spade450

I believe that is the first time that I have seen "Finland" and "warmonger" used in the same sentence, but I have not been there and will defer to your local knowledge. I'm in agreement with you that Lego should never produce a military theme. Even at it's most "violent" (pirates, castle, agents, Star Wars), it's still difficult to get past the "cuteness" factor of the little yellow people. Having served in the military (but not in a war) there is nothing "cute" about it.

Lego is a European company with many European customers. World War II was not that long ago and I doubt that there are many Europeans that have fond memories of it. I am an American living in Italy for a few years. As I travel around Europe and stick my head into toy stores, I notice a distinct lack of military related toys. Lots of police, fire, and racing die cast vehicles, etc. but almost no military items. We can find plenty of violence in the various Lego themes but a military theme -- no way.

I may fly up for it -- spend a few days in Amsterdam and a few days in Zwolle. Is there enough at the show to entertain AFOLs that I should attend?

That sounds like a good thing. It would be difficult to create similar webs with Lego pieces.

When I saw your title (Lime Green House) I thought that it would look pretty strange but the color scheme works great. It's nice to see some ideas for other parts of the CC/GG city. Not everyone wants to live downtown over one of the shops.

WOW -- what do I say? This is one of the best castle theme MOCs that I've seen. It has great detail, wonderful consistency of color and shape, lots of things happening with the minifigs. The music is very fitting (what is that music?). What I like the best, however, is that you have created a massive MOC that does not take up much floor space (though floor space does not seem to be a problem for you). It's also very inspirational. Maybe something like a city theme for me -- Green Grocer on top of Cafe Corner on top of . . . hmmm.

I think it turned out great. The colors look good to me -- very subtle, unless you are referring to the windshield which is a bit bright for the overall color scheme of the model. Sometimes (actually, most times) you build with what you got.

Beautiful! You must have put many hours into this one. Love the interior views. Just for fun: did you post it up to Lego for a price quote?

I like the way that you captured the Italian style with the simple signs and the small shops on the first floor with living space above. That is so typical of Italian towns. Some of the shops in Italy don't even have signs. There is a macelleria (butcher shop) a few doors down from our house and if you did not know it was there, you would never know it from advertising -- no sign, nothing in the windows, but a great local shop. I, like the others, would love to see a pic of them all together.

Beautiful!!! It fits in so well with the other cc buildings. I especially like your second pic of the interior. The way the light comes into the picture gives the feeling of space inside a large terminal.

I like the overall design -- very Euro-looking. The oversized letter sign is a great idea -- good imagination! The balcony is nice but maybe unusual for a post office. Perhaps this was an older building that was converted to a post office and the balcony was already there? About the only thing that I would have done different (assuming that I had the imagination to think of this in the first place) would be to use red trim rather than light blue. That would keep the building in "official" Lego post office colors and consistent with the mail van and plane. Good work!

PCS to South Korea sounds like a military move. If so, Lego U.S.s@h will ship to APO and FPO addresses at the same cost of a continental U.S. shipment - relatively cheap and I think that you avoid sales tax because you will have a zip code where there is no U.S. Lego store. I have ordered many sets from s@h in the 18 months that I have been in Italy. Just make sure that you use the APO or FPO address for shipping so that it is treated as a domestic U.S. sale.

One or two responses mentioned a lack of space for a train. One option that I am considering for my small town is a MOC trolley. It would not have to go all of the way around the town -- maybe just a straight line from one end to the other (shelf style, about 10 feet along one wall of a room). I have an idea for Mindstorms control that would put the trolley on a timer at each end of the line -- stop for a while then run to the other end. I'll admit that have not done much about it yet but I do want a train (sort of a train, anyway) and I do lack space.

Congratulations on your first year together (I have number 26 coming up later this month.). Having a spouse that tolerates and, in your case, encourages AFOLness leads to true happiness. Your vigs are great and make for a memorable wedding cake. One question, though: Could you explain the circumstances giving rise to the one where you are fighting a forest fire and your wife is sitting on the beach?

Great review - thanks for the effort. There are many good pieces in this set and the minifigs will be useful.

The new pricing is inconsistent. On the US S@H site, 1x2 bricks are .28, 2x2 bricks are .10, and 2x4 bricks are .16 (except for 2x4 red or white which are .41). Strange pricing scheme though maybe all of the increases have not gone through yet. Whatever is happening, though, is very bad news.

When I was studying for my elementary education degree, one of my professors had a huge collection (500+) of alphabet books that she had collected over the years. It was fascinating to see the different ways that the letters were portrayed, especially the letter X. I look forward to your future vigs (especially "X").

Overall design is great. Definitely comes up 40's diner. The shape of the roof is good but the colors don't work so well for me -- too "earth toney." If you have the plates, I'd go with something a bit brighter to offset the black exterior. Also, as it is a WIP, maybe you are planning a sign for the roof. If the sign was brighter colors, maybe the green and brown would not stand out so much. Just my thoughts -- I really like where you are at, though!

People should build whatever they personally are driven to build. MOCs are a form of artistic expression and in the U.S.A. and, I hope, in most other countries are examples of free speech -- small examples, maybe, but speech none the less. That said, however, when someone posts a MOC for public viewing, the poster has to be ready for possible public condemnation from others if the MOC is controversial. That is also part of free speech. In this case, I took the subject MOC to be a depiction of a quite miraculous event and a tribute to the pilot and those involved in the rescue. It made realistic use of those Coast Guard sets. The biggest problem I had was the sense of proportion -- look at the size of that fire boat compared to the plane! Overall, though, nice use of sets.

Solid MOC. Especially like the drummer. Are those screwdriver drumsticks? Imaginative use of those.

I am not aware of any filters other than what would be a default setting for the Mac. What I mean by that is I use Firefox and Safari as they were installed, no changes that I rememebr making. I do not have to enable cookies for individual sites. They just build up "naturally" and I clean them out every so often. You may be able to tell from my answers that I am not the most techy guy around. I did not intentionally change the options to get the posting list tree. When I first logged in today through Safari, everything was fine -- complete view of all posts. All of a sudden it changed when I went to a new thread. I did just try resetting Safari -- cleared cache, history, etc. -- and now I am seeing the full post in each thread (YEA!). The option button still does not work, however.

I am not very familiar with Java but, according to my control panel, Java is enabled. I am using Safari as my browser on a Mac. Out of curiousity I tried to see what would happen using Firefox and while all of the posts come up (rather than the thread tree) the option button does not work in Firefox either. Java is enable in Firefox as well.

Sinner, thanks for the response. I read the topic and found the option button, but nothing happens when I click on it. It appears to be an "active" button as I get my little pointy finger when I point to it, but nothing when I click. Thanks.

I am having trouble viewing the forum posts today. Usually, I see all the content of all the posts in chronological order from newest to oldest. Today, all I can see is the most recent post followed by a list (rather than the entire posts) of earlier posts. Did EB change something or did I inadvertently change a setting? I checked my control panel but can't find anything that helps. Any advice would be appreciated as the current set up makes it difficult to follow a topic. Thanks.

Calling this a "modification" of the theater from 10184 is a bit of an understatement! WOW - great work!