so keeping an otherwise stable model fully assembled was a little tricky. Anyway, the color and cockpit flaws aside, this was a fun little build. CONCLUSION Design: 7/10. It's a fine little model, and it's nice to see a small chopper that's not a part of Lego City's ever-growing Police fleet. I had to downgrade it some because of the cockpit problem, and I really don't care for the red tiles on the rotors--the color clashes too much. Parts: 9/10. This was a nice selection of parts, some standard and some unique. Build: 9/10. I rate these according to how well my daughter is able to put the model together. She did just fine this month. I assisted her just a little to keep her moving (we had to get home), but she was mostly able to pull it together on her own. These models are for kids, so I think ease of build should be viewed with that in mind. Minifigs: N/A. But it's minifigure-sized and could fit well in your City scene. Playability: 10/10. This is a very functional model with opening cockpit and two spinning rotors. It's very "swooshable," as they say, and I think we'll have lots of fun with it. Price: 10/10. It was free! Free! Overall: 45/50. A few small flaws brought this model down, but it's overall a very nice model with a lot of practical use. Lego is doing very well with the monthly builds this year, and this little helicopter proves that point. Coming next month: a small dragon. Is it intended for a Castle scene or something else? We'll find out! Thanks to the good staff at the Westfield Annapolis Mall Lego Store for putting on the free monthly build as usual.

Zombies and Lego just makes me wish that they'd put zombie heads in the Build-a-Figure bin at the Lego Store. They'd sell a lot more minifigures if they did that!

...well that's just great. Wonder how I figure out what "valid merchandise" is? Would have been nice if they warned me that the coupon wouldn't apply before I finalized the purchase.

Toys N' Bricks is reporting that the last Lego Movie polybag--Wyldstyle's Micro Manager Battle--is showing up at Meijer, which is a US chain in the midwest. Man, I think the nearest Meijer is two states over from me. Anyone know if any other chain is getting them?

Anybody had problems with eBay coupons? eBay recently gave me a $10 coupon to use on any purchase. I spotted an Aquaman figure and decided to buy it. I went to pay and plugged in the coupon code--nothing happened, I was still charged from my PayPal account. I called eBay customer service to ask what the deal was; they said "Sorry, you already paid, but we can send you another coupon code that will work." What the heck?

It's back! FBTB is reporting that TRU is doing the "Build Emmet's Car" AGAIN. I missed this the first time (ended up buying a used Small Car set and modding it to match this one, but not perfectly), so I'll have to try again this round.

I'll say two things: one, finding the Ice Cream Truck on clearance is a rarity. I haven't seen ANY other TLM sets cleared at Wal-Mart or anywhere else. Two, the four two-in-one vehicles (Ice Cream Truck, Trash Truck, Plumbing Van and Castle Cavalry) have been the most consistent sets I've seen left on the shelves. A lot of the smaller ones or ones with main characters have vanished. (Though I am starting to see second shipments of sets finally showing up--Emmett's glider is becoming a lot easier to find all of a sudden.) The time to shop at Target is when they do their "reset." I have no idea when that is (other than after Christmas), but it's when they need to clear out that old stock for the newer stuff. I think there's a few Target-specific websites out there like AllThingsTarget which flags when they're having a big clearout.

I tend to shop at TRU only for polybags, CMFs, and the rare sale. The markup is typically enough to keep me away otherwise. You'd think that with Wal-Mart and Target near most TRUs, they'd want to stay competitive....

Found last year's Republic Gunship for $60 at Wal-Mart today. Yay! Now I can sell my old 2002 one--I can probably get that much for it on eBay to pay for the new one. They also had a load of Ice Cream Machines and Black Gate of Mordor sets for half off. I grabbed the Ice Cream truck--shame the other Movie sets aren't cleared yet.

Well, there's the Piece of Resistance from the Movie line, though I'm curious if that will turn up elsewhere in future sets.

Over in my review, I noted that the advantage of the clip is that the gun can be mounted onto the back of the seat so the Robot can put both hands on the steering mechanisms. If the clip has other uses, I don't know what they are.

I love the Advent Calendars. It's a quick source for minifigures, particularly army builders in the case of the Star Wars ones. I *do* recommend looking for the ACs on clearance after the holidays. That didn't work out this year, since the calendars all dropped by $10 in price and they sold out by early December. (I'd never seen that before--there were PLENTY of ACs the two years before.)

Good gravy, when are we going to be able to get this set in the US? Maybe around the DVD release?

This makes me wish that the next Lego Architecture release would be the Lincoln Memorial with an all-white version of the minifigure (maybe with light grey details like the face and coat). Of course, for an architecture model, it'd be pretty big even in minifigure scale.

My assumption is that the eyes are supposed to be an animal poking out after winter. It could be a squirrel or an owl. They're a bit large compared to, say, the Friends squirrel, but I think you're supposed to come away thinking something lives in there. ...or it could be some kind of Ent. It's up to you!

Note: on the Creative Ambush page on shop.lego.com, somebody submitted alt-build photos for a saloon and a kebab stand for this set.

Weirdly, one of my local Wal-Marts had a TON of Ice Cream Machines in the clearance section. Asking price? ...$29.97. I hate when this particular Wal-Mart does that: they move stuff to clearance but keep the price the same.

US Wal-marts now have the two Friends polys (Stephanie's bakery and Emma's flower stand) and a Rapunzel poly for $3.97 each. Given that Target has the Stephanie bag for $5.50, Wal-Mart would be the better choice....

Finally got Shakespeare the other day after rummaging through a whole display case from top to bottom. ...he was at the bottom. I should have started from the bottom up! I think that finishes the set for me. I have three bags which I believe are Marsha, Velma, and Calamity, but I'm saving those to put in plastic Easter eggs for my daughter to find Easter morning.