natelite

it's available from TRU US for $30.99 (+tax). They are having a sale (in stores only, not online) from April 9-15 where you get 50% off the second set when you buy 2 (buy one get one 50%). i get it that most of you are europeans...but you may have relatives. i would get it for you but...i'm afraid of the risk. (shipping and handling, losses, fake payments, etc :P

Not as good as TRU.UK sale (25% for

is there an online version of the magazine? can someone point me to where that is? i just subscribed for the paper mag so i dont know if i am getting one yet. :/

tru sale? where is this? i would love to get an interceptor at a discount.

Well, I have problems when they use a dark background. For eg, the villians exoforce comes with dark background. I can hardly tell which brick they use much less the color. when i get older i can see myself having to use a magnifying glass just to see properly or maybe switch to use the online pdf version and bump it up 300%.

Yeah, I really like what they do in bricklink where you can buy separate MFs. But those are really expensive, like $5 a piece. Lego.com only charges $1-$2 per piece WHEN it sold the MFs.

i took the time to read the words on the boxes and guess what? they are making some parts in china. 8-

I have combined both 7700+7701 and 7702+7703 sets. Both are super top heavy. For the 7700+7701 set I need to add small pieces to the underside of the tip of the feet to stabilize the set. The decals definitely make the sets more appealing. The two are giants, higher than the normal $15 mechas by the height of the uplink/sentry unit. But they are not playable, and mostly are for display. Btw, has anyone modded the 4 large mechas to have hands yet?

they have been in the business for 51 years now, the net equity will always be positive unless they are approaching bankruptcy. so even having suffered 3-4 years of losses, usually a company doesn't go under. lego is a private company so the financials are not listed. i just realized that danish tax rate is like 65%+. that's not very conducive to businesses. no wonder it is hard for lego to outmaneuver mega bloks. on the other hand, losses aren't as bad either. you end up having lots of tax credits for future profits, so you dont have to pay as much in taxes in the future.

This is where our opinions differ. If this was 10 years ago I would agree that the workmanship was poor. These days however we are seeing good top quality products from china. In fact, I believe QC/QA is ultimately determined by the investor, not the producer. Who cares where it comes from as long as it meets the standard demanded of them? In fact, TLG doesn't even need to invest. They merely need to contract out the production to several companies which can produce the blocks to their required standards. Absolutely no risk to them. If a company doesn't produce to the required standards, fire and find another contractor. Only the key processes need to remain within the original company to maintain its competitive advantage. I believe with TLG, the key processes are product line designing, market research, and advertising. They shouldn't really keep the production process in-house. If you really feel the mass engineers that china is producing are still subpar, there're hongkong and singapore as potential alternatives. I know of quite a few firms that produce industrial grade high precision plastics. As for worker's comp issue, while I do think $100 a month is very low compared to the US standards, $100 in china is a lot of purchasing power. It wouldn't be fair to compare what we are used to vs what the situation is over there. It's like comparing a worker in montana vs one in new york city. Obviously a nyc worker will be paid 2 or even 3 times more just because the cost of living is so much higher in nyc. If the wages were that bad, I doubt many chinese farmers would have migrated to the cities to seek jobs.

Well I just checked lego's financials and news on bloomberg. They lost money from 2000 to 2004. huge numbers. They only started to return to the blacks in 2005, posting a modest 450 mil kro. I think as many have said lego is just not producing cheaply. They should really charge cheaper sets. They and brio were losing money because they can't compete on price. Let's face it, nobody can really afford high priced toys unless you wish to cater to collectors. Most parents buy toys with the view that kids will grow out of it in a few years. Buying expensive $100-$200 sets is unheard of. Megablocks trumped lego in that they provide cheap, *I wanted to say that this set contains a lot of big pieces but didn't want to take the time to write it all, so I used the word "<insert that tiresome argument>" instead* yet popular versions