“Little Guys… In Space!”

Many of you know about LEGO's Cuusoo web-site.  On one level, it's a neat way of crowd-sourcing product ideas; separating out the "wants" from a few individuals, from ideas that are potentially in demand. The down-side to it: people's taste are fickle and most of the current ideas proposed are more licensed products (not very many original ideas).  But there have been projects that I do support, for instance the Palette Buckets (a similar idea I had many years ago when I was looking to build larger castle structures), the Buket 'o Plate idea (because honestly who has enough plates?), and LEGO Phineas and Ferb ('cause I like the show).

The Minecraft Cuusoo project reaching it's goal of 10K supporters, really didn't surprise me; I've been playing the game and following it on reddit for some time.  I see how much of a fan following it has, and one word from Notch can make/break a web-site; so by Notch tweeting the project, I knew there would be no problems hitting that goal.  I was a little surprised by the Shaun of the Dead project; other than Simon Pegg mentioning it on Conan, I didn't realize it had a cult following that big.  :)  Don't get me wrong, I like Simon Pegg and Nick Frost films and TV shows, but wow... that's amazing!

On another topic, our LUG had been approached about doing a large scale model; turns out that finding funding to start building the model has been difficult to secure.  One of the ideas I had back in October was to find funding via Kickstarter -- I hope to post more details later if we decide to take this route.  But in general, I think this is a great venue for raising money to help fund future LEGO projects -- in theory, I'd hope they be charitable in nature, but I can see helping out the occasional 'starving artist'.  But I can also see it help fund art projects that a small group of people couldn't accomplish alone... assuming other people believe in the idea and pledge their support.

If you haven't seen this yet, please check out David Pagano's Kickstarter project, “Little Guys… In Space!”

Video from Festival of the Masters 2008

I've uploaded a video from Festival of the Masters 2008... The theme that year was "Transportation: Past, Present, and Beyond!"  I must have taken the video late in the day -- looks like there was a lull in the crowd, which is unusual.  Normally it's about 3 to 4 people deep all around the display.  This give you an idea of what Festival of the Masters look like.

LOST

LOST - Season 1 - Hurley,
originally uploaded by lights.

I'm just glad it's over, now! I'm still dealing with the first 3 stages (denial, anger and bargaining) of the 5 stages of grief. I loved the show, but was hoping for a different ending; feel a little cheated, but overall it was a nice ending.

Anyway, no spoilers here, just a MOC of Hurley.

Cars Duplo?

Um... found this on 1000steine.de, who in turn found it on Brickshelf. They look very cool!

...But is it Megablocks?

Comic-Con

DSC05539,
originally uploaded by jmenomeno.

Just a few words on Joe Meno's Toy Story Flickr photostream -- WOW! Fantastic! Amazing! You can view all of his photos from Day 1 in this set.

Now pick up your jaw and dream of Toy Story LEGO until January 2010.

Disney Fans also Question LEGO Deal

So most of you know by now that Disney and LEGO have signed a deal to produce sets based on Toy Story, Cars, and Prince of Persia.  Now, I like the MEGA Block Car sets and was mad that MEGA Brands had the license deal.  And I'm looking forward to doing a Radiator Springs display.  And I'm really looking forward to see what LEGO does with the Toy Story brand.  But what threw me was the Prince of Persia announcement... I didn't know another movie based on some video game was coming out; generally these movies don't do well at the box office (see Doom, Tomb Raider, etc.).  Why would you produce product based on a untested brand (even though Disney is behind it, doesn't make it an automatic hit).

And now looking at some of the Disney fan blogs , they're not to happy with the idea as well.  My favorite quote:

Jones: Persia, sir. It’s what they used to call Iran.

Exec: Hmm, Iran, not too sure about that. Aren’t we at war with Iran?

Jones: Not yet, sir. Maybe you’re thinking of Iraq?

Exec: Bah, they’re all the same. But excellent, that means there’s still time for us to exploit the country’s history and culture for our own personal gain.

 and:

Jones: ... And people love Lego for some reason. ...

 Looks like it'll be the next Avatar or Galidor fiasco.

Video from Festival of the Masters '08

Festival of the Masters '08
Originally uploaded by mhuffman

So I was off-loading some pictures from our digital camera earlier today and found a short video that I took from GFLUG's display at Festival of the Masters (Nov. 2008) out side the LEGO Imagination Center in Orlando, FL. It give you an idea of the crowd, and how large our display is... and to be honest, it was a light crowd; last year was much bigger.

It's a great show. Most people are there on vacation & are amazed at our "art". Our theme that was "Transportation: Past, Present & Beyond", so we have jet packs, trains, planes, cars, ships, tanks, spaceships, etc.

Enjoy!

Call for Participation: Disney-Themed LEGO Display

A little back story first: GFLUG/GFLTC decided last year that a few of us will try to make it to NMRA in Anaheim in 2008 -- the attraction of making side trips to Legoland & Disneyland is just too great to stay away.

Being a Disney-geek as well as a LEGO-geek, doing a little research on-line, there will be a NFFC (National Fantasy Fan Club) convention in Anaheim around the same time as the NMRA convention -- Disneyland’s 53th anniversary will be July 17th, 2008 btw. If you don’t know anything about the NFFC, it’s a national Disney fan club, please check their web-site out.

I’ve been in contact with the NFFC convention planning committee, and have managed to secure a few display tables for a Disney-themed LEGO display for Sunday July 20th, 2008 during the public Disneyana Show and Sale event -- set up should be sometime Saturday or Sunday before the event.

So this is a call for participation; if anyone is interested in displaying Disney-themed MOCs and would be in the area during this time, please contact Joe Meno and myself. If you won’t be in the area, but would still like to participate, let us both know, we’ll try to make arrangements.

In the next few weeks, there will be some on-line brain storming of ideas for the display. Send me an e-mail and I’ll invite you to the Yahoo planning group.

Festival Of The Masters 2005

John Frost posted pictures of his trip to the Festival of the Masters in Downtown Disney. He managed to take a few picts of the Lego constructions outside the Lego Imagination Center (LIC). From the banner, looks like GFLUG is there ...or is it GFLTC? Anyway, good going all.

Hm... that skyscaper look vaguely familiar...

Update: Funny that I should end up doing FotM...

Garage Sales Finds

This weekend was great for garage sales finds... Erika found a Mickey Mouse toy box (that we're using for a toy box for the nieces & nephew, for now) & a few other Mickey Mouse toys. And I found two tubs of Duplo & a tub of loose LEGO. I also picked up 2 CDs: "Simply Mad About the Mouse" with Disney songs by Billy Joel, Ric Ocasek, LL Cool J, and others; and "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" by Roger Waters... both for $1 each.