fred67

I have only been to the Alpharetta store one, just to look around, so have no comment. The Sugarloaf (formerly Discover Mills) store I go to about once a month, on average. I've only really had a problem with the older woman (with short hair). I don't know why... it's like I'm some sort of thief or pervert or something... she hovers around making comments while I'm feeling up minifig packs, follows me around the store... I think I remind her of an ex or something. Everyone else seems awesome (no pun intended).

Ok, how about this... New, sealed (barcode checked) series 1 zombie.... yes, ZOMBIE, for movie series Shakespeare, and revolutionary soldier (George Washington looking guy). That's my zombie for 2 recent figures. U.S. preferred, unless you want a larger trade.

I have a "bankers box" (a cardboard filing box) full of them.

I get it, too. I actually started wanting to build my own and not buy sets, but mostly I just build sets because they are both much better than what I can do, and because they have the right parts. It would be nearly impossible for anyone without a lot of time and money to be able to get exactly what is best needed for their own modular building, or train, for example, when the sets come with everything. The sets are also usually really well done... it's quite rare for me to even mod one. But I do build my own stuff, too. I find a lot of inspiration in CMFs, the ideas seem to create themselves with do many varied figures. If you challenge yourself (limit yourself) with, for example, small 8x8 builds, it is easier than trying to make one of these beautiful, but enormous, mocs that some people do...and collect pieces over time to have the collection to build bigger as time goes on. Just my two cents.

I'm actually tied of things like this happening... you need x number of pieces, you order x number of pieces, you pay for x number of pieces plus shipping... and you get fewer than x number of pieces. The seller often does right and sends the pieces, but otherwise you're stuck paying double shipping because the seller thought refunding your 25 cents was good enough... or, in reality, the seller didn't want to eat double shipping to make it right. That's NOT good enough... instead, YOU pay double shipping. Not cool, and definitely not worthy of a positive.

Post Updated Only added to "Wants," I have a huge selection of CMFs for trading, and for the one week I will offer three for two again. I will also offer, for certain trades, 1 for 1 on my limited personal collection of evil dwarfs and elves. Right now what I'd really like is a couple of the movie CMFs that I didn't get; I don't feel the need to be a completest with this series, since I consider it outside the regular series, I just need the Mexican waiter and Shakespeare.

I don't know that model, but I've had a couple of Fuji cameras, and they all had good macro modes.

I generally can find better prices on bricklink, but not always. Even S@H occasionally has better piece prices than bricklink, especially on parts you need a lot of. Bottom line is to always check.

That's crazy man! I love it!

That's really cool! Nicely done!

4. majorna - 1 6. Bricksky - 1 20. gazumpy - 1 27. Galaktek - 1 29. sdrnet - 1

Great thread... I made a (probably to be disqualified) entry for the "expand the winter village" contest, but did not want to put pictures of it in my whole "lay out" because I had to modify it for train sizes (making it exceed the required dimensions). So I didn't think it fair to include shots of it in my entry. But this is a good place, right? So here's my village. I've actually had to get rid of a bunch of stuff that used to be on it because it's taking up the whole table now. I used to have a whole separate non-LEGO little tree back when it was just the toy shop. A couple of years later it was all LEGO, including tons of extra stuff (like the pairs of give-a-ways they do around October and black Friday) and Advent Calendar stuff... next year I am planning on adding a second table. I love it because it's the only time of the year I get to set up a train layout. village1 by FredJH, on Flickr village2 by FredJH, on Flickr village3 by FredJH, on Flickr

Seconded.... the free ones at Railbricks are nice, and a lot of inspiring articles there, but Tony has created some amazing engines that he sells instructions for.

It was designed for the winter village, though...it just goes in the back as scenery.

No... probably not! I was planning this anyway, though, so I figured I'd make it for the rules.

I noticed that, too, and I think generally that: 1) the designers are given some specifications they need to meet, and encouraged to use some pieces over others, and 2) I do think they want you to be able to build your own creations more generically. I don't normally have a problem with it except when I see a weak point that could have been made better with a single larger piece rather than smaller ones, but it doesn't happen that often.

That's just awesome... I grew up on the repeats of that show in the 70's.... very iconic and classic, and very well done, brickmasta, especially given the scale.

Very nicely done!

Like a lot of CMF figures, I get inspired simply by the figures themselves - the ideas seem to just pop in your head when you see the figures, and this was no different. So I wanted to build a mountain for the mountain climber and Yeti; at the same time, I wanted to make a brick based tunnel for my winter village trains. So, without further ado, I present my entry for the contest; "Yeti Mountain." DSCF2023 by FredJH, on Flickr DSCF2028 by FredJH, on Flickr If I have the time, I will post the mountain in the village itself, with trains going through, but the problem is I needed to modify it (two studs wider in order to fit trains better), making it 18x16, so I do not want judging to be based on the modified version, but the version I am showing here (16x16).

I bought Palace Cinema for my wife and kids to give me. I have an Amazon wish list, but generally frown on people who know I like LEGO buying me stuff when they don't know what I already have or what I want. I've gotten too many duplicates in the past.

Brickforge, brickwarriors.

I disagree; even Evangeline Lily complained about the "love triangle." Link.

No, no, no.... you guys aren't getting it... people don't complain about long movies if they're justified in being long movies, but they can't be long for the sake of being long. Character development would be great, but extended barrel riding scenes for the sake of padding the movie, and extended cat-and-mouse scenes with dwarfs and dragons just make the movie seem tedious. I had no problem with even the extended versions of ALL of the LOTR movies - but the Hobbit movies come off as tediously long with gratuitous action and fighting scenes. Whereas in LOTR I wanted more, while watching both Hobbit movies I wanted less... the Goblin chase scenes in the first movie, the barrels and in the mountain in the second. The tacked on love story Every movie does RETAKES, they don't keep rewriting the material because some producer or production company executive says "you know what these needs? A love triangle!" after watching rough cuts of the movie. It reminds me of Homer Simpson telling Mel Gibson what "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" needed. And I'm not a purist... I know they change things to make it work better on the screen; usually this means cutting or condensing stuff. I remember watching some Harry Potter and thinking "the way they condensed those three things in the book to one short scene was genius!" I can respect and appreciate changes from the books if they fit. But that's not what's happening here. I don't "mind" Tuariel. I LIKE Tuariel. I don't "mind" tension between Tauriel and Legolas. I LIKE the tension. And I'll give the ladies their Orlando Bloom in exchange for getting some Evangeline Lily any day of the week! Everything else seemed tacked on, added for the sake of adding it. Romances between elves and other races is EXTREMELY RARE in Middle Earth. Tolkien only wrote about it, as far as I can tell, 3 times. I don't mind Peter Jackson taking liberties with the stories, padding them with things that seem in place in Middle Earth. This seemed WAY out of place. And, frankly, if we're going to get character development, it shouldn't be for ostensibly secondary and tertiary characters (like most of the dwarfs were). Why is Kili more important than Oin or Gloin, or any other dwarf except Thorin? It's arbitrary and tacked on. I like Peter Jackson. I think he did a great job with LOTR. I think he's getting too much production company input on this one. I liked it, I did... I should have loved it, though, and I didn't.

No... there wasn't even supposed to be a love triangle, they went back and added it in... they actually reshot scenes (almost always a bad omen) and tacked it on, which is exactly how it felt. The captain of the guard was a male in the book... it doesn't matter that Tolkien may have mentioned some female elf somewhere along the way. The movies would have been fine as a two parter, as originally planned. Again, I liked this movie... just could have been better. I understand why filmmakers change the source material, I'm not a purist whiner, but sometimes it doesn't work.

Spoilers ahead... My take on The Desolation of Smaug; I'm a fan of the book, and this movie strayed way too far from the book to be called anything like a "faithful" adaptation. I liked the movie - it was a really good movie - not great, but I liked it a lot - a lot more than the first movie. But it depresses me to think that, after all the money is spent and all the work is done, that it'll be a long time, if ever, that we actually get a faithful adaptation. Sometimes changes don't bother me, but other times I feel like they fundamentally betray the story; Kili and Tuariel, for example, and leaving behind dwarfs in Laketonw at all. There's a reason that, in the books, the dwarfs did not venture far into the mountain, instead letting Bilbo do it... there was supposed to be a bit of cowardice and greed in there. Thorin's somewhat crazed lust for the stone was done really well, though. But on it's own, the movie was quite good. During both movies I felt like it was just dragging on way too long. I have nothing against long movies as long as there's a point to it; I had no problems with any of the Lord of the Rings movies, even the extended editions, but both Hobbit movies had me feeling like it was just dragging on for the sake of dragging it on... a lot of padding going on. At least some of the padding was interesting. Much of it was, unfortunately, gratuitous, and added nothing. The characters for the Master of Laketown and Alfrid were too cartoony and unbelievable. Otherwise I think the characters and acting were quite good. I felt pretty neutral about Martin Freeman's Bilbo the first movie, but he really sold me in this one. That they exposed Sauron was just terrible... I mean, I think we're supposed to realize it's Sauron, but the characters are not. At the beginning of the LOTR, Gandalf would have had no question about the ring or it's origins - I do not even think they'd let 60 years go by without doing ANYTHING in between The Hobbit and LOTR if Gandalf and the council knew is was Sauron. Maybe they'll take care of this in the next movie, but then I think it would be, as they might put it, "folly" to think the problem was solved if Sauron is able to come back in mere decades. It was visually beautiful, as usual with these movies. The pacing was uneven - as I said, sometimes it really felt like it was dragging on for the sake of being a long movie, but that may be "book bias." Like I said, although it feels like I'm being overly critical, I enjoyed the movie a lot. On the whole it was really well done. I would suggest that's just a fan talking, but my wife (the only one in the family who hasn't read the book) liked it a lot, also, and especially the deviations (which is why the Tuariel/Kili plot is added - the same reason Arwen/Aragorn was over done in the LOTR movies - it's more interesting for a lot of people to have a romantic interest involved). I gave it 8/10 on IMDB ratings.