fred67

Get Open Office for free. I was able to open the file, but I'm not sure I can adequately answer those questions.

I got two sets: Captain's Cabin and Isla De Muerta; both had cardboard and were in plastic wrap (along with the posters and, in the case of Captain's Cabin, the "baseball" type card).

I never really much thought about Elves being religious, per se; I would think they were Naturalists (belief in magic notwithstanding). But the MOC is really beautiful, the architecture is fantastic and I can easily imagine this structure being in Rivendell. EDIT: I guess, really, Naturalists isn't the right word... I would think they do believe in supernatural beings, just never thought of them worshiping them, and that they'd pay more homage to nature than any supreme beings. But that's just me.

I was recently at a LEGO Store buying from the PAB wall; they had brown 1x tiles, so I was putting them together to maximize space (of course). The color variations were so bad I had to point it out to some of the employees. We were all a bit shocked. But what you said is, by and large, accurate - your chances are certainly better buying that way.

You have to pay close attention and read the screens. After you make the order, it will bring you to a screen still on the sellers pages, and there will be a link to any items on your wanted list that you just ordered... I don't remember the exact wording, something like "show items from this order on your wanted list". AFAIK, this is the only change you have to do this. The link takes you to a subset of your wanted list containing items from that order, and you can edit them just like you can normally edit your list.

In fact I just bought brushes and yellow paint the other day; the only reason I haven't done it yet is because I'm not happy with the match to LEGO yellow, but I think if I add some orange it might be better, or I might find a better match. I have no problem with "forbidden" LEGO... while one of the interesting things about LEGO is working within the limitation of the medium, in some cases, if LEGO won't make it, you need to do it yourself if you want something in particular. Brickforge and Brickarms (and hopefully ME will find wild success with the train rails) are proof of that. For me, it's simply painting the wolfman's ears yellow to have alternate elf hair. What some of the other people in this thread have done I don't think I'd ever do... I can't imagine it turning out well. Customizing minifigures, though, or painting signs, stuff like that I think is fine.

I like it. The "bareness" doesn't bother me, I wouldn't have thought twice about it if so many people hadn't mentioned. The only thing that catches my eye is the statue, since you can get a plain gray head (and helmet, if you wanted). But I think it's fantastic, overall. Great use of the stained glass and how you integrated the dark gray into the light gray works really well.

PAB wall is a good bet; if you don't want to stand there meticulously packing round containers with square bricks, trying to maximize value, you can ask if they have a box. It's iffy which is a better deal, but it's a lot less annoying than packing those containers.... I know there's comparisons around here somewhere; I got something like 640 2x4 bricks in a box, if I remember correctly. The smaller the piece, it seems, the better the value compared to what S@H (or bricklink) charges. Of course, then, you're limited to what they have on the wall.... they usually have basic bricks, but maybe not exactly what you're looking for in the color you want. On bricklink, search for the item... go to the catalog entry for a 2x4 brick, for example, and click on the color you want in Lots For Sale. Sort by cheapest price (the default), but put a minimum quantity for how many you want... say 500 for example. Sometimes you can get a better deal if you're willing to buy from two or more sellers. So if you want 500, you set the minimum quantity to 250, sorted by price - you might get lucky and the first shop has all you need, but maybe not. Make sure you are also specifying new or used. EDIT: Follows Closely listed the box counts in this post.

I got what Dr. Charles Lightning got. I'm not really happy about it. I just display my sets anyway, so I don't care about the play wearing the chrome off; if they'd have thought that from the beginning, and the box art didn't show the coins and bars with the same shininess as the rock piece (and clearly different from the round 1x1s), I wouldn't really think twice about it... I can't blame them for misleading advertising, as we've only seen pictures from toy fairs and catalogs we weren't supposed to see... IOW, then never advertised it as such... In this case, though, what they show on the box is clearly different. If you're going to suggest that one shouldn't get the impression of chromed pieces from the box art, you will note that the denominations and text on the coins are from chromed ones, not the new ones... you are clearly not getting what they show on the box. Not enough to make me want to return it or think that I didn't get a great set, but enough to make do one of these:

Interesting take... I agree to a certain degree, but I look at it this way: you can change the elf heads as easily as you can change the spartan's; supplementing with brickforge items, including elf spears, swords, and helmets, you can make a large variety of figures, and now with the wolfman from series 4 you can have different color hair (although the ears don't match - personally I am going to use a bunch of wolfman hair with ears painted yellow, and will post the results if someone doesn't beat me to it). Moreover, with the addition of brickforge items, anyone can be an elf even without the hair. I've been buying matching armor, too, and will have to further customize, but I have no problems building an elf army with a lot of variation. The only thing that bothers me about the elves are that the archer essentially has little use for a shield, and even if he did he wouldn't be holding both at the same time, so it would be cool if he could sling it on his back or something. DSCF0418 by FredJH, on Flickr

Great review. As someone who displays instead of plays, I think the value of this set is quite high when I break it down using my own methods, especially considering the new special pieces. I'll definitely be picking this up... if TRU still has them when I go, I'll get two or four. Overall, not particularly interested in POTC, but I am interested in the ships and this set in particular.

How is it already discontinued? Still on the store shelves, still available at S@H (and not on clearance). Certainly it's time is limited, but I don't think it's discontinued just yet...

It's a great decal, it's just not Keira Knightely.

This tutorial was written after seeing another tutorial on resizing images to comply with Eurobricks standards as explained in the Site Guidelines. I thought it would be nice to increase exposure to this great program that is available for free from Google; the program runs on most major platforms, including Windows, Mac OS, and Linux (which is what I'm using to right this tutorial). Picasa is a photo organizing program that has extended features, including resizing, cropping, straightening (arbitrary rotation, not limited to 90 degree increments), color enhancements (lighten, darken, contrast, and a handful of special effects). When run, Picasa scans your directories for images... you can limit which folders it searches (Tools->Folder Manager), but I don't want to go into any features that aren't useful for the topic at hand. tutorial_01_overview by FredJH, on Flickr This is how Picasa looked when I ran it on my computer (I restricted folders for this tutorial). In response to a question on bricklink about what to do with the Figure Skater's skates when she's being displayed, I took this picture and uploaded to show you could display with the figure wearing them (you can use this for a lot of the new collectible minifigures, but I digress). Double-click on the image to edit it; you get a window like this one: tutorial_02_edit by FredJH, on Flickr The pane on the left shows three groups of editing functions, starting with Basic Fixes. For the purposes of this tutorial, we'll stick with using just the basics, but here are the options just so you can see what's there: tutorial_04_tuning by FredJH, on Flickr tutorial_05_effects by FredJH, on Flickr You can see what's nice about the effects is you get a little tiny preview of the effects the tools will have on the image you're working on. IMO, the first thing you want to do is straighten out any crookedness in your image. My image is pretty straight, but I clicked on "Straighten" anyway to show how it works. tutorial_03_basic_fix_straighten by FredJH, on Flickr You get a helpful grid to help you make sure your image is straight; the slider at the bottom rotates by degrees. When you're done, click "Apply." NOTE 1: It's important to do straightening BEFORE cropping, as you necessarily lose some of the picture (the corners) as they rotate out of the frame. The next step (labeled 1) is Auto Color... as Google often does, they've made the default settings really quite useful, as I've been able to fix most pictures simply by selecting I'm Feeling Lucky, but all this picture needs is some color correction (I'm still reading books on how to use my fancy-smancy camera, this seems to be one of my bigger problems). As you can see (compare to the images above), a simple click of Auto Color fixes up this image quite nicely. tutorial_06_auto_color by FredJH, on Flickr NOTE 2: It's important do to automatic color corrections BEFORE resizing and cropping... why? Because the larger image gives Picasa more data to work with to figure out what's wrong. Next we crop the image (labeled 2 in the above image); pushing the "Crop" button brings us to the following screen: tutorial_07_crop by FredJH, on Flickr Eurobricks guidelines specify 800x600 maximum resolution (which is what most of these images are). That's a 4x3 ratio, as is the lower resolution recommendation of 640x480. So, instead of awkwardly trying to get it right with the manual setting, we're going to tell Picasa we want a 4x3 ratio so that when we do resize the image it will match perfectly the recommended resolutions. tutorial_08_crop_aspect by FredJH, on Flickr This is going to seem like a waste of an image, but take a look now under where you select the aspect... there are three "automatic" choices for cropping. The center one is actually very close to what we want, but we're not going to take the easy way out for the sake of demonstrating: tutorial_09_crop_auto by FredJH, on Flickr Now that you've selected the aspect, you can go into the image window and drag a rectangle around the area of the image you want to crop to. The major features here are that if you drag a larger width than height, it's automatically landscape oriented, and if you drag a rectangle taller than it is wide, it's automatically portrait - but it always remains a 4x3 aspect. Once you've drawn the rectangle, you can reposition the entire rectangle by clicking in the rectangle and dragging. You'll also see the corners highlight boxes you can grab to resize the rectangle: Landscape: tutorial_10_crop_landscape by FredJH, on Flickr Portrait: tutorial_11_crop_portrait by FredJH, on Flickr Once you're happy with the crop, select Apply, and you will end up with something like the following: tutorial_13_crop_after by FredJH, on Flickr Now we're ready to export the image resized to what we want it. Go back to your image library by clicking Back To Library, and from the file menu select "Export Picture to Folder." Keep in mind, your image library actually allows you to select multiple images and you can export them all at once, resizing them all to the same size in the process. tutorial_14_export by FredJH, on Flickr The dialog looks like this: tutorial_15_export_options by FredJH, on Flickr Here you specify the output folder (pick something different than the directory the images are in, IMO), and we select 800 as the size - that's the maximum dimension, so it doesn't matter if your picture is wider or taller - the largest dimension will be 800. Since we selected a 4x3 aspect when we cropped the image, the other dimension will automatically be 600, resulting in a 600x800 image. If our image was wider than it is tall, it would be 800x600... you don't have to do anything other than tell it the maximum dimension. After clicking on OK, Picasa processes the image (or images) and opens up the folder for you automatically. On my system, this is what I get: tutorial_16_export_folder by FredJH, on Flickr Uploading to flickr or brickshelf is left as an exercise for the reader! However, Google offers Picasaweb, a place like the other image services with free online storage space and direct linking/embedding like I did with flickr in this tutorial. Picasa has integrated features for uploading directly to your picasaweb account. I presented a very basic walk-through of preparing an image for use with EB; Picasa itself is quite simple to operate, but gives you a number of features for fixing up images and adding special effects. To do really fancy/advanced editing, there is another free software package called The GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program). It's a photoshop "clone" with many of the features found in photoshop, and is also available on all of the major operating systems. Please let me know if you find this useful or if something is unclear. There are features that I have not covered that many may find of interest; Picasa can be an all-in-one application (completely free and multiplatform) to organize your photos (including tagging images, which is a nice feature when searching through a large collection), including batch processing, text annotation, and a number of special effects. It's simple to use, includes features you may not need for LEGO but which are still quite useful (like red-eye reduction). Please let me know if you'd like to see a tutorial on any of these other features.

My post is updated, now including COMPLETE SETS of Series 4 for sale/trade.

sdex is a nice feature, but it's not quite what Follows Closely was suggesting. I'm a big LEGO fan, but I don't know what each set number is. Even as a fan of specific themes, I don't know what all those set numbers are. It saves me time while reading other people's threads to not have to look it up (even if given a convenient link, which requires you temporarily leave the thread, especially when I'm using my phone). Something more like how it works on bricklink would be cool, although I think it would end up being a lot more work than a couple of hours. If you "borrowed" bricklink's images in exchange for automatically linking to bricklink, it might be easier. [set]10194-1[/set] Could produce something like: Emerald Night; 10194-1 Note that the image is a link back to BL's catalog. If you enabled tables (I don't know if your forum software supports it), the formatting could be really nice. In this way, I could see most of the relevant information (probably all I'd need) right within the post, without having to leave the thread to see what someone is talking about. Of course, it's all contingent on people actually using the tags, but isn't that always the case? Without pictures, SDEX would be great if you could automatically include the name of the set. [sdex]8080[/sdex] Could produce: 8080 Super Car Just my two cents... I know it's extra work, but I'd use it, and I'd certainly appreciate when others use it.

I'll have to keep an eye out for those Target packs... oddly, out of 5 different Targets I've made my way too in the past few months around here, only ONE has carried the CMFs at all... and that was Series 3, and none of them currently have series 4.

Yeah, I don't really get the comparisons... it's not as good as I.F. (my first ship, BTW, not generally being into the pirate theme), but in the U.S. the I.F. was $180 and the QAR is $120... the IF costs 50% more. So, if you're trying to figure out "value," I thought I.F. was worth it... and while it's better than QAR, it's not 50% better, IMO, making QAR every bit as worth the cost as I.F. Of course, this is a casual fan speaking, not a detail oriented pirate fan. I do plan on incorporating some of the mods people have suggested... supplementing the number of cannons and building a deck, but I think it's worth it and I think this review was terrific and certainly did nothing to curb my enthusiasm. TRU forgot to exclude POTC from it's current BOGO50% sale... but they "coincidentally" sold out of QAR

... and that it. That's TLG's modus operandi; if a theme is selling well, and therefore continued, they will keep releasing new sets and will, eventually, have to resort to not "re" releasing sets, but making updated versions of the sets. How many castles have their been? How many police stations? Star Wars is just another popular, ongoing LEGO theme... you can argue there's been too many Falcons, but if you categorize them by scale, this is only the second (considering 4504 in "original" and "trillogy" editions being the same). People come and go... the rereleases are for people who weren't into the hobby at the time of the previous releases. I AM glad they do this... I don't need another MF (although I may get it anyway), but while I've been a LEGO fan for the last decade, I haven't always bought LEGO SW (or Harry Potter), so these past couple of years have been great for me, as we see sets I missed before expanding into other themes. I finally got a Slave 1! It doesn't matter to me that it's not the first one (or possibly the last). I also don't need every set they release - I like the OT, and I just want one of each. I'm still missing a few because of how late I got into it... and I'm hoping they do make new ones.... cloud city and sand crawler to name a couple. Moreover, sometimes they DO make it better, like going from blue accents on the TIE fighters to gray ones. Now they need a plain old TIE done with gray accents to go with the TIE advanced... and they might as well do another TIE interceptor and bomber while they're at it.

This was on my wish list, but now I am not so sure. It's great looking, IMO, as a non-pirate fan, but one who got the Imperial Flagship and is a fan of POTC, but I agree that a lack of cannons + none available on PAB is disappointing. I also would add the decking MOD found elsewhere on EB. Sort of up in the air now, but I'll probably get it. I also like the lanterns a lot, and can't figure out if it's a new dish piece or if the dish is over some new piece (there's a flat bottom under the dish)... other than that, I believe I have all the pieces necessary (if not the right colors).

Interesting comment Brickenhead-town-dweller; when I was little we did that with HO trains. I did not have a complicated layout (I was little), but my dad got a 4x8 sheet of plywood and my Mom painted it for me, including roads. It worked really well for what it was - HO trains and matchbox cars. I agree the baseplates with roads are limited, and they are limited in the way you buy them, too... just like train tracks, you can't just get "straights" separately. Still... LEGO tends to lend itself to certain sizes, and the baseplates work really well for a lot of them. Luckily there is still bricklink to buy other size baseplates from and, moreover, you may yet see the return of other sizes. Blue 32x32 was gone for some time before making a reappearance. Ultimately I have to agree that TLG shouldn't abandon 16x32 baseplates, seeing as how they themselves have started the trend of building the modular buildings on baseplates and how Xx32 would simply fit better with them. I can't imagine trying to replace one of the modular baseplates with a bunch of standard baseplates... peeling off all those tiles and everything, just to make it level with adjacent buildings.

Got my box today... minutes before I had to head out of town for the weekend....

You might get more bites with twice as many 5lb $25 lots.

They are different architecture in that MMV is not only an older architecture, but more rural. Diagon Alley seems more like 17th century city architecture. They certainly could be used together... but probably not together (right next to each other). If I had a big layout, I would put one on one side, and one on the other, but even then the MMV would predate trains.

A bunch of LEGO Games on sale on U.S. S@H (pictures are links): Robo Champ, $7.98 (was $9.99) Magikus, $7.98 (was $9.99) Monster 4, $11.98 (was $14.99) Lave Dragon, $11.98 (was $14.99) Race 3000, $15.98 (was $19.99) Pirate Code, $15.98 (was $19.99) Magma Monster, $11.98 (was $14.99)