natelite

i think it is less the company and more the material. plastics are non-biodegradable and can last for 10,000 years or more. they will definitely outlast civilization. maybe after ww4 and all of life is wiped out by the fighting, one day aliens will come to our planet and wonder how the many lego pieces evolved... *wacko* :-|

i see. the part i was confused with was when he said "shipping is $15 don't forget to factor that in." wasn't that already factored in if he said it was $11 cheaper than retail? *wacko* anyway, glad i got 2 sets during target's screw up. :-) i'm all good.

i guess that's why on the box his head has a tinge of green to it. 8-

umm, is batcave $75? i thought it was $90. it's buy it now for $64 + $15 for shipping for a total of $79 vs $90 + tax retail. that's 12%+ dc. am i missing something here besides no paypal and a 97% feedback?

ebayed 8877 for a 40% discount and 4883 for a 80% discount. dunno why i got them but oh well, hard to ignore a good bargain... :-/ edit: due to combined shipping i ended up with 40.5% discount EACH or savings of $48.50. wow...

check it out! not too bad compared to retail! and you dont even have to wait to win the auction. it's buy it now.

well, just the other day when i was scouring the local target stores to clean out their batcave sets i noticed something different. the lego aisle expanded. the sets now occupy the entire aisle. playmo reduced to 1/3 aisle; megabloks 1/4 (in the same aisle as john deere, weird!). lego sets must be selling well for target to give them more space. when i was there the soccer stadium set was sold out, all 2005 sets sold out (probably due to the massive discounts in july to clear them), batcave sold out (but we know why ;-) ) and what's different is now they have tons of $80-$100 large sets for sale; much more than before. this means target is expecting them to sell well. i think lego should start redesigning their boxes. it's simple too large. they can save on shipping cost and on packaging cost by not shipping empty air. it's expensive shipping large half-empty boxes. and maybe if they cut cost this way they dont have to move their packing production to mexico. :-P anyway, back to topic...judging by the aisle only mattel and hasbro are doing better. mattel has lots of new superhero figurines...the new batman, superman series looked awesome. hasbro and its star wars figurines also occupy an entire aisle.

i think they made an error. they probably wanted to move the ucs isd to the exclusive collection section of star wars lego and removed it by mistake.

i dunno about that. gate assault 7705 is priced wrong online for like 6 months now at 19.89. you even get it shipped free if you purchase through amazon.com. even with the wrong tag, target still makes a decent profit from the set. don't forget we know the retailers get a 38% margin over srp. 69.99 is just 22.2% discount over $89.99 retail. so they still get 16% gross profit per set. :-D someone in target might wise up though like you said...but i don't think senior management is ever going to notice a profitable set suddenly selling like hotcakes. :-)

great! will you review the set, ultraprime? ;-P

sorry if i'm being captain obvious here but i think he is questioning whether the speckles are sprayed on or are imbedded in the plastics. like the chrome silver or chrome gold pieces are actually sprayed on, and when you scrub the paint off (either through wear and tear or with brasso) it reveals trans-clear pieces underneath. question would be are speckled pieces the same as the chrome pieces, ie sprayed on vs actual plastic?

bought another 7705 gate assault. :-P it was cheap. i can't pass up a good bargain.

i just hope for better robot minifig this time. one that allow us to swap the heads around. and maybe one that can sit instead of being positioned precariously. the color progression kinda reminds me of KK2. the knights also went from light blue, red, green to dark blue, dark green, dark red and dark tan. my guess? hayato will be in dark tan. :-P same here, can't wait to see the new mechs!

toy brick brigade sucks. i have badly faded prints and missing parts. complained and said they will ship replacement. replacement never came...it's 3-4 months already. i'm not going to hold my breath.

ryo is in dark green....go get it champ!

umm, i saw the news on the exo-force website about new club stickers so i decided to check it out. to my surprise i saw new minifigs. the new torsos looked awesome! i hope that means exo-force lives to second season and those are the new minifig designs. they look absolutely fabulous. dark blue, dark red and dark green. the torso prints are great. if they are stickers/decals it would be even better! i like to apply the different patterns on the same color torso so the entire team looks more like a team. anyway, go check it out. hope to see new mechas soon to confirm that there is a second season!

if they ever come up with a star wars chess set i will be getting 100s of those. ;-) wait 5 years and they should inflat like 100x.... just a thought...lol.

well, the knights and rooks suck. so it's mostly a 24-minifig set for $50. a bit steep don't you think? um, on second thoughts that's like $2 per mf....hmm, sounds reasonable?

my opinion of ufo is the same. too many printed parts and not as menacing. they should be made larger than normal mf, perhaps out of bricks. but the con of using bricks is that the mf will be very fragile and break easily. the martians though are way hedious compared to the ufo. my thoughts are, they should design a new minifig frame. right now we have a semi-android frame and the normal minfig. the android came from the lom and star wars 1 droid figures. but the legs are hedious. they should at least bulk it up a little, much like the exo-force robots. but the exo-force robots are hunched and look inferior. they should make it stand taller, more menacing, maybe like a terminator model or something. also the minifigs are not compatible with each other. i cannot exchange the normal minifig heads with the exoforce robot head, etc. imagine the possibilities if only TLC make 2 or 3 mf versions and they are compatible with each other.

umm, too personalized like you said. it's like an giant experiment lab that housed criminals. why is there a female cryogenically frozen in iceman's lab? and poison ivy has bio experiments in her lab. same with the others. the exterior and the interior look nice though. it's the cells that scares me.

holy cow...that's the shop i visited. i recognize the layout. is that the bridgewater commons shop in nj?

i stopped buying used from ebay. way too unpredictable to my likings. i bought like about 5 times of used bulk purchases and was very disappointed with my purchase. since then i stopped buying. i still bid on some used sets but not bulk. and only if the listing said non-smoking, no pet homes. haven't won any so far. :-/

i bought the two batman magnet and a town folks magnet sets so i can speak more about them. there are magnets INSIDE the torso. i know this because i tested it, and i pried open the arms to find out. the torso and the hips are glued extremely tightly, no way of removing without damaging them. must be some kind of an industrial grade glue. the magnet pieces are also glued on extremely tightly. only way is to replace the legs. but then you are still left with the piece INSIDE the torso. apart from the obvious difference between the magnet and the normal minifigs, the magnet mfs can do everything a normal minifig can. however there will be price differences between the magnet mf and the normal mf because of the glue and also it costs more to get the normal mfs. the heads and the headgear will get cheaper though because those are detachable from the magnet mfs. pity those torsos...sigh... be sure not to use the magnet mfs near any electronic equipment. the best use of the magnet mfs in my opinion is as markers on a white board. i'll probably bring one or two for my office :-D

well, i got one too at 69.99 + tax. havent open it yet. i may just buy out my local target shops tomorrow then. :-D edit: i managed to get another one. rest of stores were sold out. 8-|

DONE! hmm, i think i did quite well. what do you think?