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It's a book by Patrick Ness, inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd.
 
I picked up this book because many Ambagers were raving about it. I'll be succinct: it's a beautiful book. The characters are immediately engrossing, and the atmosphere of the book immediately sucks you in, aided in no small part by Jim Kay's illustrations, which are nothing short of hauntingly brilliant.
 
It's about a boy named Conor, who is visited shortly after midnight by a monster. Not the monster from his nightmare, the one he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. This monster is different; it's something ancient and wild, and it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor: it wants the truth.
 
The book is haunting, lonely, sad, painful, and hopeful. I was immediately drawn into its world, and the ending came far too soon, but it felt right. It's very unique -I've never read another book like it- and it's undoubtedly a masterpiece.
 
This short review is also short on details, but that's partly because my emotions took too much of a beating for me to able to type anything particularly profound. I would encourage anyone and everyone to read this book.
 
 

New Lego movie has my interest, but not sure if I'll see it. I guess I'll have to see some reviews first.

For a reference, I wanted to go back and look at one of my older Bionicle stories, one that had actually gotten a decent response on BZPower back in the day. But for the life of me, I couldn't find it saved on my computer. (But having looked up the date, I realize that it was probably written in the brief period where I owned my own laptop... which was stolen after six months, along with a whole bunch of my work that I had neglected to save elsewhere. Well, that's one mystery solved.)

But anyway, failing to find my copy, I decided to look up BZP's. Cause, y'know, I posted it here way back in the day, and when you post something on the internet, it never disappears. NEVAH! (Oh wait, I guess that only applies to embarrassing stuff and not work I'm proud of.)

So I dove into the BZPower Archive. After some searching and browsing and logging in again, I found the topic. Then I opened the topic. No posts were saved, just the topic and it's meta data (date, title, author, ext).

I looked up more of my old stories, as well as my review topics. Only a few of them had anything saved, and most was incomplete.

So really not much of an archive as far as I'm concerned. Oh well. (Google isn't any help either; their "cached" version is only a month old so it's the same blank page.)

I'm not complaining or anything: I know how much data there was to save on the old BZP forums, and I'm amazed that any survived at all. But yeah, just posting my findings. And anyway, why live in the past?

If there isn't a Bionicle reference in this film, I'm gathering my collection and throwing them at the windows of LEGO HQ. 

Just a quick update.
I think this is the number of shirts I'll get
 
Small: 10
Medium: 10
Large: 10
XL: 5
2XL: 5
 
Let me know if that's enough for everyone.
 
On the subject of color design. I had a discussion with a few people, and have been doing some thinking. I think I'm going to take a different route regarding color. Consider it a surprise.  
 
Any input is welcome.
 
Thanks for reading, Raptor

I rescind my earlier statements about how awful the idea seemed.
 
It looks ... pretty good? Only so much can be discerned from the trailer, but the animation style looks pretty cool. Also, quite a cast of actors they've got there.

My favorite part is how they actually list that one guy as Ponytail Express in the credits.*
 
*may not be actual favorite part

Just saw the trailer for LEGO: The Movie. It looks pretty good and I am pretty sure I will see it when it comes out. Loving how it looks like stop-motion (or is it CGI? Hard to tell).
 
-TNTOS-

My bosses boss, the guy who sees over all the stores in the district area is intimidated by me. If you know me or have ever met me, I'm pretty much the least intimidating person most people know. My manager had to have his store review performed, and that involves the district manager coming in talking to the employees. The guy came in and completely avoided me and never asked me a thing. He asked my coworkers stuff to try and see if they would slip up but not me. When he left my manager talked to me, and the review overall was great considering we passed. However, at one point during his one-on-one session the district guy asked him a question about some of the tasks that get done. I pretty much handle all the non-essential sales tasks for the department. My manager told to the guy that I was the one he would need to ask the question to, and the district manager was just like "Well, I'll just go and assume that it is done." Apparently I know too much or something?
 
I've also started doing all the scheduling for the department too, and apparently they were impressed with that. The district manager complemented the schedule. They give us this ridiculous goal of spending only so much labor. You're not supposed to be at 100% scheduled and I was just making the schedule aiming to not use all our hours. I apparently put us at 90% and got a call out because I did an awesome job. The goals they set are crazy because we don't have enough people to work as it is, and we don't get to use all of the labor, but hey! Recognition is recognition.

Like I mentioned previously, I was lucky enough to participate in the FFXIV: A Realm Reborn's Closed Beta Test Phase 3 (Ongoing) last weekened. The NDA has been lifted for Phase 3 to allow tester to post screenshots, albeit with all the trademarks attached to them and without too much alteration (I left them as-is, so they are big images). 
 
In these photos I was playing a Conjurer (Caster, Healer) as a miqo'te male on the Gilgamesh server. To give some context to this screenshot, there was an issue with one of the main story quest instances in that it only allowed one person at a time to go inside, as a result, people created a line to do it one at a time (instead of bum rushing it). The line was fun to stand in, actually, and a lot of conversation was had;
 

Screenshot I, Cein Admiring the Line

 

 
I got through the line in an hour or two, but this issue ought to be fixed by the time the next weekend comes over. (And is the entire point for these Betas). My PC isn't the highest end one, which is why some of the outlines look like they need smoothing, but this is only the game running at High settings with grass options turned off. (And the graphics, I hear, were tuned down slightly for this test). 
 
Also, I really liked how Cein came out (He's going to be a Lancer -> Dragoon on release :3) so I took a shot of him in his normal idle stance. (I do wish we could type in emotes while the UI is turned off for screenshot purposes, but alas)
 
 

Screenshot II, Chillin' Relaxin' All Cool

 

 

I'm really happy with how his eyes came out (You can change the eye colors individually, so one eye can be X color and the other Y color -- and they show up, pretty vibrantly!). Highlights were fun to play with in the hair options, and I may change his highlights around some. (A player made an awesome miqo'te male, looked more like he was related to a wolf than a cat, lol). 
 
And I wanted to showcase the sit emote, and this was in the wee hours of 3AM as the beta test was coming to a close that Sunday morning. 
 

Screenshot III, The End is Near

 

 
Last one was taken by a small fountain in one of the lower level towns within the Black Shroud (Northern Shroud, if I remember right). The giant crystal (as seen above) is used for fast traveling to place already visited (and that had crystals one could attune to), though I took a Chocobo from Central Shroud to New Gridania more often than not. (Chocobos are <3)
 
 

Screenshot IV, No Dumb Title

 

 
I did take some of my lancer, but his armor was a lot more on the revealing side (T is what I'd rate it, really), so I won't post him here. It made me giggle a lot though, because I'm just an immature little boy at heart. 
 
 
Still insanely excited for this game :> 

BZP hi I miss all off you bbies lots of hugs how is everyone?
 
I am really avoiding going to bed after a grusome 15 hour work day and I don't want to work agian tomorrow, so I thought, hey, I haven't been on BZP in awhile
 
so here have a picture of HB Zaktan pouting
 

 
<3

That whenever I just mention the word BZPc in passing, everyone flocks to the comments to say "IN." Or something along those lines. Which I have the innate feeling that my sarcastic buddies are going to reply just that on this entry just to screw with me. Oh well, come at me guys. =P

Whew!

Okay, so... for the past 6 weeks or so, I've been swamped at work. I've had to build 10 large skyscrapers (4 to 9 feet in height, pure Lego no gluing) plus set up for another show in Calgary, Alberta, Canada (which we handled, the client loved it, they want more work, yay us). This is literally the first night I've had where the next day I get to do absolutely nothing. I'm going to be seeing Man of Steel in the morning. NO SPOILERS KTHX. (Cue the several "HE'S FROM KRYPTON!", "HE'S CLARK KENT" and "HE'S SUPERMAN" replies.)

I'll try to get photos to you guys asap. So far, the exhibit's still being set up down in Florida.

Meantime, I'm just posting here to show up again and assure people I'm still alive. However, I just learned today I missed out on booking a hotel in Seattle for BrickCon.

... ALL the hotels in Seattle, that is. Guess I'm busing it in every morning.

Great.

As many of you may have noticed, Brickimediahas been down for almost 48 hours. The cause of this is that our host, RamNode, was attacked by a competitor webhost company. More info can be found at the two links below:

• https://clientarea.r...ents.php?id=182
• https://clientarea.r...ents.php?id=183

RamNode had many backups of most of their servers, but, sadly, Brickimedia was not one of these. What this means is that all content has been lost from Brickimedia, all of its wikis, and any other content hosted on our server. We are doing what we can to recover some of the losses, but sadly, many of it will be lost. Although the users are not worried about the loss of their contribution history, many are upset by the loss of their customs and the encyclopedia.
 
I will keep you updated, but you can get more up to date information at our Twitter @brickimedia

For the past month, when not finishing school, becoming 18, or graduating, I have been working relentlessly as a hermit in my basement on multiple projects for BrickFair, thus staving off the process of once again writing for this blag.
 
So contrary to popular belief, I am not dead, just being productive... during summer.
 
Ugh.
 
Anywho, yesterday I was lucky enough to go to Nathan Sawaya's "Art of the Brick" Exhibit in NYC, and thought that not only would this audience enjoy hearing about it, but it could also get me back into blagging. Who knows, I might actually learn how to post images to show pics of what I've been working on recently.
 
Now I assume you guys know Nathan Sawaya, but if you don't, the image of a yellow LEGO statue breaking open its chest should ring a bell... or whatever the equivalent idiom is that applies to an image, rather than a name or a noise. The exhibition opened up a few days ago in Times Square, and I was lucky to be in the city yesterday and today. So naturally I dragged my mother and my two aunts to go to the exhibition with me.
 
We were greeted by a sign that prohibited the use of cameras for photos or videos, which made me very sadfaecd, as the only place where pictures could be taken was next to a LEGO sculpture of a "man" sitting in a chair.
 
However, that sadness quickly vanished as we entered the exhibition and were greeted by Nathan Sawaya's recreations of famous artworks. Pieces like Edvard Munch's "The Scream", the Lascaux Caves "Horse", and Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss" were recreated in a unique way; while the background of the image (such as Munch's sundown-background and Klimt's brown background) was modeled a-la LEGO mosaic, Sawaya built the main figures in a 3D way, and so, for example, you could examine the screaming face from all angles, and Sawaya's vision of what it would be like if it sprung from out of the painting. In other areas, famous paintings were recreated a-la mosaic. The beauty in these was not the process of recreating the arwtork (PicToBrick can already do that), but rather looking at the original and seeing what colors, building techniques, and pieces Sawaya used to remake the piece of work out of LEGO. My favorite of these was Rembrandt's "1657 Self Portrait", as Sawaya used only a mixture of three different brown and orange colors, built as a side view LEGO mosaic, to accurately portray the shadows created on the human skin in the painting.
 
Later on, we were greeted by Michelangelo's "David" as the next room had famous statues and structures rebuilt in LEGO. The most imposing was a Moai head from Easter Island, to scale. It was quite monumental.
 
Now these pieces were all amazing as they were accurate yet jaw-dropping representations of famous artwork, but then came the part I was truly excited for: Sawaya's own art. Up to this point for my mom, she was just going through another version of BrickFair, where a fan decided to pay homage to something that already existed through LEGO.
 
I cannot hope to describe all of Sawaya's artwork present at the exhibition, mainly because much of it can be seen on the gallery of his website. And we all know how amazing it looks from those pictures. The truly beautiful part of the exhibition was that each piece was accompanied by a little message from Nathan to us about what the piece meant. So while Sawaya built a giant peace sign out of all-colored bricks, he explained that the only way to achieve peace in the world was by joining all the colors of the world together. While Sawaya delighted us with statues of three figures with a sphere, a cube, and a pyramid as a head, he explained that if everyone in the world looked the same it would all be boring, and that he wanted us to consider how the triangle, square and circle, along with the colors red, blue and yellow, were basic components in architecture or colors. In this sense, Sawaya was able to truly transform the already beautiful structures into art with a message, a philosophy. At this point I became aware this stopped being an exhibition for my inner LEGO enthusiast to gawk at and consider all the building techniques and pieces used; now it was a fantastic art exhibition, where each piece of art conveyed a different message about the artist, about human nature, about ourselves.
 
I must admit I was heartbroken when the exhibition ended, and I walked out to purchase a book of Sawaya's art and a t-shirt. But to see how this exhibition had spoken not only to me, but to my family and to the other tourists, was very encouraging.
 
If there's one thing I can take from the exhibition, and that you should too if you cannot attend (though, please, by any means possible try to go at least once), is the very first piece that greeted us in the exhibition officially and which is on the shirt I bought yesterday and am now wearing: a giant grey LEGO hand holding a simple 3x2 red brick, reminding us that it all begins with just one brick.
 
So keep imagining.

So, I decided that this October I'll be getting Pokemon X because I love Pokemon Games and this one is looking pretty fantastic so far.
 
I've decided I'll want to raise a Sylveon (because Eevee is my favorite pokemon ever and I love all of the eeveelutions), a Talonflame (for sky battles and the fact that it's a normal flying type with a second type attached.  I think that's pretty sweet), a Gogoat (because Gogoat's concept is awesome), a Clauncher (it looks awesome) and most likely a Flabebe (Flower Sprite Pokemon?  YES!).
 
Anyway, I'll also probably name them after Fairy Tale characters due to my obsession with Grimm and Andersen works.  Talonflame is so going to be a name from The Juniper Tree.  
 
Anyway, due to my pokemon decisions above, I already have each starter type covered.  Not only that, but I actually do like all of the initial designs for each starter pokemon.  Yes, even Froakie.  I didn't like it at first, but the little guy's grown on me.  Chespin is awesome, Fennekin is a Fennec fox pokemon (awesome) and water starters are some of my favorites in battle (though I do love the grass type for their designs and concepts).  
 
So, yeah.  I'm torn.  I have no idea which one to choose...

And so here we are with Bowser. If you don't know who this fellow is, then you are not a video game fan. You might not like the series, but every video game nerd knows Bowser.
 
Bowser Profile
Did somebody page the King of Awesome?
Species: Koopa
Series: Super Mario
First Appearance: Super Mario Bros. (NES, 1985)
Latest Appearance: New Super Mario Bros. U (WiiU, 2012)
 
# of Appearances: 70+
 
1^st Party
 
Favourite Appearance: Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story (DS, 2009)
 
Known For: Kidnapping Peach, taking over the Mushroom Kingdom, taking over Dinosaur Land, taking over the Galaxy, stealing the Star Rod, losing his castle, having an ego, making his minions shave, being beaten by Mario, and helping the Mario Bros. to defeat other villains
 
 
Excitement Factor: 6/10. I don’t play as Bowser much in Melee or Brawl, mainly because I dislike being a big target and a slow target. At the moment, I haven’t seen Bowser in action enough yet to tell whether I’ll enjoy playing as him more in the upcoming games with the new changes.

PUFFIN! PUFFIN! PUFFIN!
 
CLICK FOR TOPIC!
 

Greetings, BZPower! After about four months of hiatus, due to grueling college classes, I am finally able to spend more time here. So I figured I'd return to the blogosphere to give you all an update. It's great to be back! Also, new spinny! While it's not quite as lovely as the Faxon, it's a very nice shade of gold, and the MoLi gets the job done.
 
First of all, I have a shiny new MOC built for BBC 65, which I will post soon. That was a very refreshing and fun build, something I've missed doing since I built Sectoid Mantodea way back in February. Expect many more MOCs to be posted during the summer, since Obsidian Shadow is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to old creations that I have yet to showcase in BBC. I also hope to add to The Lone and Level Sands pretty soon too.

In other news, I have also been playing a lot of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, and I just beat Ceadeus a few days ago and unlocked High Rank. That will be fun to play through, let me tell you. And as far as video games are concerned, I'm really excited about the news from E3. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze? Super Smash Bros for the Wii U? Pikmin 3? Heck yes!
 
And just today, I finally got to see Star Trek into Darkness after a month of waiting to watch it. An excellent film, just as good as its predecessor, if not even better. As Ta-metru_defender and others have said before me, go see it. Now I just need to watch Iron Man 3 . . .
 
So anyway, how are you all doing?
 
~B~

i welded a diving helmet to my face