Links, Links, Everywhere

They stopped Niagara Falls? Yup in 1967...

Where do old military retire? Arizona of course...

More things change, the more they stay the same...music copying from the 80s

The Following was found on Sean Kenney's site...

Note: It's the invisible man at the new Yankee Stadium!

Know or looking for some place weird and unusual, add it here

Who loves Beaker?

Lego Set 10188

Big lego, really BIG! Close to 4,000 pieces, it was a mammoth undertaking. The instruction manual was bound in a binder! Basically divided into 7 sub sections, the model took about a week to complete. The detail and the interconnectiveness that went into this model was amazing. Lots of little "gotchas". Truly an incredible design when finally all put together. The only real gripe is the big laser canon...it is very flimsy and always falls off! Don't know if Lego could ever top this model.

Left Over Pieces

Lego Set 7683

Coming in at 376 pieces this Indiana Jones set commemorates the Fight on the Flying Wing. One of my personal favorite sequences in the original Indiana Jones movies. Interestingly enough I thought I had seen an earlier photo of the set and it was awful! The finished set is actually quite good with the plane cockpit pretty decent. Don't quite understand how they decided to build the big wing piece. Don't think there will be too much reuse for this piece but I guess it cost less than having to piece together a wing out of individual pieces. Gee wondered who did that cost analysis...

50th Anniversary of Lego

To mark Lego's 50th Anniversary here is my first lego...

It says this came out in 1973 but I was 2 so perhaps Legos stayed on the shelf a bit longer. I remember building this, it was fantastic. My favorite model basically because it was simplistic yet very cool. Just loved how the rubber bands were used to cushion the ride. Great set
LEGO brick curiosities

• There are about 62 LEGO bricks for every one of the world's 6 billion inhabitants.

• LEGO bricks are available in 53 different colors.

• 19 billion LEGO elements are produced every year.

• 2.16 million LEGO elements are molded every hour, or 36,000 per minute.

• More than 400 billion LEGO bricks have been produced since 1949.

• Two eight-stud LEGO bricks of the same color can be combined in 24 different ways.

• Three eight-stud bricks can be combined in 1,060 ways.

• There are more than 915 million combinations possible for six 2 x 4 LEGO bricks of the same color.

• The LEGO bricks sold in one year would circle the world 5 times.

• 40 billion LEGO bricks stacked on top of one another would connect the earth with the moon.

• World-renowned author Douglas Coupland believes the LEGO brick represents a "language in itself."

Lego Set 7672

Weighing in at 482 pieces, this product marks Lego's first foray into what I call the non linear star wars universe. To me it marks a great uncharted territory for the product lines of the future. It is obvious to me that for the most part they have run out of viable options with the movie universe tie ins. Especially considering the majority of the items are simply retreads. Great for a new generation of builders but for those of us who have been around since the sets first started to arrive I can only bring myself to buy so many "new" models of things I already have (i.e. Falcon ver 2.0, Slave I ver 2.0 or 3.0, Y-wing ver 2.0, etc).
Obviously the developers both at Lego and who control product at Skywalker Ranch realize to move the universe along and control its money making (and with no more movies)scheme needs to move into this non-linear product line. For years the video games have run rampant in developing back stories and creating new villains and spacecraft. So here is the first attempt at dipping into this untapped market. The Rogue Shadow which is the name of this Imperial Ship has three included figures. The first is an obvious tie-in to the linear Star Wars and is Darth Vader. The second two are mysterious characters called Juno Eclipse and the Secret Apprentice. Okay well that's interesting but so? No package indications and no writeup with the instructions, just 3 characters and a mystery ship. But on the cover is a tie into something called "Force Unleashed". Again nothing to me? Well obviously being more than a casual fan I decided to do a little research and what I found was an amazing new mega event being "unleashed". From what I can tell the gist of the new scheme is tied to a whole new video game coming out in the Fall of 2008. A platform wide game launch (probably like "Halo") allowing you to play this new secret apprentice which presently has no name (it's supposed to be secret and thus Lego's silly naming on the package). Obviously for the uninitiated Sith can't have multiple apprentice so it appears that Anakin is being sneaky. Well the game is only the beginning...a new book, a comic graphic novel, and toys mark a mass marketing ploy to try and get it to feel like a movie premier. Interesting to see if this works...if it does expect every 2-3 years to have a new "something". Personally from the Lego standpoint I hope this works as it would be nice to get new models every so often. Anyway great new model. Joy to build and not something hastly thrown together...interesting to actually see it in action...PSP is to have the game too.

Lego Set 7658

A new feature! Yes every few months I get the urge to relive my childhood and get some legos. Obviously the advent of the star wars lego created much excitement. So the Y-wing as always been my favorite...it was soon supplemented by the B-wing but regardless it was my favorite ship in the first film. This is a rework of an earlier release. I find these new releases to be interesting. I have the original "Slave I" and my son got the newer "Slave I" last christmas and they have about as much in common as the original lego I built back in the 70s! Plus it is twice as big...it is wacky. Anyway the bloated new models are a bit more detailed. The new Y-wing comes in at 454 pieces. The nacelles are a fascinating build. Overall a good model and fun to play with!

Friday!!

Well I made it through the first week of blogging! Whoopee. Just some random notes for the last post of the week. For curiousity sake I will be tracking football point spreads. So for this week I am tracking:

Arizona State vs. CU 10 1/2
Denver vs. KC 10 1/2 Over/Under is 40

On Monday I will update so I can track the spread. Finally for entertainment purposes I will be busy with Star Wars LEGO II. Call me a geek! Check out the details at Wookiepedia, http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/LEGO_Star_Wars_II:_The_Original_Trilogy