fred67

@jimim: You can specify no color and get a lot more hits, but the problem is that stores with many multiples of those parts tend to pollute the "list by shop." In other words, if you're listing by largest number of matches, a 2x4 would match stores that have 2x4 in many colors, and each one would count as a unique (someone correct me if I'm wrong). But then if you limit by color you get less hits. It's a pain. I don't know what a good work around is. Brickficiency might be a good solution if you use Windows. I do sometimes, but not generally.

Better than a lot of other submissions.

That applies to everything, though. I have Amazon Prime, and not only are a lot of prime things NOT guaranteed to arrive in 2 days, a lot of things don't even when they say they are. But I get what you're saying... shipping/delivery can be a big headache. I make a bricklink order on Saturday or Sunday; get invoiced on Sunday or Monday and pay immediately, and become a little enthusiastic that I might actually get the parts I want by the next weekend. Don't get a ship notice until Wednesday, but great! It's got tracking... arrives in my local post office on Friday... and then I don't get it until Monday for some unknown reason.

They aren't - before getting bent out of shape, reread my post. I don't sweat people that wouldn't know otherwise, it annoys me when people who should know better use it. If someone mispronounces your name, though, you correct them... if they continue to mispronounce it, it's annoying.

I have 9 of the modulars built at the moment (if you count MS), and with them all together it sticks out like sore thumb.... and not in a good way.

I think city fans that don't like the large pieces can stick with creator sets and, at the high end, modulars. That may not help with vehicles, but then there's always building your own, and unlike something like a modular, a typical LEGO style cop car or family sedan is not that big of a stretch for your average LEGO collector to MOC.

I care. It's annoying. There's a right way to say it, why can't people respect what the company says it's called? GIF is "jiff," like the peanut butter, despite the G standing for "graphics," (iow, a hard "g") because that's how the people who created the format say it's pronounced. They get to say how it's pronounced because they made it. If you make something and don't care what people call it, that's great. If we hung out together, and someone kept mispronouncing your name despite knowing full well the correct way to say it, it would bother me, too. But no, I don't walk around correcting "lay people" when they say "legos." Co-workers, family, friends... in fact, I don't recall ever correcting anybody, but I find it more annoying when people who should know better do it. I'm not that OCD about it, but people in the LEGO community should know better. People on Eurobricks should know better. In fact, I just watched two documentaries (I would assume blessed by TLG) - LEGO, A Brickumentary, and Inside LEGO. In both cases, even the people doing the interviewing were saying "legos." I agree completely... I've said it before, I even mentioned it in the BSTF forum. I think, in fact, a lot of people do it simply because it makes them look more like LEGO nerds. "Real" fans of LEGO know all the numbers! I'd even like the year... which version of Hogwarts? Which version of the X-Wing? The year goes a long way to answering that. The worst is people selling things - don't you want to make it easier for someone to buy? That helps a bit on the reddit LEGO trading board, but it's unnecessary clutter because it makes a whole new post every time someone puts a set number (even if they also write the name of the set). Bricklink's method works, too - where you'd put [s=#] and it changes it to a thumbnail with the set number, name, and a link to it's page on bricklink. It's been suggested that we do that here, too, but the moderators pushed back - I forget the reasoning. Even if they did it, the problem is that people are still too lazy to use it. A lot of the the knowledgeable posters on bricklink don't even use it. When a seller there say he's got a xxxx on sale for $yyy, I don't even look anymore if they can't be bothered to use the helpful notation.

I managed to squeeze in 2 more (Fire Brigade and Detective's Office) onto my already cramped shelf space, it's really not worth taking another photo of it.

Nobody calls me crazy. Not for that, anyway. I have tons of unopened sets, and occasionally I'll find a way to clear off more shelf space for displaying a new set. Over Christmas holidays I built two modulars and the Scooby Doo Mystery Mansion. Before that, it was summer since my last "real" build.

Yeah... use google with "site:eurobricks.com" I've not really had much success with the Eurobricks search, anyway.

Any investing is a gamble, on the whole, but there are definitely safe bets in LEGO. Like Vorkosigan stated, UCS sets are one pretty safe bet (although not entirely safe). So far, neither modulars not the special creator trains (Emerald Night, Maersk, Horizon Express) have let anyone down. I'm sure there are others, but those are the only ones I'm interested in and have taken note of. But taking note hasn't made me speculate, it's only made me not want to miss something I really like for fear that aftermarket prices will be terrible. IOW, I only bought what I really wanted at the time. If I ended up selling or trading, it's only because the value they were offering in new sets was greater than what that set was worth to me. If the prices never went up, if they weren't a good investment for money, I still had them because I really wanted them, at least at one point, and will hopefully have enough room to build everything I have some day. The only ones I feel like I've really "collected" and am saving new are the CMFs, and I'm done with that, too. I mean, I still buy them, but I was always keeping a new, sealed set for each series. Not sure what I will do with them, maybe even give them to grandkids to open and enjoy. But I those are the only things I ever bought to save for posterity. But I stopped after S10 because I felt it was getting a bit ridiculous.

I have inadvertently invested in LEGO, only because I have bought sets that I never opened, they increased in value, and I decided that two or three newer sets were more worth it to me. As I've said in other threads, I just don't have the display space - but I also don't want to miss out on sets because they do go up in value (especially the modulars). The first time was when I went to buy a Green Grocer, and they had a damaged box for like 40% off (they don't go that low any more - it's a pittance what they take off in the damaged box section at LEGO Stores now). So I bought a good one and damaged box one because it was a steal... I built the damaged box one, and less than a month later they were off the shelves and my MISB one was suddenly worth twice as much. I don't buy sets I don't want, but sometimes I buy multiples of great sets - like Emerald Night. I bought three. Built one, did the Ruby Night conversion on another, and ultimately traded the third one for a lot more - but that wasn't my intention when I bought it. I figured I'd use it to build an extra carriage and then have some extra parts, but it became much more worth it to sell it as a set. So I think it can be a good investment - if you buy two of every modular - one to build and one to save, I think at some point you can sell an old modular every year for double the value and buy two of the new ones, and it becomes a self supporting hobby. But they seem to be staying on shelves longer, so it could take a few years to build up. Unfortunately it takes money to make money, as they say, and I don't have as much disposable income as I did a few years ago, but it's one of those things that if I was in a better financial situation, I could start essentially getting modulars (for one) for "free."

That's just awesome! Way to make lemonade, there, mijasper!

I still think you're missing what I think was suggested - that we don't vote, that if all TLG wanted was ideas, then they would decide from among the submissions. BirdOfPrey5 seemed to suggest that what TLG really wants is people to "Guerrilla market" the ideas website, and they're aren't really just looking for ideas. I actually think we're off on a really odd tangent, here.... because I don't think that's what either of us actually wants.

That Star Diamond Christmas stuff looks really neat - those anime style cats are really cool. I would not call them a clone company at all, except they do use the minifigure. That's about the only part(s) left that, if they copy it, it should be considered a clone since it's a protected trademark of TLG. But OMG, Anime fans NEED to take a look. I'm not big on that style myself, but some of those sets with the anime style minidolls are really neat. Back to the OP, I really like the ice cream swirl piece. Again, the only thing I think is "wrong" with these products is when they copy the trademarked LEGO minifigure. Other than that, I see not only no blatant copying of sets in any of these, but sets and themes TLG won't do that could very well appeal to a lot of people. While I might buy a competitor set every so often, I'm still a LEGO segregationist. I find it hard to put the two together, and usually keep them separated. Accessories go into a baggie marked "not LEGO." But I like some of these. Thanks for the pointers. EDIT: Star Diamond Fairies on aliexpress link. EDIT2: An educational toy indeed, showing the scene where Walter stole the chemicals from the train on Breaking Bad.

Yes, their "final" evaluations consist of that, but you were talking about the thousands of projects they would have to wade through as opposed to the few sets that make 10k. What BirdOfPrey5 was saying is that there's not thousands a day that get submitted (at least that we see), and it's one of those things we've argued about in the past - there's a certain level of submission that just wastes everybody's time. But on any given day, when you go look at ideas, you can skim through all the new submissions in a few minutes, instantly discarding 95% of them (BirdOfPrey5 says half... he's being generous). Most of them are non-starters or just terrible, many are not even worth the bytes they're printed on. There seems to be only a few people that really work on Ideas until they get to the 10k evaluation stage - none of that would change. As he said, a couple of people could easily discard the vast majority (usually all) the submissions on a given day to end up with a top 10 or so at the end of each period. I know that, at least for me, I wish they would filter out the obvious non-starters and submissions with a baseplate with a couple of figures standing on it and all the other nonsense people submit... it's at least 75% a waste of time. I don't agree it's a place to show off MOCs, or make kids happy because their creation was posted online and they got 10 sympathy votes from the grandparents and other relatives.

I did have an issue with the seasonal Halloween set... it was just one piece I put in the wrong spot, and it broke trying to get it out. I think it was the first piece I ever broke during a build. I had a spare, and chalked it up to an unfortunate set of circumstances. They don't do it that way, though... it's all clear plastic that they add dye to, so it's all the same plastic for all the colors, just different dyes. In my case, I hadn't really seen the issue before, despite the fact I've had hundreds of cheese slopes attached for years, and that seems to be the most common problem. In my case, it was only dark red 1x1 tiles. All the other dark red pieces were fine, so it can't have anything to do with the dye. Also, all the dark red tiles from my own collection that I replaced them with also worked just fine. And it's not 1x1 tiles, because all the other colors that, one would assume, were manufactured reasonably close in time, all worked just fine, too. It has to come down to a bad batch. Unfortunately, this was from the Fire Brigade, which is all the way back from 2009. I have a LOT of sets I haven't built, and it worries me that this could be an issue for something even older. I just don't have anywhere to put them right now... someday I hope to move to a house with a basement I can use just for LEGO, but if I build them all now, I'd just have to put them all back in the box.

Least resistance... the corner will break easier than a side. The gray seems to be stripped from the studs I was trying to put them on... perhaps the hole is too small. I need to stress/repeat that I'm not heavy handed with LEGO - all the other 1x1s fit just fine, as did the dark red from my collection that I replaced the broken ones with. I do not know if it was brittle plastic, or, as it seemed to me, the hole size was wrong, and when pressed on, they just broke in two. Occasionally the piece didn't fully break, but just cracked, but that was a minority - maybe 5 pieces. It was not the studs, because the replacements fit just fine. Unfortunately, I went though the shop at home customer service pages where it gives you all of 80 characters to explain the problem, and it let me pick the dark red tile for replacement. I entered 19 (the maximum) and just noted that all 19 broke. They did not give me enough space to explain anything, or post a link to the image. I hope it gets flagged and they ask for more information instead of just sending me the parts.

OK, after my latest experience, I'm going with this. All those years, and I've never really had a problem. I can understand a particular set having problems (from perhaps a bad batch), but I've just never felt that there was particular part that was just bad or poorly designed. So we did a family build yesterday of the Fire Brigade... pulled out the box, dusted it off, made space on the shelf to put it when built (that's why all my sets aren't built yet, no space). Anyhow, don't want to go off topic - the problem I had was with dark red 1x1 tiles. 19 of them. Every single one broke. I actually stopped after 12 or so, but my wife and kids didn't believe it, so I gave the unused ones to them to try for themselves, and they proceeded to break all the remaining ones. None of the other 1x1 tiles broke; I went and got dark red out of my own collection and they all worked with no problems - so it was just (at least) one bad batch, of just one part type, in just one color. So... off to complain to TLG.

Good questions above - also is that really drywall? Don't the edges get messy? I am thinking when I make a table that I'd do what I did in my workshop - hardboard over plywood. But then the question above is a good one - I currently use large felt sheets (with a bit of glitter) to cover the tables I use, but that's only because it's not a permanent layout. The textured paint to help keep things from easily slipping seems interesting.

^^^ Agreed. I ask again why you would care if someone judged you negatively for building with LEGO? I actually had this discussion with someone who, at a family gathering made a comment about my hobby. So I asked what his hobby was, and he said "sports." And I looked at him and smirked because I know I am more physically active than he is and I asked "what sports do you play?" Ha! "I'm a fan, I watch sports, I can tell you just about any statistic you want to know!" So I just shrugged and said something along the lines of "so you sit around watching other people play sports, and you're making fun of my hobby that lets me have fun, have a creative outlet, something interactive and that makes me think, that I can do with my kids if they want, and make cool, interesting conversation starters that I put on display at work? OK." Nothing against sports fans, but if spectating is your hobby, then you have no rights to make fun of pretty much any hobby. Right now at work I have on display a shadow box with the company from the Hobbit with a map of Middle Earth as a background (to be fair, I was inspired by someone on bricklink), the first four architecture buildings (also in a shadow box with a cloud background), the Mystery Machine in a display cube (with added Velma and Daphne), and a Kre-O Enterprise. They've all inspired random passers-by to just stop and talk about either the subject matter or the fact that it was LEGO (I do mention the Enterprise is Kre-O). In the past I've had tons of Star Wars ships, including the full size AT AT, a CMF display, Indiana Jones, and Harry Potter. All proudly on display. To be fair, I work for Turner Broadcasting - home of Cartoon Network and Scooby Doo, as well as Newline Cinema (LOTR and Hobbit), and we're all owned by WB (Harry Potter). A lot of the people in the creative departments have offices filled with toys, shelves of Star Wars ships (not LEGO) and tons of other stuff, including home-made stuff.

Wow, nice reference, shannanigan! Is the column just labeled "name" the bricklink name?

Well... I can see this both ways; I think resellers are doing a service, particularly for those in areas or countries that can't get them, and a few dollars surcharge for the trouble is reasonable. But when they go and get hundreds at a time, so that when I, who lives near several Toys-R-Us stores, can't get one because, you know, I actually had to go to work that day, and they're all gone when I get off from work so that I can't buy ONE, I think it's more than a bit inconsiderate.

^^ Yes, I should have commented on the icicles, I really like how they were done.

Wow. I contacted customer support through the website last week, and got a message that I'm on the list and they expect to ship out the parts pack in January. That's fine with me, I have no complaints about the time, I'm just "wow"-ing that some people got it already.