def

I would love that. I have some Rosa books, like the Life of McDuck, but the only Barks I have are the odd Gladstone reprint from the 90's. That would be a good investment. For the others mentioning dailies, Calvin & Hobbes is great, the art, the writing, the pacing. It's a shame Watterson retired. But I'm surprised to see Garfield fans. It seems really generic and repetitive to me. Plus, Garfield is a Republican

Well, as you say, it's a grey area. In that case, I'd err on the side of the grown-ups in not censoring and not promoting a prudish mentality. There's nothing offensive about 14 year olds posting. It's against the rules, and some young teens (not all) can be annoying, but I don't understand how they could be considered offensive. If I wanted to use an all ages site, I'd stick to Lego.com.

My signature just keeps getting bigger and bigger as I do more reviews. I might have to start selectively removing my worst reviews to keep things in check.

Comparing a sex themed MOC to a concentration camp MOC is to me, quite offensive. I'm not at the point where I can equate voluntary sex acts to racial purging, even for topical conversation. I'm far too grown up for that. Think about how distasteful that comparison is for a bit, please. If someone thinks a thread is too risque, close your browser and open a new one. It's that simple. What was going on in that pic? It takes a dirty mind to explain it fully, but nothing was shown. On a site like this, I'd draw the line at explicit images, where something is actually being shown, not implied, and Lego doesn't make the parts for that Really, this is a non-issue for me, since I don't make such MOCs, and they rarely appear, if they ever have before. But if anyone insists on making a mountain out of a molehill, I'll point my finger and call it a molehill again. Who is causing a ruckus is the person encouraging us to adhere to the most prudish person's morals/tastes. Not aimed at Posades specifically, but also at some in the original thread too. Sorry if that seems tough, but it needs to be said. I don't go looking for this sort of MOC, but one reason I spend so much time on this site is because it's frequented by grown-ups, and I appreciate the mods here treating us as such. We don't need to be treated like people weaned on Disney films, for fear of being risqué.

Nice thread revival! I used to be a Marvel zombie, but quit 15 years ago and stuck to indies. About two years ago I started buying some trades, because I heard they'd gotten actual writers working for them. By far the best was the Captain America Omnibus, which ends with the (highly-publicized) death of Captain America. Fantastic book. And I really liked Joss Wheden's Astonishing X-Men. The other men-in-tights book I really liked was Grant Morrisson's All-Star Superman. It made a character that bores the heck out of me seem really interesting. Last year, I read through all of Y, the Last Man, and was completely satisfied. The author is now a writer for the show Lost, since season 4 (ie. when it got good again), so if you like Lost, this book might hook you in. Overall though, I like the stuff written and drawn by one person. The stuff I bought last year: Asterios Polyp - possibly the best comic I've ever read, about a divorced architecture professor. George Sprott - a fictional biography of a small town Canadian television personality. Acme Novelty Library - every issue/book is perfect. Currently I'm reading R.Crumb's full adaptation of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, beautiful, beautiful book. Waiting in the wings is the massive 800+ page auto-biography of underground Tokyo manga artist, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, A Drifting Life, about when he was an up and comer, in the 60's. Looking forward to it, but it's a real tome, and will take time to get through.

I could say the same about Bionicle. I just don't like it, but that's no reason for that section to be taken down The Brick Testament is a good example of adult uses of Lego. It's violent and sexual, but just in keeping with the source material. This is a site for adults, with a warning that everything is not "kid safe", so on the rare occasion when things veer into a questionable area like this, I think members should be mature enough to take it in or avoid it if they don't like it. It's Lego. We're grown-ups.

I don't find that pic offensive in the least. I think for most kids, it would simply be confusing if they saw it. It takes an adult imagination to find that offensive. I'm curious as to where the people who got offended are from. I've seen all manner of violent Lego creations, with blood and decapitations (in fact, I did one myself, once) but something sexual is a no-no. Sounds American if you ask me

Even when Japan was closed, there was still trade with Portugal through a single port in Nagasaki (as far from the capital as possible). Nagasaki still has a large area where the architecture is basically European. A lot of Portuguese guns made it to Japan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanban_trade#...tural_exchanges

I disagree. Gamecube may have been relatively successful here, but really wasn't a success. People are loyal to games above all. These days, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Monster Hunter, and a few others. Blue Dragon sold a lot of X-Box consoles. If Microsoft could manage an exclusivity deal for Final Fantasy, they'd have it made in Japan. Notably, Grand Theft Auto and all those X-Box shooters like Halo don't move many systems.

Lovely, you're lucky to spend time in Cairo. It's on my list of places to go, but it'll be another 10 years before I make it there. Thanks for the post.

Lovely stuff, the only ninjas I have were in black and grey, and I think they're well served by the colours, green and red. Thanks for the rare showcase! Shuriken would be just a little difficult to properly say for an English person, the Japanese "R" is a challenge. Hence 50 years of semi-racist R and L jokes about Asians. Japanese in English writing is closer to Portuguese and Spanish in phonetics. In English phonetics, try saying shoe-dee-cane really fast without stress on any syllable. It will sound about 95% correct. That concludes def's Japanese lesson for today

The Eaton Centre is a very different place today, a lot less "family". But when I was a kid, going there was a family Christmas time tradition of sorts, and something I always looked forward to. It was a safe place to spend your day and see a lot of fantastic displays. You can't go home again Que cera cera...

That's awesome. I agree with all you wrote on your blog. Going into my twenties, I worked at Toys R Us, and I really thought all the stuff there was inhibitive for kids... Fighting toys for boys and housework toys for girls (ie EZ Bake ovens). Let's not bring up Paradiso But, I always said, Lego's okay. An experience like this was part of the reason I felt that way. Of course, now my room is overflowing with Lego twice over... I have a second, all space themed program, I'll try to scan soon. I'm a bit under the weather today

Welcome to Eurobricks. As sets to take you out of your dark age, you made great choices.

The main point of codebox code is to allow you to type other codes without it being interpreted as code. ie. [b]not bolded[/b] [i]not italicized[/i] The use would be in a tutorial (much like this) where you want to show the code used, and not have it activated. <Edit> I have no idea how to use codebox

Fair enough

Times have changed. They always do, there's not much you can do about it, especially in the last century or so. All you can guarantee is the stuff that was around when you were a kid won't be the same as when you're an adult, so enjoy it while you can, and don't be in any rush to throw it away as evidenced that you've "grown up". For me, selling my Star Wars figure collection at a garage sale was a particularly regrettable move, far more than simply tossing my Transformers in the trash. Anyway... When I was a kid, at Christmas, the Eaton Centre was the place to go in Toronto. The seven or so floors of Eaton's, bought out by Sears in the 90's, but then the main department store in Canada, reinvented itself, and its piddly 3rd floor toy department expanded to a large chunk of the 7th floor, with fantastic displays to captivate the kids. Across the road was the competitor, Simpsons, bought out by The Bay in the 90's <research the Hudson Bay company, a fascinating and bizarre part of Canadian-British history still in business today>. Simpsons had some sort of deal with Lego at this time, and scored a touring Lego show for the whole of the Christmas season at least twice that I went to. It was quite unbelievable to me at the time. The show generally featured 'Inventions', but the showcase was near a life-size Castle creation, and a massive mini-figure scale Space set. This program features all the creations on display that I remember. I pored over this book as a kid, and around this time I joined the Canadian Lego club. Visiting the Eaton Centre this year, without Eatons or Simpsons existing, those stores probably a vague memory for some younger members here, I think that a lot of the magic spectacle that companies used to try to create at Christmas. Lord knows, Toys R Us doesn't bother with anything other than a catalog. The Christmas spectacle seems to have gone the way of the dodo, and the young kids out there are all the poorer for it. Christmas shifts from amazement to checklists. I'll let the program pics speak for themselves. Mods, if the pics are too big, let me know and I'll resize them and link to an outside folder. And to make this thread more worth your time, here is a stitched pic of the Castle, which was the most intimidating for me. It felt as if my toys had come to life. Either this pic delights you, or it doesn't. The Space scene also was amazing. I recall the trains moving, but that could be my imagination playing tricks on me. Bottom line, it was fantastic, and it made the somewhat weird Space Lego sets I had seem absolutely realistic. When looking back at this build, I try to imagine that the builders are now in their 50s or 60s. How do they look back on their involvement on such a project? Did they think they were making magic, or was it just a paycheck? Thanks for reading my ramblings about my childhood memories. There's no Legoland in Canada, much less in 1984, so this stuff was a head trip. Hopefully you can find it just as fun as I do.

No, it does work, it just has a second lag, like I have to pause the mouse. Interesting feature, but I doubt I'll use it much.

Photoshop? What is this 'photoshop' of which you speak? I was there, I caught it on film That's a major coincidence then, since this is near 10 years old If you have any bigger Life on Mars sets, I'd like to see them. It's a lackluster line, but it's the only Space line since childhood that piques my interest.

You can still buy them on Amazon for a decent price, about $200 with tax and delivery. And Yamada Denki (Japan's Best Buy type store) still sold them last time I was there, but with one little game rack behind the racks of Wii, DS, PS3 and PS2 games. They have a fan base, but it's all otaku I think. Having Toys R Us not carry kind of destroys the ability to tap into the family market. The department stores don't carry it either. Sorry.

Welcome to Eurobricks. Cheers!

Based on what? Mandolorians don't appear in the OT or PT. Are they making a big return in the Clone Wars or something, or did you just make this up?

Awesome work. It seems right at home in the Star Wars line, from a design and color scheme standpoint. I've never seen those wookie mini-figs up close. The smirk on his face cracks me up, almost like a wookie Alfred E. Newman.

I know what you mean. Usually Star Wars ships are undersized compared to mini-figs, but this seems to be about 50% bigger than it should be. I think the reason was for stability. I tried MOC'ing one way back when, and had a lot of trouble keeping it together at two bricks wide in the nose. And of course, mine wasn't as detailed as the Lego version. So I think there was a give and take between realistic construction and accuracy.

This ship is utterly ridiculous. Fantastic. The greebling is beautiful, and it is one of the best MOCs of this ship I've seen. Looking forward to your next piece!