JayDuck

I'd have to echo the UCS X-Wing. There's nothing really 'hard' about the build, it's pretty straightforward. Others mentioned that it was pre-numbered bags, but that doesn't bug me, even with the numbered bags I just dump them all in a pile. My big complaint would be the repetition; building the four wings got to be really tedious. Of course, the fact that I put it together while recovering from a pinched nerve in my back so I was building between bouts of pain may have influenced my opinion on this.

(Emphasis by me.)Just as a point of interest, that's what is referred to as a 'genericized trademark', which is like how 'Kleenex' is synonymous with 'tissue', and any refrigerator can be referred to as a 'Fridge', whether it was made by Frigidaire or somebody else. As I understand it, the reason TLG made such a push for the 'proper' use of 'Lego' (notes in the catalogs and whatnot) was to prevent the genericizing of 'Lego' in the face of the proliferation of the clone brands in the 90s. Another fun fact: the built in spell checker in the Firefox browser recognizes 'lego' (without capitalization) as a typo. On topic, I've got two. The first is from the website It Made My Day:

Thanks for the writeup, Ralph. I've enjoyed looking through your models on flickr, and it's nice to be able to read some of your thoughts on design as well.

Nope. Nothing backwards, either. If I'd been one higher or lower I could've had the same number as a CLIKITS item. I'm not sure that would've been preferable to nothing.

The main page for Jan's work is http://www.dispatchwork.info/

Well, my wife wasn't ever 'against' the Lego hobby, so that's a good place to start. My wife had had some exposure to Lego when she was young, she had a few basic sets, but it wasn't something she was really in to. If you're looking to get your girl interested in Lego (assuming she's resistant to the idea), you might try to find an additional 'hook' to interest her. For instance, my wife has always been a fan of the original Star Wars movies. When the Star Wars Lego line debuted, I went out when the sets hit the stores, and my wife (girlfriend at the time) went with me. I picked up the X-Wing, and to my surprise, she got herself a Snowspeeder! (Looking back on it, I wonder why it took me three more years to marry her. ) Another thing you might try is simply building something together. A structure with multiple sections might be a good place to start, and have fun with it. My wife likes to put things together in silly ways, and when we put together our Winter Toy Shop, she did this: so that's how we set it up on the shelf.

Looks good. I really like the air compressor.

"The last of the V8 Interceptors... a piece of history!" I'd agree that the fuel tanks are too big, but the front 2/3 is a good representation of the real thing.

You've used some pretty clever techniques to capture the distinctive look of the truck, especially that lower body "belt line". Well done.

Nice job. I think the hood area is perhaps a bit long, but overall it looks good. And for what it's worth, over here in the States we call that kind of pickup bed a "stepside".

Haha, great stuff! Not at all what I was expecting from the title.

It was nice of you to save poor Bob from such an awful fate.

Nice! That's a very good replica of the original in minifig scale. Good luck with your continued improvements.

If you had a limited parts selection, you used what you have very well. You packed that car with a lot of great details.

It's been pretty trouble free for the most part. It seems like once a year or so there's something that need to be fixed, like a brake job or a new muffler or something, but I can do most of those repairs myself, so it's not too big of a problem. It does have some issues; the power steering leaks fluid, the radio stopped working, and it's starting to rust in spots, so it is starting to show its age. Then again, after that many miles, I'm sure parts of me would be leaky and worn out too. In the nine years (and ~120K miles) that I've had it, there's only been one time where it wouldn't start for me, and that was due to a short in the power to the fuel pump, which is a common problem for Dakotas of that vintage. All told, it's a very reliable rig.

I know you guys don't talk about pickups much (otherwise the title would be more like"truck talk" ), but I'm kind of proud of mine: It's a '93 Dodge Dakota with the 3.9L V6, so it's nothing special, really. What is special, or a least kind of impressive, is that the other day the odometer turned over 225,000 miles (~360,000 km). Now, that might not be a lot of miles for, say, a Toyota Corolla, but for a 17-year-old pickup, that's pretty good. (The picture of the odometer isn't grainy, my dashboard is just really dirty. )

Here's my Mini-Me: It's not perfect, since my glasses are rectangular, the hat is the wrong color, and I don't wear a full beard, just a goatee, but for a un-modded fig, he's pretty close.

Great stuff. I really like your use of those fence/barricade POOPs.

I'll second that the model is great, and also that the movie is really creepy.

Thanks, now I have a new desktop background.

For what it's worth, the main model of Creator set 6747 looks a good deal like the bike that you pictured. It's not perfect, of course, but it would make a decent starting point for a larger-scale model. If you're in the US and have a Target nearby, you might want to check there, since I picked up my copy of the set last week from their post-holiday clearance.

The oldest set I have would be the #196 Building Set with People from 1975 that I found at a rummage sale a few years ago.

Well, the front of the instructions has instructions for taking the light brick apart for changing the battery, so I doubt it would cause any harm. That being said, unless the brick somehow got wedged so it was stuck 'on', I don't think the battery is likely to go dead if it's left in the brick, either. EDIT: So the unscrewing question's been answered, and as to the storage part of the question, I've never had a watch battery leak out like an alkaline cell, but it apparently does happen, so it may be a case of better safe than sorry.

Great review of a great set. I picked up a copy of this set when it was on clearance ( ) at my local KayBee Toys (RIP) way back when. Nowadays it seems so strange that a set like this would languish on the shelves, but when it was introduced, it was the largest Lego set ever (IIRC), and $150 seemed like an awful lot of money to spend on Lego. When they were marked down to $125, I took the plunge and bought one. That X-Wing and some rented movies helped get me through a few days of being home from work after a back injury in early December of '01. I didn't apply the stickers either, except for the one on the stand, because I didn't like the STAMPS, and I think it looks pretty darn good without them anyway. Unfortunately, I had mine displayed on a shelf above my desk, but one sad day gravity decided it didn't need to be up there any more (that is to say, I bumped into the shelves), and, predictably, it crashed and fell to pieces. I decided not to put it back together until I could give it a safer home, so for the last few years, my X-Wing has been parts in a box, patiently awaiting reassembly. I agree that the minifig R2 was oddly out of scale, but I figured it was probably included to help offset the cost of creating the new astromech parts. (If I could send a message back in time, I'd tell myself to nab as many discounted 7181s and 7191s as I could, for future, um, ...appreciation. )

Whoa, easy there. I don't know where you're from, and I wasn't trying to slight anybody's hometown, but all anybody has to do is watch the news to see that the Washington, D.C. area (and places further south) can't deal with snow very well. A friend of mine who lives in Baltimore now was joking that the snow they got that was enough to grind the whole area to a halt would only have been a nuisance here at home. Heck, last winter the President quipped that Washington needed to 'toughen up' after a minor storm gave his daughters a snow day. It was a really big storm in some places, and not in others. Even southern New England got enough snow to cause problems. Down at my in-laws', they had 20+ inches of snow, but where I am, less than an hour north by car, we got next to nothing. I'm sure we'll get dumped on soon enough, though. It happens almost every year. Ah, the 'wonders' of winter weather. tosses snowball