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fred67

Eurobricks Dukes
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Everything posted by fred67

  1. fred67
    Ehh... I would still complain to the seller before leaving feedback. You shouldn't have to say 100% LEGO if you say "5lbs of LEGO pieces," it should be 5lbs of LEGO pieces. You have every right to complain. Even if you end up giving a positive feedback anyway, if for no other reason, to make the seller aware there's a difference and that people DO care.
  2. fred67
    I have two 4561 Railway Expresses... it was the first 9V LEGO train set I even knew existed, and I got two at Sam's Club (warehouse club here in the U.S.) for $75 each. Not knowing TLG was fully involved in trains, I bought a second one thinking I could expand the track and build my own stuff. Nice to have two speed regulators. I never bought another 9V complete set, so can't comment on the other. Knowing what I know now, I'm not a big fan of 4561. It's true there's a lot of windows, but the other colors are not particularly good for trains. I'm glad I got it, as it got me started on LEGO trains (eventually to give up N-Guage), but only because I discovered I could buy a bunch of other things ("build your own train" line).
  3. fred67
    Missed this post earlier, but saw it on rebrickable and "liked" it... it's really well done!
  4. fred67
    But the width works? The fit with the wheels is good? With how people have geared their home-made monorails, this surely must be possible. Certainly the worm gear is the problem... I'm sure you get a whole lot of torque, just no speed... and I think a piece like that in a train would wear out too quickly.
  5. fred67
    My manual did not fall apart. The style of binding for the manual was not conducive to building - if it needs to be that thick, spiral bound would have worked a lot better. I did not force the book open, though - I'd just put something on it - heavy enough to hold the page, but only just so (like the TV remote), and didn't force the page open. But still, I may have just been lucky with a second run book or something (I doubt it, though).
  6. fred67
    I'm very interested in how this turns out; please keep us posted!
  7. fred67
    I'm not eloquent enough to counter this in a one liner, but I find it hard to believe that you wouldn't already know, as you were writing this, the difference between a well defined science and a political agenda, and that parents don't send their kids to school in hopes of being indoctrinated into a predefined socio-political mindset.
  8. fred67
    I agree that Brickshelf is often slow and unreliable. I used to recommend Picasa, but Google screwed it up integrating it with Google+, and sharing images is tedious compared to flickr. I like flickr a LOT for the following simple reason: it's the easiest site to use in order to share your work on sites like bricklink; you can upload your full size images and get the BB code for an EB approved size that automatically links to the full resolution image hosted on flickr... all you do is cut and paste the BB code it generates for you.
  9. fred67
    The worst part about all this is that the teachers might be reading sites like this (doubtful, but possible), or other outlets that are pointing out how wrong they are and how unscientific their methodology was; people calling them out for indoctrinating their students with this political correctness propaganda... and they will never admit it, let alone even discuss it with the kids that are still under their control. For the record, out of my two children, it's my daughter that is most interested in "playing" with LEGO (with me). She's quite busy doing things kids her age do... but on a lazy Sunday, when I say "let's build a modular," she's the one that gets excited about it. She's also the one that built me a "happy birthday dad" creation.
  10. fred67
    Finished building last night... very cool, and the car looks fantastic when done. Great techniques! I really love it.
  11. fred67
    I agree with most of the responses here, but this one from BirdOPrey5 nits the nail on the head without political correctness or beating around the bush... teachers start off with an agenda, then lead the kids to follow. The fact that "yellows" aren't specifically understood as being neutral is the first mistake of many these teachers made. Sadly, this is what public schools in the U.S. are becoming. I've been out of public school for nearly 30 years, and still recall instances of teachers preaching to a captive audience. It's really sad, and it's why I talk to my kids about what they learned in class as much as possible, so that I can temper this kind of garbage with rational counter points and ask them to think about it. Let's not let LEGO become a tool of political correctness, especially completely wrong political correctness.
  12. fred67
    No doubt. I may not be happy, but I prefer capitalism over the alternatives. TLG isn't a charity.
  13. fred67
    I look at Brickowl on occasion, but have largely stuck with BL because of the huge number of parts and selection, and it also seems like, if you search enough, you can get better prices. But I always like competition, so I keep both in mind when shopping.
  14. fred67
    Yes... we'd discussed pricing earlier on in this thread... regardless of what people in other countries are paying, you have to assume TLG never sold at a loss. This latest price increase doubles the price since Series 1 in 2010. The way the bean counters look at it, people will think it's only a buck. The way people should look at it, it's 100% increase in price over four years, and we don't just buy one... we often buy 16 or more. It adds up. I'm not likely to continue being a "collector" (getting them all). But they know what they're doing, and they're doing quite well.
  15. fred67
    Yeah... Brickset says about 130k, but I haven't accurately recorded everything, especially polybags and minifigure. Given the huge number of loose pieces I have, I would put that number around 200k, also, although the quality of bricks (their usefulness to me) is much lower than I'd like. I probably have 3000 trans green 1x1 tiles. Now I may do water someday, and they might work, but maybe not... and 3000? I may put some in a pay it forward post.
  16. fred67
    I don't think that a set based on a current license has "won," has it? I don't think they like suggestions to themes they're already doing, even if this is a much different type of set.
  17. fred67
    The nice thing about buying the sets is that you get the normal curves as well as straight track (never enough straight track, though), but looking at the "set" on S@H, unless I'm missing something, it looks like it doesn't come with track at all? That's terrible... if you go with the non-rechargeable battery box, you can all those pieces a LOT cheaper. But I quoted this post because I wanted to say that I've also got the Constitution on display, but intend to motorize it. I motorized the Toy Story train just for fun, it worked well.
  18. fred67
    The only thing that bothers me is the cost; I will certainly not do sideways plate building. I was planning on redoing the modular baseplates with regular large plates, though, which could subsequently sit on a baseplate, but not fully filled to let it come off easily and even run wires underneath. I would do the same for roads; building the roads on plates, then attaching them to baseplates just because I think it'll be easy. Again, not being fully connected (just a few 2x2s spaced out, to make it easy to disconnect and, again, run wires underneath that can be used either for lighting or just wires for vehicles to automatically follow. That's my plan, anyway, and I think it'll cost a lot less and take less time than building sideways with plates. Plus intersections will be easier, lanes wider than than standard road plates, and I don't care about turns because a city laid out in blocks doesn't generally have any, but if it's a stair-step pattern in a needed curve, so be it. Interesting that, no matter which way you decide to do it, if you do your own, it can look nicer, have details like gutters and drains and manhole covers, and hide wiring. Anyway, whatever you decide, good luck on your town layout...
  19. fred67
    In the video it sure looked like many of the CMFs were on the villain side.
  20. fred67
    Maleficent... not in 3D, but I really liked it. So did the wife and kids (12 & 15).
  21. fred67
    If you play with them, it's entirely different than if you're a "collector." I don't normally "play" with LEGO (except trains and I "play" by setting up my Christmas display, for example). I wouldn't want bootlegs. If I just wanted those figures to play with... well, you wouldn't even want to play with figures "worth" hundreds of thousands, and bootlegs make perfect sense. Just that, if you ever wanted to sell them, then they are not LEGO and not really worth anything to a LEGO collector. So I wouldn't condemn you for buying them - not at all.
  22. fred67
    I haven't looked through all the pages of this thread, but these are a few screengrabs from the game video TLG has posted online, and I'm wondering if they are potential figures. The guy in the red mask: figure1 by FredJH, on Flickr The only figure there... looks like Plato or something: figure2 by FredJH, on Flickr Sort of a male Medusa: figure3 by FredJH, on Flickr Two horned guys, center screen: figure4 by FredJH, on Flickr You'll want to click on the images to get the bigger ones. And the trailer, of course.
  23. fred67
    I think we all generally like LEGO to be more generic. When the parts get too big and specific, it's little different than a youth oriented plastic model. But then, part of the LEGO target audience is younger, and I like to think the LEGO Group knows what they're doing. At the same time, while I look at some of the newer train sets and don't like them for this very reason, TLG hasn't forgotten about us... there are more advanced trains, like the Maersk and Horizon Express, that don't rely on those big specialised pieces. A search for "plane" at LEGO S@H shows most of the planes are brick built (in both cases, there are some speciality pieces, like train wheels and propellers, but that's to be expected either way). So, it's true, I see some sets I'm disappointed about, but I think they have a decent balance.
  24. fred67
    Let's see if we can still pay it forward. I have my "free" legoland ticket (with purchase of full price ticket), what a lot of us got when buying from shop at home or LEGO shops recently. Will send to anyone domestically.
  25. fred67
    I would want a police station, even if only to complement the fire house.
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