Chrome!

From what I gather, a German AFOL has contracted a company to apply a chrome coating to several LEGO pieces. They look beautiful! But I'm sure the process is not inexpensive to do.

All I can say is, if the cost was more reasonable, I wouldn't mind having a few chrome grilled brick.

In other news, it seems that LEGO has nearly doubled to tripled in price of parts in their on-line PaB. Like many other AFOLs, I'm hoping this a mistake from the increase of parts to the on-line PaB selection. I've seen quotes on other web-sites that a generic train container which normally ran ~$4-5/container is now up to $13.78.

My LEGO Network

*rant-on*

Okay... One of the members of GFLUG is big into My LEGO Network (or MLN for short). It's a social network filled with games, quests, building friends & objects, trading objects, etc. aimed at kids (the GFLUG member has a 9 year old son). So I tried it out. It's Flash based. It's cool. But under Safari on my iMac, it runs soo ssslllooowww; almost to the point of being unusable. When you're doing a quest and have to click in several places to build objects, or flip from building objects to trading them with Networkers... It's just painful!

And another thing I find annoying? The LEGO Universe Creation Lab... where people take a building challenge, then show off their creations. Flipping through creations 9 at a time, with so much extra Flash crap on the page just makes it painful to paginate through!

Don't get me wrong, I love Flash and can see some of the potential benefits of it. But LEGO get a fraking UI designer to help out with your web-site pages. Either find a way to optimize your pages or replace some of the Flash with JavaScript. Bottom line, thinking about he people using your web-site & make them want to keep coming back to it, not making them die from a slow page load!

*rant-off*

...I return you to your normal LEGO broadcast & I'm sorry for the interruption...

Happy Holidays

LEGO
Originally uploaded by postpac

It's Christmas Eve. Everyone should be opening the last of their advent calendars... I've been following and enjoying MisaQa's "Mythical Creatures" advent calendar... this is the third year I've followed MisaQa and look forward to it every year. And speaking of advent calendars, I saw on BrickSet's RSS feed today that there will be a #6299 Pirate Advent Calendar next year??? Let's just hope LEGO doesn't screw it up next year and not ship them to the US like they did with the #7979 Castle Advent Calendar! I bought my two and I'm jonesing for another one.

Was surfing around Flickr looking for something to blog about and stumbled across this Christmas LEGO display. I really wish I knew some of the history behind it -- I don't think I've seen anything on this scale in the US, except the there's a similar LEGO Santa at the Orlando LIC... And I'm starting to wonder what they'll do with the LEGO Santa after the holidays (put it in storage, ship it back to HQ, or something else).

Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

WE LOVE TO BUILD™ isolated communities

WE LOVE TO BUILD™ isolated communities
Originally uploaded by chezrump

Been thinking about what has become of the LEGO community over the past few years & this photo best sums that up. Enjoy.

#10179 Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon

So I just got the pre-order announcement from LEGO Shop@Home about ordering your copy of the Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon. And here's what's funny about it:

1. It won't ship to OCTOBER 1, 2007!
2. The set is $499.99! (but free shipping if you order now, limit 5)
3. It'll take me until October 2007 to save up enough money to buy one!

Somebody is really pandering to the Star Wars fan community... I'll get off my soap box now...

More BrickMaster Disappointments

Looks like I'm not the only one that was disappointed in the selection of sets sent out in this year's BrickMaster subscription. A few have been talking about it over on BrickLink. The conversation starts out by asking a question, then it goes down hill from there.

Happy Thanksgiving

So I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, but I also wanted to comment on the turkey of a gift that I got from LEGO as part of my BrickMaster subscription... I got a #4906, a 16 piece Creator set. Now, I pay good money for this subscription only to get a crappy 16 piece set? WTF? I've been very happy with my BrickMaster subscription up until now... this just seems like a real let down. And in my most recent LEGO catalog, they offer this set as an 'exclusive' set -- HA! That's funny... what is LEGO thinking?

I should be more thankful... I'm thankful for my wife! I'm thankful that my wife is making a Oreo cheesecake this morning -- it smells delicious! I'm thankful that my family is healthy. I'm thankful for a place to live & that my wife & I are employed. I'm thankful for good friends. So I guess I should be thankful that LEGO hasn't gone out of business -- I know they try hard despite their stupid marketing department. :)

Stupid K-Mart.com

So get this... I get the paper on Sunday & see that K-Mart has a 'buy one get one half off' sale on Lego. Since they closed most of the K-Marts in Columbus, decided that I'd go on-line & see if I can buy a few sets. Now, I was out at TRU's web-site earlier that day, they have the same sale going on... They give you a coupon to enter when you check out to get items on sale... So I go on K-Marts web-site thinking they might have a similar situation. I looked on-line, found a few sets that I wanted to buy, added them to my cart, then started looking for a coupon... hm... I found the circular from my area, but didn't find a coupon.

So I decided to call their customer service number... hit the #2 to connect to K-Mart.com support... and they're closed... and guess what, they don't tell you when their open hours are!

Decided to wait till 9pm EST... Called again & finally got a hold of someone. Well, guess what... the circular only applies to those going into a store, it doesn't apply on-line. STUPID!

"I can apply the sale to your order, if you want to go ahead & place an order on-line...", the CSR said. "Right...", I thought to myself. I just don't want to go through the hassle. Only to have them screw it up & I spend another few hours of my time fighting to get my money back.

It's just stupid, frustrating, & needless to say, K-Mart didn't get my business. It's no wonder they're loosing money, when their technology can't meet the needs of their customers... Or they can't adopt their business to changing technology.

Fill My Room!

Okay... this is one I should have thought of -- FillMyRoom.com will put a 2x4 Lego brick in their room for each $1 donated, with special on-line advertisements to those who donate $10 or more.... I wonder if he has change for a 2x6.

And I Had To Laugh!

Found this funny:

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/08/legos_site_treats_vi.html

And I find it funny because on one hand, I do understand The LEGO Group's point of protecting the 'brand', but on the other hand, you can't fight the consumer... The consumer will keep making xeroxes. They will drink their cokes. And we'll hand The LEGO Group a box of kleanx after trying to fight this battle.

But I'm more worried about the last statement... "By doing so, you will be helping to protect & preserve a brand of which we are very proud, and that stands for quality the world over." A product, on it's own, will stand on it's own merits, not on a brand-name; the brand-name helps to identify it in a sea of similar looking products... the brand-name is a double-edge sword. If the quality is there, the brand becomes a symbol for quality. If the quality fails, it becomes a generic symbol... it's not the consumer that needs to protect the brand, but manufacturers...

Note: 2005.09.16

BoingBoing hasn't been the only one to comment on this... When I get a few minutes, I'll add another link to other blogs that have made comments about the word 'legos'.

LEGO Factory Sets

Okay... if you haven't heard from Jake's web-site or LUGNET, there's three new sets coming out branded 'LEGO Factory'. Now, they're cool sets & a great source of rare/hard to find pieces. Initially, there were 10 MicroMOC sets designed by people in the LEGO community, using software LEGO wrote (for PC only). Theses 10 MicroMOC were selected as winners.

Now here's the problems I have with it. They're priced $40, $70, $130 respectively. Now, I'm an AFOL with limited money & I'm looking for a great value for my buck. On one hand, they do have some great pieces in hard to find colors, but on the other hand, sets are going on clearance. Another thing, I'd be willing to buy multiple sets if they were priced at around $10-$25; I'm only going to be able to afford one set at $40-70. Over time as money become available, I could buy a set here or there at the $10-$25 dollar range, but not many at the current price.

I've read Jake's comments about why they made 3 sets vs. 10 (or any number in between) -- a business & marketeering decision. With people (and businesses) tightening their belts, I think smaller cheaper sets would had been the ticket. I commend that Jake & his group got the sets to market.. but I'll comment more on this in the next BrickNebula podcast...

Laugh or Cry?

Don't know if I should laugh or cry at this? It looks so much like Playmobil. You wonder what they're thinking over there at The LEGO Group, sometimes.

And this bothers me. Why the hell would you name a set, exactly the same as the classic? Makes no sense at all.

Update: I've come to really love the Duplo Castle sets. In 2006, LEGO stores were clearing out Duplo dragons... I ended up buying 3-4 of them in different colors, and made sort of a wizards vehicle with one, for a floating rock MOC.