So, I wanted to share a story that you guys might appreciate. I Just gave my wife some Legos. Let me explain why.
Long-ish story, so, spoilered.
Recently, a couple that my wife and I know very, very well hit a serious rough patch. There isn't ink on paper yet, but the divorce is now inevitable. This was a major shock to our systems. They had been together almost exactly as long as we have, and, though there were obvious differences, the parallels between us as couples were so many that, even as great as our relationship has always been, we suddenly had this nagging feeling of some shoe waiting to drop. After all, if it could happen to them...
We couldn't even begin to understand how something that seemed so good could come undone so rapidly (and I do mean rapidly), but, as I consoled the husband, and she consoled the wife, a very dominant theme emerged. The wife had started to feel stifled in so many small but crucial ways. She felt that her husband had, over time and inadvertently, begun to consume her personality and desires and replace them with his own. She looked around the home they owned together and saw almost nothing of herself. In their desire for "oneness," I guess, much of what was hers was lost. She nearly cried remembering how she had packed up a silly piece of wall art that she'd kept since college because he couldn't stand what it did to the color scheme of the living room. Neither of them realized how much a little thing like that could really matter, given enough time and silence.
Now, my wife and I are close. We're incredibly good friends, and we have a dozen recurring jokes about how we're fundamentally the same person, just with the mismatched parts here and there. We've always thought that was pretty cute, and even a major strength of ours, but now there was this slight hint of uneasy tension hanging in the air after every reminder of how interconnected we've become. We wondered if either of us could have paved over some part of the other, and without ever stopping to notice.
At this point, it's worth noting that she and I have birthdays just a couple days apart in April, which sort of naturally leads to both birthdays being recognized in a President's Day-style twofer. In light of everything I'd seen, I was a little uneasy with that thought, and while I wasn't going to disrupt the tradition, I did feel that I needed to give her a gift that would really be for her. Often enough, we find ourselves giving gifts to one another that we could have just as easily gotten for ourselves, which was never an issue; we have many of the same tastes and interests, so it was only natural. This year had to be different. Whatever I gave her, I wanted it to be a way for her to express and indulge herself independent of me.
And then I walked past the Lego sets in Target, and I started to really consider what it means to build them. They're a chance to shut out the world and leap into the space of your own private project, if only for a little while. Collaboration can actually be counter-productive if you're the sort to enjoy following the manual, at least for the first go (and she very much is that sort). In her case, they could also be a way to recapture some pleasures from childhood that were only ever hers by proxy of older brothers, who always had first dibs on this sort of thing. Not only could these Lego sets be hers alone, but the final product could also be displayed as a small fixture in the house: something of the builder, always in sight.
So that was it. Yesterday, we decided pretty spontaneously to declare the night as our gift giving night. And so, I gave my wife some Legos.
Then my wife gave me some Legos. For exactly the same reasons.
I'm a really, really lucky guy.
Oh, and if you're wondering.
I got Jabba's Sail Barge. I got her the Gatehouse and Dragon Mountain sets from the Castle line. She digs dragons.
Okay, so I've seen the little foil packs of mystery minifigs at the checkouts of Tesco and similar. I only started to look into them properly this evening (such is the exciting life I lead).
The price of a pack seems to be £2, and each of the individual figures seem to sell on eBay or Bricklink for... more than that? What am I missing here? The EV of opening a pack can't possibly be positive...
Some people look for specific figures out of the set, and it's worth it to them to not spend time fondling packs at a store (or buying a crapload of packs) to find the specific minifig they're looking for.
I don't think you're missing anything beyond how annoying it is to get your tenth figure X when you really want figure Y.
It still seems somewhat odd to me. In CCGs, for example, the price of in-print singles goes down until you lose money opening boosters. For out of print cards, the price of sealed product adjusts up until the same is true. I guess it is probably true that these figures are probably less liquid than CCG singles, though, which would serve to disrupt the equilibrium.
Okay, so I've seen the little foil packs of mystery minifigs at the checkouts of Tesco and similar. I only started to look into them properly this evening (such is the exciting life I lead).
The price of a pack seems to be £2, and each of the individual figures seem to sell on eBay or Bricklink for... more than that? What am I missing here? The EV of opening a pack can't possibly be positive...
Some people look for specific figures out of the set, and it's worth it to them to not spend time fondling packs at a store (or buying a crapload of packs) to find the specific minifig they're looking for.
I don't think you're missing anything beyond how annoying it is to get your tenth figure X when you really want figure Y.
It still seems somewhat odd to me. In CCGs, for example, the price of in-print singles goes down until you lose money opening boosters. For out of print cards, the price of sealed product adjusts up until the same is true. I guess it is probably true that these figures are probably less liquid than CCG singles, though, which would serve to disrupt the equilibrium.
Remember that to date there have been nothing akin to reprints of a CCG card, there are far fewer figures in a series than cards in a CCG expansion set, and except for the occasional super rare figure all the figures are the same rarity.
I found the Simpsons ones at Walgreens - a place I had never ever fathomed looking in before - because of someone on here saying they saw them there. Sure enough, there they were.
Hoping the TRU that had a ton of movie packs has some left...for one final shot at old Shakespeare.
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
I never got a bunch of the Movie minifigs and now I guess I never will, as the only places in town are now out of them.
I feel like I remember the waves of minifigs sticking around longer before I started collecting them. Even before I'd bought my first one, I paid attention to what was out and would often see multiple waves sitting around TRU at the same time.
Now, the day I picked up the entirety of series 11 right after it launched was, as it turned out, the only chance I had of doing so. I never saw more than one or two sitting on the shelf after that. They went away around here almost immediately. Ditto for the Movie series. Even the Lego Store is always sold out of the blind bags whenever I'm in there.
I didn't even want a full set, but there were a few I still wanted. I know I could probably hop on Bricklink and get them for not too much, but it just... it doesn't feel fun.
Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
Hah! I started playing Lego Hobbit and had an urge to try and get the rest of the Dwarf Company. Needed three sets. Pretty expensive. And I didn't even care for the sets. So I go on Bricklink and find a big seller who has all seven of the remaining Dwarves that I need for cheaper than even one of the three sets I need. Score!
So at the same time I'm breaking back into my LEGO collection and building a ton of frames for Mobile Frame Zero, my good friend is trying desperately to get me into Warmachine. So I decided to combine the two hobbies and make some custom minifigs and some mobile frames inspired by Warmachine, particularly the Rhulic mercenaries.
So here is my new favorite custom minifig, Durgen Madhammer, a Rhulic Warcaster. Featured with him is a Gunner warjack, also known as a "gunbunny".
Here is what the Warmachine figure and warjack looks like
I've made....6 frames that match that one in color and style (dark red, black, grey and brown) and they basically became a "Pirate" army. I'm gonna take more pictures and post them later, but I figured I'd give a preview.
I've now built three full companies of mobile frames (5 frames per company, so 15 frames) as well as three "leftover" frames.
Also, speaking of wives, my wife and I did a "single set frame building challenge"- that is, you buy one set and build as many Mobile Frames from it as you can, using no additional parts.
We bought a bunch of these (which is an UNBEATABLE set for 5 dollars) and went to it.
This is my build, along with the parts I didn't use assembled into a "station" (the objectives you capture in Mobile Frame Zero)
My wife's build, however, was way better
And then she realized her station looked like a boombox, and that was the end of us being serious
Both of these guys got upgrades after I took the pictures, and I built mine into a very close approximation of the power loader from Aliens. I'm very proud of it, but I've yet to take a picture. I will upload pictures of all three mobile frame companies at some point.
Once again, I started off with a "Single Set Challenge" for two sets- the Millennium Falcon Microfighter set and the Tie Fighter Microfighter set. Overall I can recommend the Tie Fighter more than the Millennium Falcon, although the falcon has a REALLY nice head piece.
So first I built the Falcon into one robot and two stations. I wasn't super attached to this guy, but he was kind of cute.
Then I built the Tie Fighter into a robot I liked a LOT. I nicknamed it the S.L.O.T.H
Like I said, I didn't like the first robot, so I scrapped it for parts.
He became this guy, who I quite like
I then upgraded my robot from the previous post into this
My wife upgraded her robot as well!
(The next three pictures are all her. I married the right one you guys)
Transportation mode
Ready for battle
ROCKET PUNCHES
Then I changed a bit of the S.L.O.T.H to make it match the yellow palette I had going on.
And this one is my favorite robot, mostly because of nostalgia.
I give you the power loader from Aliens
These five robots make up one of my mobile frame companies- they are all repurposed construction frames. I like this company mostly because the wife and I built it together, and she built the crab forklift on her own.
And now for some silliness
My wife basically drove the crab forklift around the table yelling COME AT ME BRO with its arms like this
So are the simpsons mini-figs normal lego mini-figs with 'helmets' that give them the simpsons look or are they completely non-standard lego figures?
From the look of them, standard lego figure bodies, with non standard heads (as opposed to helmets over standard heads).
Yup. The heads are solid molded like the Alien Conquest heads. The bodies are normal lego bodies with NEVER BEFORE DONE double molded plastic arms giving us for the first time, short sleeve shirts.
I spent my monday building a base for all my Kre-o Transformers. I used the already available Autobot Command Center set as a start and modified it a bit, including building a whole new section of the base with what was supposed to be a car
Heres the complete base
Here we have the entrance with a command room on top. Arcee is in the command center where she can control the weapons on top of the base and lower the drawbridge so Ironhide can drive off on a mission. Right after he says goodbye to Hound and Bumblebee. Don't ask me why a robot who can turn into a car is driving a quad bike
This is a 3 tier part, with the cannon from a Star Wars battle pack on top, a prison with Shockwave inside and a mini repair bay/spare room/living quarters on the ground, also pictured are Sludge and Snarl two custom dinobots I made because for some reason Kre-o haven't got round to making G1 Dinobots
So this is the medical bay/armoury, I used parts from a Bumbleebee set to make 95% of it the exceptions are the red weapon storage grills on the right and the white table with some purple energon bricks which came from other sets and this took most of my afternoon to make. As this should've been a car I think I did quite well to turn it into a base!
We can see Optimus Prime is dead again and resting on a swiveling table. Rachet is operating the big crane on the left, Wheeljack is assiting and has a smaller repair arm and is monitoring progress on a kind of screen in front of him, the screen also controls the two small lasers at the top of the section. Grimlock is looking for weapons because of course he is.
Also I was curious I know since some of my lego men are old and some of them are beat up but can you get replacement hands?
Some of them are broken to missing not many but some of them are
Are the Simpsons minifigs being sold in England yet? Tesco's supplies of the other series of minifigs has been depleted (I bought the last one - a lady robot), and it'd be cool if they're being replaced with the Simpsons ones.
Toys R Us are selling Hobbit and Lord of the Rings sets for 50% off. Looks like a great way to pick up some sets I don't have.
Bargains include the Mirkwood Army set for only £14.99 and Unexpected Gathering Set for £32.99
Only problem is there is a few days before I buy stuff for the May 4th Lego promotion.
I can only spend so much money on Lego! Although is there ever such a thing as too much Lego?
Are the Simpsons minifigs being sold in England yet? Tesco's supplies of the other series of minifigs has been depleted (I bought the last one - a lady robot), and it'd be cool if they're being replaced with the Simpsons ones.
Simpsons figures are out now. Saw them in Toys R Us and the Entertainer. £2.50 each.
Picked up Mirkwood Elf Army, Dol Guldur Ambush, and Cloud Cuckoo Land for £42. Pretty pleased with that deal. More orcs and Elves to add to my Lego armies, and the Cloud Cuckoo-land set has some pretty good figures too.
Sadly the LoTR Pirate Ship is out of stock.
It's not all the kits I don't think, not sure about Orthanc
Yeah it doesn't look like they stock Orthanc at all, and most of the on sale sets are sold out for deliveries and probably instore as well. The one I went to like an hour ago only had a few Hobbit sets at all and I snagged the last Mirkwood army set.
Seems like a good time for a sale as the Lego Hobbit game just came out and so did Hobbit 2 on dvd
Toys R Us are selling Hobbit and Lord of the Rings sets for 50% off. Looks like a great way to pick up some sets I don't have.
Bargains include the Mirkwood Army set for only £14.99 and Unexpected Gathering Set for £32.99
Only problem is there is a few days before I buy stuff for the May 4th Lego promotion.
I can only spend so much money on Lego! Although is there ever such a thing as too much Lego?
I'm sure there exists a theoretical point where one could say they had too much lego. But I don't believe a person could reach said point in one lifetime.
I'm on my phone so I can't link it but yesterday they announced a new $150 creator set for LEGO stores and online...a carnival ride thing that packs up and fits on trucks. Its way cooler than it sounds.
Best part? Vomiting guy minifig. Kotaku of all places has a ton of pics.
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
Is this the first time they've done a high end Creator set? I only got back into the habit a few years back so all the Creator sets I saw previously were for younger kids.
Went and saw The Lego Movie again. Third time for me, first time for my nieces and nephew. The oldest niece was wearing the same shirt as me, the Unikitty/Grumpy Cat shirt that was on TeeFury a couple weeks ago(Todays shirt is pretty awesome too). They all loved the movie as well. My nephew commented that it was the best thing ever when we were leaving and can't wait for it to go on sale in stores.
Yeah they definitely are. So are the 3-in-1 houses I see (Mountain Hut, Seaside house, ect).
In the context of LEGO, whats "Modular" mean? I avoided it because I've seen "Modular large pieces for easy builds!" on stuff like the Camping Van and a big Airplane I saw, and I figured it meant giant molded part instead of many little parts, and didn't like that. But now I'm seeing "Modular" buildings that look awesome and are very detailed.
PSN: mxmarks - WiiU: mxmarks - twitter: @ MikesPS4 - twitch.tv/mxmarks - "Yes, mxmarks is the King of Queens" - Unbreakable Vow
Posts
Long-ish story, so, spoilered.
We couldn't even begin to understand how something that seemed so good could come undone so rapidly (and I do mean rapidly), but, as I consoled the husband, and she consoled the wife, a very dominant theme emerged. The wife had started to feel stifled in so many small but crucial ways. She felt that her husband had, over time and inadvertently, begun to consume her personality and desires and replace them with his own. She looked around the home they owned together and saw almost nothing of herself. In their desire for "oneness," I guess, much of what was hers was lost. She nearly cried remembering how she had packed up a silly piece of wall art that she'd kept since college because he couldn't stand what it did to the color scheme of the living room. Neither of them realized how much a little thing like that could really matter, given enough time and silence.
Now, my wife and I are close. We're incredibly good friends, and we have a dozen recurring jokes about how we're fundamentally the same person, just with the mismatched parts here and there. We've always thought that was pretty cute, and even a major strength of ours, but now there was this slight hint of uneasy tension hanging in the air after every reminder of how interconnected we've become. We wondered if either of us could have paved over some part of the other, and without ever stopping to notice.
At this point, it's worth noting that she and I have birthdays just a couple days apart in April, which sort of naturally leads to both birthdays being recognized in a President's Day-style twofer. In light of everything I'd seen, I was a little uneasy with that thought, and while I wasn't going to disrupt the tradition, I did feel that I needed to give her a gift that would really be for her. Often enough, we find ourselves giving gifts to one another that we could have just as easily gotten for ourselves, which was never an issue; we have many of the same tastes and interests, so it was only natural. This year had to be different. Whatever I gave her, I wanted it to be a way for her to express and indulge herself independent of me.
And then I walked past the Lego sets in Target, and I started to really consider what it means to build them. They're a chance to shut out the world and leap into the space of your own private project, if only for a little while. Collaboration can actually be counter-productive if you're the sort to enjoy following the manual, at least for the first go (and she very much is that sort). In her case, they could also be a way to recapture some pleasures from childhood that were only ever hers by proxy of older brothers, who always had first dibs on this sort of thing. Not only could these Lego sets be hers alone, but the final product could also be displayed as a small fixture in the house: something of the builder, always in sight.
So that was it. Yesterday, we decided pretty spontaneously to declare the night as our gift giving night. And so, I gave my wife some Legos.
Then my wife gave me some Legos. For exactly the same reasons.
I'm a really, really lucky guy.
Oh, and if you're wondering.
It still seems somewhat odd to me. In CCGs, for example, the price of in-print singles goes down until you lose money opening boosters. For out of print cards, the price of sealed product adjusts up until the same is true. I guess it is probably true that these figures are probably less liquid than CCG singles, though, which would serve to disrupt the equilibrium.
Remember that to date there have been nothing akin to reprints of a CCG card, there are far fewer figures in a series than cards in a CCG expansion set, and except for the occasional super rare figure all the figures are the same rarity.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
RALPH WIGGUM.
FUCKING FINALLY.
FINALLY I get the one I really want right off the bat. Now the search for the other 15 will be FUN and not MADDENING.
(or so I think).
Fuck you, Shakespeare, the only one I wanted and the only one (other than cowgirl robot, who I dont care about) I never found.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Hoping the TRU that had a ton of movie packs has some left...for one final shot at old Shakespeare.
I feel like I remember the waves of minifigs sticking around longer before I started collecting them. Even before I'd bought my first one, I paid attention to what was out and would often see multiple waves sitting around TRU at the same time.
Now, the day I picked up the entirety of series 11 right after it launched was, as it turned out, the only chance I had of doing so. I never saw more than one or two sitting on the shelf after that. They went away around here almost immediately. Ditto for the Movie series. Even the Lego Store is always sold out of the blind bags whenever I'm in there.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
So here is my new favorite custom minifig, Durgen Madhammer, a Rhulic Warcaster. Featured with him is a Gunner warjack, also known as a "gunbunny".
Here is what the Warmachine figure and warjack looks like
And this is my custom minifigure and warjack
@Echo
I've now built three full companies of mobile frames (5 frames per company, so 15 frames) as well as three "leftover" frames.
Also, speaking of wives, my wife and I did a "single set frame building challenge"- that is, you buy one set and build as many Mobile Frames from it as you can, using no additional parts.
We bought a bunch of these (which is an UNBEATABLE set for 5 dollars) and went to it.
This is my build, along with the parts I didn't use assembled into a "station" (the objectives you capture in Mobile Frame Zero)
My wife's build, however, was way better
And then she realized her station looked like a boombox, and that was the end of us being serious
Both of these guys got upgrades after I took the pictures, and I built mine into a very close approximation of the power loader from Aliens. I'm very proud of it, but I've yet to take a picture. I will upload pictures of all three mobile frame companies at some point.
Once again, I started off with a "Single Set Challenge" for two sets- the Millennium Falcon Microfighter set and the Tie Fighter Microfighter set. Overall I can recommend the Tie Fighter more than the Millennium Falcon, although the falcon has a REALLY nice head piece.
So first I built the Falcon into one robot and two stations. I wasn't super attached to this guy, but he was kind of cute.
Then I built the Tie Fighter into a robot I liked a LOT. I nicknamed it the S.L.O.T.H
Like I said, I didn't like the first robot, so I scrapped it for parts.
He became this guy, who I quite like
I then upgraded my robot from the previous post into this
My wife upgraded her robot as well!
(The next three pictures are all her. I married the right one you guys)
Transportation mode
ROCKET PUNCHES
Then I changed a bit of the S.L.O.T.H to make it match the yellow palette I had going on.
And this one is my favorite robot, mostly because of nostalgia.
I give you the power loader from Aliens
These five robots make up one of my mobile frame companies- they are all repurposed construction frames. I like this company mostly because the wife and I built it together, and she built the crab forklift on her own.
And now for some silliness
My wife basically drove the crab forklift around the table yelling COME AT ME BRO with its arms like this
WOOP WOOP WOOP
Yup. The heads are solid molded like the Alien Conquest heads. The bodies are normal lego bodies with NEVER BEFORE DONE double molded plastic arms giving us for the first time, short sleeve shirts.
Heres the complete base
Here we have the entrance with a command room on top. Arcee is in the command center where she can control the weapons on top of the base and lower the drawbridge so Ironhide can drive off on a mission. Right after he says goodbye to Hound and Bumblebee. Don't ask me why a robot who can turn into a car is driving a quad bike
This is a 3 tier part, with the cannon from a Star Wars battle pack on top, a prison with Shockwave inside and a mini repair bay/spare room/living quarters on the ground, also pictured are Sludge and Snarl two custom dinobots I made because for some reason Kre-o haven't got round to making G1 Dinobots
So this is the medical bay/armoury, I used parts from a Bumbleebee set to make 95% of it the exceptions are the red weapon storage grills on the right and the white table with some purple energon bricks which came from other sets and this took most of my afternoon to make. As this should've been a car I think I did quite well to turn it into a base!
We can see Optimus Prime is dead again and resting on a swiveling table. Rachet is operating the big crane on the left, Wheeljack is assiting and has a smaller repair arm and is monitoring progress on a kind of screen in front of him, the screen also controls the two small lasers at the top of the section. Grimlock is looking for weapons because of course he is.
I really do question whom in in charge of the marketing of Kre-O
if I built a lego city I would use my various lego mechs {exo-force and others] to defend the city from the Kre-O
Some of them are broken to missing not many but some of them are
This guy might be able to help you.
Bargains include the Mirkwood Army set for only £14.99 and Unexpected Gathering Set for £32.99
Only problem is there is a few days before I buy stuff for the May 4th Lego promotion.
I can only spend so much money on Lego! Although is there ever such a thing as too much Lego?
Simpsons figures are out now. Saw them in Toys R Us and the Entertainer. £2.50 each.
Picked up Mirkwood Elf Army, Dol Guldur Ambush, and Cloud Cuckoo Land for £42. Pretty pleased with that deal. More orcs and Elves to add to my Lego armies, and the Cloud Cuckoo-land set has some pretty good figures too.
Sadly the LoTR Pirate Ship is out of stock.
Is this happening in your local stores? Because their site doesn't seem to show any sales.
PSN- AHermano
You guys are saying it's 50% off?
Oh my god.
3DS FC: 5343-7720-0490
PSN- AHermano
Yeah it doesn't look like they stock Orthanc at all, and most of the on sale sets are sold out for deliveries and probably instore as well. The one I went to like an hour ago only had a few Hobbit sets at all and I snagged the last Mirkwood army set.
Seems like a good time for a sale as the Lego Hobbit game just came out and so did Hobbit 2 on dvd
They do not have the sale going on.
Probably for the best.
3DS FC: 5343-7720-0490
Best part? Vomiting guy minifig. Kotaku of all places has a ton of pics.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tormentalous/sets/72157644366304303/with/14036649343/
Video:
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Quite possibly. They probably slipped my mind since they came out before I was in the throes of purchasing stuff.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
In the context of LEGO, whats "Modular" mean? I avoided it because I've seen "Modular large pieces for easy builds!" on stuff like the Camping Van and a big Airplane I saw, and I figured it meant giant molded part instead of many little parts, and didn't like that. But now I'm seeing "Modular" buildings that look awesome and are very detailed.