meyerc13

This must be a mistake, they've actually approved a Cuusoo project that I supported, instead of finding some lame excuse why they can't? I thought I'd never see the day after the Winchester, Western town, Firefly, Town shops...

Is that a new door on the trailer of 60035 (the semi)? - At a second look, I think it is just a sticker that was making the door look more 3 dimensional than it is.

I love the SNOT walls on the cabin... it is so well done that I almost forgot that the palisade bricks are normally vertical and not horizontal. I also love that tent, very well done given the limitations of building in bricks and plates. Not to mention, the little details like the soldier fishing help to pull the viewer into the scene, when I saw that I wondered if he had a big fish on the line or a snagged line, since he seems to be smiling I hope he is about to land a whopper of a fish.

I don't know if I'd call this the first public building - the Yellow Beach House had a Cafe as an alternate build and the Lighthouse could be rebuilt as a Seafood Restaurant, but this would seem to be the first with a commercial building as the primary model. In any case, I can't wait. I wish I knew more about the footprint, I've been wanting to build some new buildings for my LEGO City, and I'd hate to start without having an idea of the depth of the buildings and the sidewalk in front.

To me, Great Vehicles includes any of the City vehicle sets that don't fit into that year's theme. This year the theme is police, so the airport fire truck and the monster truck would fall into Great Vehicles.

This isn't that unusual, in most cases the plow covers the truck's headlights, but generally they mount a light kit onto the brackets that hold the plow to the truck. This model is missing that, but there is only so much you can do in this scale without sacrificing stability. Thanks for posting this, though! I live 100 miles from the closest store, so it doesn't really work for my kids to attend these events except in summer.

I bought this set last year as my first modular, and luckily it led me to buy Fire Brigade before they sold out. Of the two, this set was more appealing so I wanted to get it first. It will almost certainly retire sometime this year, so I wouldn't put it off too much longer if you don't have it yet. Next up for me is Pet Shop, becuase that's another one that I suspect won't be around too much longer. I think Pet Shop will probably stick around through the end of 2014, but I wouldn't count on that for Grand Emporium. My guess is that the latest we'll see this set is late fall.

It's a 2014 set, but many major retailers will shelf the sets early to put something out for sale, because by this time their LEGO selection can be pretty sparse. TRU as a rule always puts the sets out a few weeks early, but this year I've seen Wal Mart doing it as well.

Just a word of caution, I'd avoid mentioning that site/book in a Christian setting. If you don't know, the creator is an atheist and tends to focus on the portions of the Bible that are more mature even if they aren't necessarily the more well known portions of the Bible. Many Christians take offense that he focuses on the negative parts of the Bible rather than the positives.

Definitely. The track and train parts alone are probably worth almost that, never mind the minifigs and the rest of the bricks. For me, I bought it because it is a nice looking steam engine, it had extra track for me to add to my growing railroad, and I wanted an officer for my Lone Ranger Cavalry. I bought it for full price, so at half off it is definitely worth it even if you aren't interested in the Lone Ranger theme.

Toys R Us B&M in the US has been selling these (shockingly) at a steep discount off of MSRP... I want to say for less than $65. Not sure if that sale is still going on, but might be worth a look if you want this set at a great price.

As my five year old daughter said to the Barnes and Noble employee last night, "Why are you still selling advent calendars? Don't you know that today is December 10th?" The B&N employee was so amazed that my daughter figured that out on her own that I heard her telling the next customer about what my daughter said and how smart she is for a five year old. I sometimes wonder if retailers understand the concept of advent calendars. They really should start putting clearance prices on these right after black friday to move the additional stock, but all too often they try to sell them at full price through Christmas, which makes no sense. It seems that the 'resellers' (I refrain from using the words I'd rather use to desribe them), figured this concept out and are now returning their unsold stock - thus messing us all up next year when retailers skew their orders based on the large number of returns. This helps the 'reseller's' business model but certainly doesn't help the retailers or consumers. Just a reminder, if you buy an advent calendar now, pop the seals and make sure that all the figures are there. Unfortunately all too often those who can rationalize cornering the market by buying up all available stock to make a profit, can also rationalize taking the minifigs out before returning the sets... after all, it's the retailers fault for not checking the item before taking the return.

Just a tidbit I learned from my wife who has her degree in early childhood education: In the US, at least, anything that is considered a 'choking hazard' must be labelled 'Ages: 3+.' So standard system sets fall into that category due to small parts that can be a choking hazard. Since Duplo is for 'Ages: 2+', the concern isn't choking since the parts are too large to become lodged in the windpipe (although a child may be able to jam a duplo part into their mouth, it would be extremely unlikely to block the windpipe). The ages for infant/toddler toys (anything for ages under 3), have more to do with development. Children under 2 would struggle to manipulate Duplo bricks in the intended fashion. At that age they are more about throwing, mouthing, or exploring the textures. In summary, the concern for Duplo (according to the experts), isn't safety but more that a child wouldn't be able to use the toy as intended.

That's a brilliant snow plow design! It's one of those things when you see it, you wonder why you've never thought of it. Well done.

All of these excellent 6 wide cars/SUVs lately are making me rethink my aversion to them. The body on this is phenomenal! Gryphon Ink - If you ever attend a Monster Truck show you'll understand. I'm probably the person you would vote least likely to enjoy monster trucks, but my son wanted to go so off I went. There's something fascinating in watching a giant machine fly into the air and crush cars all in the space of a US Basketball court.

That surprises me at one level, because Wal Mart and Target aren't known for stocking new sets that aren't on their planogram between shelf resets. However, on another level it doesn't surprise me at all because every store I've been to has had a decimated LEGO Friends section. I think most parents who are accustomed to other themes know that if a LEGO set tops a child's wish list, if you haven't bought it by mid-November you might be out of luck. I suspect there are a lot of parents who are new to LEGO via Friends, and I feel sorry for them if they didn't know to shop ahead. At least this gives them hope of putting some Friends set under the tree, and it helps reinforce the magic of Santa since these technically are supposed to be 2014 sets. In my house it is well known that Santa has early access to the new LEGO sets since Denmark is so close to the North Pole.

This came up on the Brickset forum, and Mark Stafford gave his opinion why this won't work. See his reply here: http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/comment/11837/#Comment_11837

Good luck with that. The place I've seen this type of theft the most often is Wal Mart, and I've tried turning the sets into Customer Service only to have them show up on the shelves again the next day. The worst example was non-LEGO, a GI Joe set with a clear plastic front had the action figures swapped out with figures that clearly weren't GI Joe figures and clearly didn't fit into the plastic bubble meant to hold them in place in the package. It amazed me that customer service took that set in return, amazed me more that it ended up on the shelves, and left me speechless that they put it back on the shelf after I specifically educated several employees on what had happened.

You don't mention which calendar (City, Friends, Star Wars), but I'm betting you have a Star Wars calendar and the seven missing bags are the minifigs. The box may have looked factory sealed, but as other threads here on Eurobricks have shown, theives are very clever and can either loosen the tape or slit the box at the seam and reglue it without it being very obvious. In some cases it is completely undetectable. I'd contact LEGO customer service. Maybe they can overnight the replacement parts to you. Even though this is most likely a case of theft and the theif is ultimately responsible, the store carries some responsibility for taking back a return and reselling it as new without verifying the contents, and LEGO carries some responsibility for refusing to make it more difficult for these unscrupulous people to do this. If LEGO switched to security tape it would make this much more difficult to do, but for whatever reason they don't even though this is a well known problem. A note to other parents - if you at all are concerned with this happening (and if you bought your calendar at a retail store without being present to witness it coming out of the LEGO shipping carton, you should be), use the tricks the crooks use or just slit the tape at one end of the box and slide the tray out to inspect it before giving it to your kids. I've never run into a pillaged set, but I have run into a LEGO calendar with the tray rotated, making the days not line up. You can save your kid some disappointment by double-checking before giving them the set, and with a bit of Scoth magic tape they'll be none the wiser.

The closest that I have to a horror story was a Trolls Mountain Fortress that my wife picked up at a Garage Sale. The seller was 100% positive that it was complete, and was asking a hefty price for it (for a rummage sale at least). It was a set I always liked but never picked up, so we took a chance at the $65 price). By complete apparently they meant that only 1/3 of the pieces were missing and 1/2 the minifigs. There were some other random peices thrown in there, but not enough to make up for the missing pieces. I chalked it up as a lesson learned, but I wonder how many other 'complete' sets they sold that day that left some poor person frustrated due to missing parts.

Contact LEGO customer service. They'll generally replace the bricks when this happens, and they really need to know about instances like this. There are several threads here on Eurobricks about this issue and unfortunately it seems to be happening all too often. I've seen it myself - bricks on a recently built new set cracking just from being assembled. I think the more data LEGO collects on this issue that the better their manufacturing/QC around the issue will become (unless of course it's just cheaper to replace the bricks in cases like this than to find and fix the root cause, but even so the more often LEGO is force to replace bricks perhaps the more likely they'll be to fix the problem).

This seems to happen in cycles. One year, LEGO puts out calendars with great pieces, and they sell out. The next year the retailers increase their orders, but the sets aren't as desirable so they end up on clearance. The next year the stores cut their orders, LEGO again puts out great calendars, and they sell out. Repeat this loop indefinitely. Last year Friends calendars were only available from the LEGO store, so most people probably didn't know they existed. I think this year the stores decided to be conservative on their orders (or LEGO is still having issues producing these in quantity), so they have been extremely hard to find. I'm glad I picked mine up when I did. City and Star Wars seems to be easier to find, but both are selling out unlike last year which leads me to suspect that stores cut their orders based on last year's overstock. My TRU has more of the 2012 Star Wars calendars left than I've seen of the 2013 calendars. For those who didn't buy calendars last year, remember that older calendars can still be used, the inside is just humbered 1-24, so it doesn't matter what year LEGO produced the calendar in. I've done this a couple of times for my kids, picking up older ones on ebay or on clearance. However, those deals are getting harder to find, and now we've bought the calendars the last few years so they aren't new to my kids any more.

You're right, this is a great time of year to get back into the hobby. While I didn't have any of the sets from my childhood (my mom gave them to my cousins apparently), I have picked up some old sets at rummage sales. Personally, I think that approach is more trouble than it is worth. As you've found, discolored, chewed, dirty, all too common. The dirt you can get rid of with time and effort, but the discoloration and damaged bricks are the price you pay for 'well-loved' bricks. Personally, if I were you I'd do this: First, if you dare going out to Black Friday sales, you can pick up some great 'brick box' types sets. You'll get hundreds of pieces for far less than the decent ratio of 10 cents per piece. They aren't always great pieces, but if you are going to build you want a nice stock of basic colors in 1x and 2x bricks, and this will get you that. The next step is hitting the stores the last week of the year. Many stores have massive clearance sales. The selection won't be great, but you need to ignore the set designs and look at the pieces. Pay attention to the colors and the detail pieces. For example, while you may not like Chima or Galaxy Squad, you'll find pieces in both sets that you wouldn't expect to find. For example, this car hood isn't available in this color in City sets, only in two sets from those themes: http://www.brickset.com/search/?part=4653722 It isn't unusual to find sets at 50% off after the holidays. Creator sets are especially good because they give you a nice variety of parts. Finally, if you live close to a LEGO store, become a frequest visitor of their Pick-a-Brick wall. I live a hundred miles from the closest, but when I'm travelling I've stopped at the stores, and at least once a month I make a trip to the closest LEGO store. By doing this I've built up a nice variety of plates and interesting parts (wheels, tires, wheel arches, windshields, doors, windows, plates with clips, hinges, etc.). If you can move beyond looking at a set for its design to looking at a set for its parts, you'll start to find good deals throughout the year that will help to fill the holes in your collection. In no time at all you'll have a nice selection of bricks on hand to build almost anything you want. And you won't have to resort to dirty, damaged used bricks to do it.

Which is a whole $1 less than they've been selling it for leading up to BF. It's been $56 on their website, and they had a $5 off LEGO coupon, so $51. Who would be crazy enough to brave the crowds to save $1? I miss the Target BF sales of a few years ago, like the Troll Mountain Fortress for 50% off (a set that was no longer available through retail channels at the time). Now it's down to 37.5% off a set that's been readily available at heavy discounts for almost a year. Not even close to being as interesting. I hope BF is a flop for retailers this year, maybe they'll rethink it and give us all back our Thanksgiving holiday.

The Oshkosh Striker is awesome. My kids and I got to climb in one at EAA Airventure a couple of years ago. There have been some great television episodes that cover the Striker. If you get a chance, check out the 'Richard Hammond's Crash Course' episode that aired last year. There was also a 'Dirt Every Day' episode where they take a Striker off-roading. Fun stuff.