def

You might just be Mrs. Alice Nutter, sweetcheeks -DDD

I can't wait to rumble wif youz all. I ain't never backed down from a fight, and I never bin smoked out by the pigs. I'll be behind the club house, shining up my hog. Dick “Defiant” Dillard aka Triple D

Yes, that's very, very good. Ender's Game led me to read eight more books in the Ender-verse. None of the rest were quite as good, but I enjoyed reading them. Of the sequels, Speaker For The Dead and Ender's Shadow were best. (When you finish reading Ender's Game, you'll want some more!)

It's Amazon, so you just need to press the 'English' button, but product names will still need to be translated. A quick way to check is Babelfish for Firefox (which Google can get for you quickly )

Nanoblocks are Japan-only, as far as I know, and are made by the Megablocks company of Japan, Diablocks. They also make Transformers and Gundam Wing Lego-ish looking sets. Don't know Modulex. Here is a page (or 3) of Nanoblocks http://www.amazon.co.jp/tag/nanoblock/products/ref=tag_tdp_hd_istp They're starting to look good as my little Japanese apartment gets over-stuffed with Lego.

Blade Runner would be an amazing situation for a mafia, and would prove some brilliant host's design chops. Somewhat along those lines, I'd love to see an alterna-history set-up. My first alterna-history book, The Man in the High Castle, was in an alternate 1960's where the Allies lost WWII, and America was split by the Nazis and Japanese, though the Japanese were starting to doubt their alliance. The most recent was The Years of Salt and Rice, where most of Europe died in the Black Plague, and China and the Middle East became the world powers. It wouldn't have to be these situations, just something that was somewhat familiar, but very different from the world we live in. ie. What if Waterloo had been Napoleon's greatest victory?

Well, I'm not Dragonator, but I didn't make it into Hogwort's, and you did (and yes, I applied like anybody else). And that happens sometimes. Fellowship or rank isn't a be all and end all.

There's almost no special sets, just one overpriced one sold by ANA Airlines in their sky catalog. But, this store is all over http://www.clickbrick.jp/ I went to the store in Yokohama, just south of Tokyo, last spring. It's basically a large boutique, but it had a way better selection than the other main source, Toys R Us. If you go to MUJI (all over the country), you can get their special Lego sets which seem to have come back onto the market. http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=35831&st=0#entry625448 Lastly, you could look at some of the competitors. There is one fantastic super mini series, Nanoblocks, which repeatedly tempt me, but I'm simply short of cash to pick it up. sample Nano set That's about 10 cm square. Oh, and check online to see what's available in the country, or on Amazon.co.jp http://market.lego.com/ja-JP/default.aspx

Like what, numerous? I thought they were portrayed well enough. As Obi wrote, the suicide was quite rare for a youth show. I just think they need to maintain Fett's mystique.

This comment brought to you by Boba Fett's Space Rum: When you have 3,000 year digestive period ahead of you! I liked the episode overall. The whole thing was an ode to Boba Fett, which must have been what the writers and animators were going for. Seeing Obi Wan enter, and this massive door strongly calls back Fett's armor. What I liked: -the square Madalorian trees -the Separatist commander shooting a subordinate and emotionlessly saying, "Failure." -lots of good action What I didn't: -Obi Wan to the guy fleeing the crime scene: "Hey you!" Keep you mouth shut, and go ninja on that guy, Jedi! -Too many Boba Fetts. First, I don't think the target youth audience cares that much about Fett. But to the older audience, well, now we've seen a Fett-squad. What was special about Fett was his image, and his being the strong silent type. Now he's no longer unique. I think this episode waters down his legacy. I don't care much about this future Madalorian Battle Pack either. Hey, let's make Boba Fett as common as a Clone Trooper! But it was a solid episode, with the kiddiness/silliness kept to a minimum.

As Oky says, the next episode is in the can, and I'll have episode 13 up soon. I'm sad not to get it done before the premiere, but I had a particularly hectic summer (with my overall postings on this board way down). No excuse, we'll have to start earlier next year I appreciate the offer, but we've got a system in place, and we'll get through this season. Maybe in season 3

Happy Birthday Zorbas! For you, on your birthday, okonomiyaki!

I'll give it a go. I've played in three here, and one on another forum, and in three of those four, I made it to the last or second last day before getting my throat slit. I'm so close to victory I can taste it...

Lovely review, what we expect from you Starstreak! I'm interested in the set. I have the Midi-scale Falcon, and that was an interesting, dense set. This set seems a little simpler in detail than that set, but you still make it look attractive. I've never owned a Star Destroyer before...

I was being sarcastic about it, but it's hard to get across on the Internet. But know whenever I crack out the "!", it's either awesome (robot bobbies!) or absolutely lame (All Ahsoka!) I've seen a some of your MOCs, so I'm enthusiastic to see you do something with Coruscant. Really, TLG has barely touched the place. We only have the Attack of the Clones speeders, and this year's Cad Bane set. I know LEGO rarely does full Star Wars playsets, and the ones they've done (Cloud City, Hoth, Endor, Home One) are all original trilogy (I suspect because more AFOLs buy big ticket sets, due to the price)... all the same, Coruscant is probably my favorite setting from the prequels and from Clone Wars. If there's a weakness to Coruscant, it's that it's somewhat generic sci-fi, something that could have appeared in Metropolis or Akira. Anyway, long story short, Coruscant has little representation in LEGO, and I'd love to see the skilled builders here give it some love.

Slow on the reviews! With Oki helping, I've gotten even slower Anyway, summers over, this is the half way point, so we should be able to knock out the rest before season 3 started, The Force permitting. Episode 11: Lightsaber Lost Want an all-Ahsoka episode? You got it! There's some memorable stuff in this episode, some good action and a cool villain, but it's surrounded by lame heroes, lame dialogue, and more racist Star Wars accents. The story starts off at a brisk pace, with Ahsoka getting her light saber pick-pocketed on Coruscant. An old fogie Jedi helps her track it down on the black market, and the trail leads to an apartment with a corpse and a perturbed woman. The light saber-wielding killer is waiting in the bed room and leaps out the window when Ahsoka uncovers her. This leads to the meat of the episode, and what makes it worthwhile. Ahsoka and the killer, Cassie Cryar, have a largely wordless chase across the skyline of Coruscant that, in my opinion, surpasses the Coruscant chase scene in Attack of The Clones. At one point, Ahsoka lands on a massive telecreen showing Palpatine making a speech. She slowly slides down his face, into oncoming traffic. The director handled all the action pitch perfect. The rest of the episode though, is paint by numbers. The old Jedi Sinube is there to teach the lesson of "Slow and steady..." He throws out old nuggets of knowledge like this: Sinube: "You need to be more quiet." Ahsoka: "Okay, okay." Sinube: "Not quiet with your mouth, quiet with your mind." Not great characterization, philosophy, or anything really. He is effective in what he does, but the slowness is overplayed, like when he rides a speeder bike s-l-o-w-l-y in high speed Coruscant traffic. Just dumb, really. Anyway, lameness aside, the good stuff is great, and there were robot cops which I had never seen before, so I give it Rating: 6/10 The main new character, which is a pretty nice design, is Tera Sinube. A relatively new species of alien, and a funky haircut. Master Sinube The other new characters, Ione Marcy and Cassie Cryar, both get arrested in the episode, so we might not get to see them again. Ione's sideways eyelids are freaky and nice. Cassie Ione The episode had a bunch of underworld types and, unsurprisingly for Star Wars, they were aliens with ethnic accents. Hey, it's just a coincidence! Sinube's black market connection was a quarren. Love those alien species, we need more! And he then gets connected to the original pick-pocket, a relative of Cad Bane's assistant in the season one finale. Bannamu And, the design I liked most this episode were the cops! They remind me of bobbies. These are great. Police Droids Lego Ships Appearing: nothing! Lego Wishlist: Tera Sinube, Ione Marcy, Cassie Cryar, more alien species, Coruscant Cops

Paul Rudd's a cool guy, and this just makes him cooler.

A beautiful piece! And there's something I really like about taking a pic of it on a white-table-clothed table against greenery, very classically French!

I enjoyed No Country, but I read it after I saw the film, so it was hard not to see the actors in the roles. The road is so abstract in its characters (The Man, The Boy) that the imagery was really pure in my head. What I got of McCormac's writing from the two books is that it is really in the 'show, don't tell' school, never telling you what to think about a scene, just showing it, letting it happen. It was pretty unique among the fiction I read. Anyway, the two books made me want to follow him up. Up until then, I wasn't too interested in neo-western as a genre at all.

I really like that book. I was kind of so-so about it for the first 50 pages, then I just loved it. It's utterly bleak, but beyond that, it becomes an incredible mediation on parental love. The father does everything possible to nurse hope in his child despite having given up hop himself. There's a relief to me at the end when the situation changes, and the kid can grow. It's a beautiful book, and I should read more McCarthy books. I've only read this and No Country

This is a remarkable little project you've done here, Oky. Though they are small, the concept and execution are flawless, and in a perfect world, these would be packaged in every kids Happy Meal this summer. Nice.

I finished The Years of Salt and Rice by Kim Stanley Robinson last week, and I loved it. Some of the last 200 pages became a slog to me, but it had to do with the time-line. The book took place between 1300-2080 AD, so as the world grew more complicated, the story became more about outlining what had happened. Still, a fantastic piece of work, and if I were younger-def, who knew little about Asian history, or about world religions, this book would have been in my absolute top 10. It's strange how alterna-history is lumped in with sci-fi, though there's nothing sciency about it. Pick it up if you don't know the writer. It was good enough for me to put the first book of his Mars trilogy in my Amazon cart. What if 99% of Europe died in the Black Plague?... isn't that interesting? This week, I dove through a short novel, Philip K. Dick's Now We Wait for Last Year, and it was good. It's currently published in the U.K.'s Sci-fi masterpiece series, and it probably belongs there. Dick specialized in paranoid, often drug-addled, near future stories. This ties a lot of his themes together. In 2055, Earth is in an alliance with the losing side of an interstellar war. An incredibly debilitating and addictive drug, JJ-180, allows the user to shift through time. What does the U.N. leader really know? Why are there three of him? Should the protagonist stand by his harpy wife as she suffers a slow death from narcotics? It's pretty messed up, and the kind of stuff that made sci-fi books feel transversive in the 60's. These days, drugs and psychoses in novels are passe. Not as good as Dick's best (The Man in the High Castle, Ubik, Valis, A Scanner Darkly), but better than a lot of his reissued stuff. btw, if you didn't know already, he wrote the original stories for Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, and a pile of other schlock sci-fi movies, and a bunch yet to be made. Read him now!

As a quick follow up, here are a few snaps: The island I stayed on (about two hours ferry from my place... the reason I haven't moved home) The little little BBQ. It took two hours to cook it all... lots of beef, pork, vegetables, squid, chicken and yakisoba. That's me not smiling, since I don't like smiling in pictures recently. I was having fun. Lastly, snorkeling, I bought a waterproof camera. The pics aren't as good as if I was scuba diving, since I took them all while floating from above, but here's an anemone and some 'little nemos', which are a treat to see. Genuinely one of the better days I had this year, much less a birthday. And the present I got was the new LEGO Kingdoms castle, so I'm off to build it now! Expect a chipper def for the next week or two! Thanks again!

Remarkable ending. You put a lot of passion into this, Sandy. Out of curiosity, were there any conversions?

Sweet, thank you! I had a great birthday on a little island called Zamami, and did lots of snorkeling and pigged out on BBQ and yakisoba. To top it off, I should have a LEGO parcel arriving tonight from Amazon, that is a promised present from my wife! Cheers! (And Zorbas, your Japanese is perfect )