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I'll be back in Canada for the month of August. The yen is pretty high on the Canadian dollar, so I'm hoping to get a few deals while I'm there. If you folks know of any deals in the Toronto region, let me know

Nothing is certain, but the general rumor is that Civil War would be an Avengers 3 plot. They have to be careful about "earth-destroying" plots, since they lose their weight if they keep occuring. Civil War would be a solid balance to the first one, and the cosmic-themed second, plus it's more plausible after the number of super-humans in the Marvel universe has increased. As well, there was no need to make Maria Hill a character in the first movie, except as a set up for a future movie making use of her. I'm sure they're mapping out movie plots up to the 2020's.

I was a reader only for a fraction of their run, though it seems I'm more of an expert than you About your comments: -Marvel Girl has repeatedly changed costumes, so there is no proper one. I can think of four off the top of my head, and none were iconic. The one in the cover I showed is perhaps the most original, but I think it only lasted a few years. So, no worries. -Shadowcat changed her costume a lot too, and I think the traditional X-Men outfit is fine for her. -Meggan and Captain Britain were both very blonde. Meggan was some kind of fairy character, very naive and innocent, so always chipper. A quick head replacement would make her much more Meggan-like. She was a favorite to me as a 13-year old, so I'm probably most critical of her minifig I don't even know who out there loves this series, so maybe this is silly advice, but those little details would get you closer to "Excalibur"

Summer 2012 update. Series 6 & 7 minifigs have come and gone here, and rather quickly I should say. Last year, I was living in the boonies, and Lego nerds were likely few and far between, while this year, I'm living in one of the bigger cities in Japan, and the minifigs only lasted about two weeks here. After that though, other series have appeared, and have lasted longer. The first was series two of the mini Star Wars builds. I had the Republic Cruiser before this machine appeared, as well as a few STAPs. The other two I wanted. As it was, it took only three rolls to get the ones I wanted from the machine. Statistically speaking, four sets in a machine is a hell of a lot better than the one-in-eight from the collectible mini-fig sets (and I got all my series six and seven from Bricklink, for less than half the price they'd cost from machines here, even if I randomly got all 16 perfectly). The random system is a lot less collector-f***ing in the four-per-machine sets. There was also a new machine today, a Ninjago one. I haven't followed the Ninjago polypags much. The series is really a so-so one for me (and power to TLG if it was a successful one). I liked the odd set and minifig, plus those delightful brick-cut pieces, but I'm not a fan overall. Still, a chance to get some cheap ninjas is appealing. I bought two today, and got the white and black ninjas. I wanted a black one overall, and wonder if I'll try to pick up a blue one in the future. Since starting this thread, I've paid a bit more attention to the toy market here, and have noticed a high tolerance for random packaging. When I was a kid in Canada, we accepted it in card series, but otherwise, kids would have called megablocks on it. But in Japan, there are numerous randomly boxed figures from youth faves like One Piece. I think I understand why Lego has approached the market here as they have. It'll always be cheaper to buy these series off Bricklink, but I can see the degree to which Lego tries to approach each market in a way that is most effective for them. Their right to do so

The work is really well done, but doesn't feel like Excalibur to me. I was a reader for the original few dozen issues, so maybe you were going after a different era than me. <Wow, Isn't Alan Davis the best?> Some things that would make a big difference, and are probably really easy to do are: -Make Shadowcat's hair darker than Rachel, since she is a brunette and Rachel a redhead. -Make Megan a smiley character. In that cover, she has a semi-dramatic face, but usually Megan is a very chipper character. -Give Megan bigger hair. She was usually the voluptuous type, rather than the restrained type. -Give Captain Britain blond hair. Really, he needs the mask, but if that's difficult, he at least needs blond hair. Your painting is really clean, and I have affection for the characters, so I'd love to see them even more realized, and even better, I'd love to see Widget

Actually, in the comics, Peter used his abilities to become a TV celebrity in order to make cash, before uncle Ben died, so, in that respect I thought the 2002 film was much more true. The new movie also has Peter learn the guy who killed his uncle was the guy he let go through the police, rather than Peter's vengeance mission. That sucked a lot of the dramatic weight out of it. The one thing this film got done more accurate to the comics was the web shooters. While I wasn't pissy about the organic web shooters, I didn't think webs shooting out the wrist any more plausible than a high school kid making them. Overall, I still consider the 2002 film a lot closer to Spider-Man's comic roots. I don't hold it against the new one, but the new one is a lot more 'Hollywood' <Hey, Peter Parker is a science nerd, but he skateboards! And he broods! He's better than Twilight!> I didn't think it was horrible at all. But that half hour of him getting powers was almost distractingly stupid. The way he gets bit is utterly dumb. As a viewer, I was asking, "Are you a moron?" Later on, he repeatedly publicly uses his powers, which is utterly dumb. Then, once in costume, he keeps taking his mask off. It's dumb enough to take a viewer out of the action. I did like the 'human drama' enough, Stone as Gwen was 95% perfect, and her and Garfield really seemed to want to get it on. Don't know. The film wasn't perfect, but I have a hard time fathoming calling it horrible.

Whether people believed it or not really wasn't the point. It was that the host shouldn't step in to reiterate the rules when someone's deliberately mis-stating them in order to mislead. So, saying that Flipz never should have made the claim is not up to you, and not up to the host. In the last game I hosted, I did a small amount of clarification on day one, but after that, it was sink or swim for the players, and the scum did deliberately misinterpret the rules, which was to their benefit. I said nothing (except on the dead writeboard). It was one of my better hosting duties

Without giving any sort of approval at Flipz behavior, I sympathize with his frustration. The job of the host is keep things moving and clear. After Bob had made clear that the photos were just for fun, it was fully in Flipz freedom as a player to ignore that and make whatever claims he did (I only read through the last two pages of the game day, so I apologize in advance if I'm misunderstanding what happened here). For the host to come in and announce in that a scum member's alibi is impossible is bad hosting. A host has to allow scum to mislead as they see fit, and if I were in Flipz's place, I would have been pissed off. As a host, I've had WTF moments, where I wanted to step in, but you need to let it go. By clarifying, you are often clearing a player as an ignorant townie or in this case, smashing a player's attempt to mislead. That said, I have been in Flipz's place to a lesser extent, and one job of players is to bite their tongue and let it out either in private or after the game is done. Lord knows, I've played a game or two where I wanted to declare megablocks on the host, and I've hosted a game or two where a player declared megablocks on me. I'm sorry your game got mucked up Bob, I can imagine the frustration. I wish you the best of luck on a smooth round two

Don't blame me, I stopped playing The games were supposed to be fixed after that...

I caught the Amazing Spider-Man today. It was a solid film, but half of it was just deja vu from the first Raimi flick. Really, it's hard to understand how it got greenlit outside of the fact that Sony wanted to keep the rights to it. The good stuff? It lays some nice groundwork for the inevitable next one, where the Green Goblin should make an appearance, which can only be better than the poor one from the first Spider-Man. And since Gwen is the romantic lead in this one, perhaps her story arc will reflect the original one from the comics, which was heavy, and amazing. If there had been no previous Spider-Man movies, I'd give this a 5/5, but since there were good ones so recently, it falls to a 4/5. Good, but not great.

A great day to paint your face red and white and then get drunk on beer. Believe it or not, nobody celebrates Canada Day in Japan except me

To be fair, it's actually me in TRU with my kid... But I get your point It's not laugh out loud for me now, but I still think it's really funny. I really was tortured about getting a hold of Lego pigs, which I bought, and they've been filed away in a Ziploc bag for over a year now. Thanks for reading and thanks for enjoying

Thanks for the pics! Those are a heck of a lot better than what was available on the net.

Glad to see another who likes the set. I really don't get what people dislike about the set itself. I don't think the figs are great at all, but the ship itself is sleek and excellent

Good luck on the game! I have no time to participate these days, but I'll check in every few days from the sidelines

Congratulations on a job well-done

Toys R Us are drastically overpriced, but when a set is a year old, it becomes half off, or so. I have picked up a number of large sets there at great prices. Modular Green Grocer ¥10,000 (from ¥19,999) 50th Anniversary Town Plan ¥10,000 (¥19,999) Republic Cruiser ¥2,500 (¥10,000) Clone Wars Twilight ¥2,500 (¥14,999) Indiana Jones Temple of Doom ¥7,000 (¥12,999) But those were deep clearance prices, and lucky finds. I've waited for clearance prices on big sets before, and not been impressed by the discount they ended up giving. If you go, be sure to check the flaps above the aisle for old sets being hidden. Toys R Us tends to take single boxes and hide them so that the aisle only has flush product, pulling it down after new years when there is too much empty space. I never buy sets there at the regular TRU price. They are almost the worst in Japan. The order of price for me has been, from cheapest to most expensive: 1. Amazon 2. Bic Camera 3. Click Brick 4. Yamada Denki 5. TRU 6. Aeon/any department store You're in Tokyo, so you might have more options though.

I just remembered, this is a good blog for Lego deals and events and so on in Japan (and the owner is an occasional member here) http://legojapan.seesaa.net/

I tend to buy a majority of my Lego off of Amazon, and recently at BicCamera, which is near the same price. Toys R Us is amazing when stuff's on clearance, but I suspect, the bigger the city, the faster stuff disappears. I've been in a big city (Sapporo) for near a year, and haven't found a single deal since. But I got some good deals at TRU in the past. Lastly, I've just ordered from the States off of Bricklink. Depending on the set, with the high yen and the dirt cheap dollar, you can get some solid deals. I only do that about once a year though, spending over ¥30,000, to save on shipping. If you have any better ideas, be sure to share

In my many years looking for Lego in Japan, I've almost never seen any second hand stuff. At best, some Duplo buckets at "recycle" stores. Twice, I've seen discontinued sets displayed at toy collector shops, at prices that reflected that. For used sets, your best bet is Yahoo Auction. I've found a pile of good deals there on used sets, the shipping is cheap, and you can pay by direct deposit. The only catch is that you need to read/write Japanese, in order to communicate with sellers. Tokyo is a big place, so there might be shops dealing in that, but the decision I came to is that Lego is a major hassle to deal in second hand (ie. confirming complete sets), and even the big second hand shops don't bother with it. Good luck!

I made a little extra cash today, and on the basis of this review, I decided to pick this up, over the similarly priced Saesee's Starfighter I'd planned on getting. My opinions? It's a solid set. I can't get too frustrated due to the price. Of the sets I own, it seems most comparable to 7749, the Echo Base set. Not so much a vehicle, but some cool figs and a setting to put them in. I have the recent Slave, so the Boba Fett didn't make me drool, but I am always happy to have a new Lando. Lando is awesome, and this one and the Home One version are prize figs for me. The set is decent enough. I loved Jedi so much that it really is nice to see. I don't think it's exceptional, but it is a solid set, and I'm glad I picked it up. I'll probably be even more glad in the future, as it keeps on tickling that nostalgia center in me that's never going away Thanks for the great review

As a host, that's a general no-no. No matter how flailing a team is, on either side, you shouldn't "help" one side mid-game. If you realized the original balance was off, you could tweak something slightly. But in this case, I don't think that was what happened. It seemed that scum simply had an unlucky first few days. That should be their burden to deal with. In my opinion

Honestly, I had no opinion of this until I saw the box and looked at it, and it is pretty stylish. The fury ship is amazing looking too, but not $100+ amazing looking though... To the comments about the color scheme, it really is quite tasteful. I'm not a big fan of the bright Lego red, but this only has that as trim. The ship comes across as a dark, deep red

Usually when the scum reach parity (an equal number) the game is over.

This was your second game, right? Congrats to the scum team, and Tammo in particular for a solid, aggressive performance, which no matter what anybody says, was probably no walk in the park. And congrats to Masked Builder (and his co-host) on managing his first game. You can expect lots of "feedback", which really does tend to be from the losing side, and you'll have to take it in stride. I don't know all of your mechanics, but from the first post here, you had 19 on the town, and 6 on the scum, after your recruitments, and that is a fair balance, in my opinion. If scum did got two nightkills by recruiting the SK, that seems unfair, though if town had a vig, it would be more than likely that they would have hit town than hit scum. And as for passing along scum actions, if that's what you did, I don't think that's good for balance, unless you are passing along town night actions too. I'm all for getting night actions out of the game and making people play But as it is, scum lost half their numbers, for whatever reason (showing town had a chance), and town got duped, which isn't a matter of night kills. No amount of vig action or town night actions will make up for town players who buy into a lie. Ultimately, it seems that the scum team won through work, not that the balance was way off. Again, congratulations!