Team J.A.F.

I dunno why news hasn't reported this yet those reporters must be a buncha slackers.

Anyway, Lego is having some good deals on some sets right now, and I took advantage of it.  I got three set: Magma Monster @ 75% off, Build-a-Zurg @ 75% off, and Pizza Planet Truck @ 50% off.  I was hesitant to purchase these, but then I realized that I wouldn't find any better deals on them elsewhere.  (Convention Lego store sales are now limited to 30% off).  So I got them.  Plus, I had some VIP points added up, so I took an additional $15 off with those.  Shipping and tax added on about $10, but overall I ended up spending $20 on $80 worth of sets   (Still, didn't qualify for the bonus set they're giving out right now.  I didn't want to spend over $75.)

But yeah there are still some good sales up so go take a look.

So I did get some Lego sets.  I got the small City Police / Ranger set, which is cool cause I worked with Ranger all summer.  I also got the Airplane Creator set, which is nice.  Then I got the Lego figure Alarm Clock.  Still not quite sure what to think about that.

I got my sister an airplane set from two years ago (picked it up at BrickCon on sale) because she had said she had always wanted a Lego airplane.  I think she liked it, even though she's 19.  She hates technic tho; she had a robotics class last semester where they programmed NXTs, and apparently it didn't go over to well with some of her models.

Otherwise, I got some clothes and stuff.  And a nice new watch, but it's not that exciting cause I picked it out myself cause I'm very particular about watches.

Tis all.  Have a great day!

Okay, this does have to do with those subs I built but not what you think!

Today I tore apart the two subs.  Then, since I had most of the pieces to do so, I rebuilt the original sets.  I only owned a couple of Aquanaut sets back in the day, but in building these subs, I purchased most of the specialized bricks.  So I decided to build the originals, some for the first time.

I build all four of the Aqua Shark sub models.  This includes the subs from the models Shark Scout, Spy Shark, Deep Sea Predator, and Sharks Crystal Cave.  While Crystal Cave is the most complex, I rather like the sleek Sea Predator.  For the Aquanauts, I rebuilt the Underwater Scooter, Crystal Crawler, Sea Spirit 9, and (my fav) the Crystal Explorer Sub.  I own all of these.  But I also built the sub from the Neptune Discovery lab for the first time.  However, I wasn't impressed by the design; it was too flat.  But still good.  Then I rebuilt my Aqua Raiders (original) Aqua Dozer, and then (for the first time) the Crystal Scavenger.  Didn't quite have enough specialized pieces to complete the Reef Wrecker, but it looks kind lame anyway, so no worries.

This made for a total of 11 subs (and 2 mini subs that came with some of the larger ones).  I did run short on a few pieces here and there, so I had to improvise with what I had.  Also, I hate the stupid arms from the original theme, so I replaced all of them with hero factory limbs, which are sometimes a little too big but kinda fun.  Anyway, these models will probably stay intact for a few months before I scrap them for parts and start building for convention season.  Anyway, it was a fun way to spend the day.

(Click for link)

Yayz another 2012 set review, this time Ninjago.  However, I've been seeing a bunch of 2012 sets pop up all over the place.  2012 Ninjago sets at Target, 2012 Ninja booster packs at Fred Meyers, Super Hero, City (Police and other), and Black Phantom (yuck) at another FMs, and then a small selection of Friends sets at a third Freddies!  (Strangely, the third one had a super small Lego collection that was made up of 4 Friends sets, Waspix, and Rockah XL.  Not the best Lego selection.)  I'm eager to grab some more of these, but what I really want are the Series 6 collectible figs.  Sadly, it looks like they're getting released in Europe first, and won't be here until after the new year.  Last year was sure awesome, as the series 3 figs popped up in Fred Meyers FIRST!  Oh well, can't get that lucky every year.

Also, yeah, go read the review!  Or, y'know, at least take a look at the picts and maybe the pros / cons.  (Also my first review since the downtime.  Maybe people would've forgotten how "horrible" my reviews have been that made DV's overly slanged piece look amazing.  Yes, I still am sore over that.)

I finally finished sorting most of my generic parts into bins based on type and size. I could go into lengthy detail as I describe the whole process... or I'll just list out the categories.

Bricks: Extra Large
Bricks: 2x8s, 2x6s, 2x4s, 1x8s, and 1x6s,
Bricks: Small
Bricks: Modified and Round
Plates: Small (with maximum of 6 stud lengths)
Plates: Large (with minimum of 8 stud lengths)
Plates: Modified
Plates: Tiles and Wedge Plates
Slopes: Standard Types
Slopes: Curved, Wedges, Arches, Cones
Small Elements: 1x1 plate elements (round, square, tiles), 1x1 round bricks, 1x1 round cones, 1x1x2/3 cheese slopes, 2x2 dishes.
Technic: Small Elements (axels, pins, connectors, ext)
Technic: Large Elements (lift arms, gears, tubes, ext)
Bionicle: Sockets and HF Limb Pieces
Bionicle: Heads and Masks
Bionicle: Torso / Body elements
Bionicle: Limb Pieces
Bionicle: Feet
Bionicle: Armor and Accessory Pieces (Also counts as Other category)
Bionicle: Projectiles
Bionicle: Silver Weapons
Hero Factory: Armor Pieces

I then have three tubs that are filled with miscellaneous pieces. One has all the technic elements I pulled out while sorting through my system collection, and needs to be sorted out. Two have minifigure and small incomplete system MOCs in them.

Then I have one of those small cabinet things that are for small hardware supplies, like nails and screws and bolts, ext. Except, I have it filled with minifig parts. Lemme list those too!

Minifig Heads: Standard Males
Minifig Heads: Colored (AKA, Non-yellow), female, special
Minifig Torsos: Black Bodies
Minifig Torsos: Dark Grey Bodies
Minifig Torsos: Bright Colored Bodies
Minifig Torsos: Light Colored Bodies (Mostly Light Greys)
Minifig Torsos: White Bodies
Minifig Legs: Black
Minifig Legs: Dark Grey
Minifig Legs: Blue and Green
Minifig Legs: Warm colors (red, orange, yellow, ext)
Minifig Legs: Light Grey and White
Minifig Hair
Minifig Hats
Minifig Helmets: Standard
Minifig Helmets: Large
Minifig Back Gear: Capes, Backpacks, ext
Minifig Parts: Torsos Without Arms
Minifig Parts: Robot and Skeleton arms, legs, and torsos
Minifig Parts: Individual arms, hands, and footgear. (Also counts as Other category)
Minifig Accessories: Guns / Shooting Weapons
Minifig Accessories: Swords / Shields / Melee weapons
Minifig Accessories: Handheld Tools
Minifig Accessories: Bars and antennas
Minifig Accessories: Small animals and transportation
Minifig Accessories: Other (Includes food, cups, soccer balls, levers, printed tiles)

Also have some compartments for krana / kraata, masks I ruined by painting them, broken parts, and those grey things rubber bands used to come wrapped around.

And then I have too large tubs. One is filled with incomplete MOCs / Bionicle sets that I didn't want to take apart. The other has system parts that didn't fit into any of the above categories.

Is that a large enough list for you?

I braved the mall today.  Yes, on a Saturday afternoon.  It wasn't too bad; it was crowded but I managed to get by.  I have developed a very efficient method of passing through crowds, which includes lots of sudden turns and fast walking and dodging around people, ext.  If I were a driver on the road, I would surely get pulled over for reckless endangerment.     As it is, I only nearly ran into one guy, and that's because he also made a quick turn and tried to walk down the same aisle I was turning into.

Anyway... I was looking for hats.  Specifically hats for my school, but I was also seeking out a Colorado Rockies hat.  Turns out it's almost impossible to find hats with clips on the back any more; they're all just one size fits all kinda things.  I have a hat like that, and I don't like it.  I tried to find a replacement today, but couldn't.  Did manage to get some hats with clips, but not for the school / sports team I wanted.

I was planning to drive all the way to Toys R Us and hopefully pick up a 2012 set.  Then I stopped by Target.  They had some 2012 Ninjago sets!     Sadly, that was it as far as new stuff went, so I called it good and didn't make the trip to TRU.  But then I went to Fred Meyers, and they had some 2012 sets, like the Forest Police helicopter, Black Phantom (none of the other HF 4.0 sets), Super Man, and Cat Woman sets.  I was tempted to grab the Super Man set, but I had already spent my money on Lego for the day.  It can wait until later.

Finished most of my Christmas shopping.  I was going to get something for my dad, and I asked my mom for her opinion, and then got told by my sister that my dad was actually looking into getting the same thing for my mom... yeah, good thing I didn't purchase it.

Oh, and I bought air filters, cause our house needed it.  Most expensive thing I purchased today.

Hopefully I'll get to doing some writing over break.  Maybe I'll actually have something to post on BZP, so then people can ignore it here.  Yayz.

Also, congrads to the two new reporters.  Just as long as they don't steal my news day.  

I always thought LotR would make for a good Lego theme.  But I also never thought it would happen.  First off, the movies have come and gone.  (But I guess the Hobbit coming out offsets that a bit).  Secondly, there's just too much violence.  Thirdly, it's a big license to get, and why bother when they have a great Castle theme already going strong year after year?

But hey, guess it was overcome.  Sounds like it'll be fun.  I just hope they make it easy to gather the entire Fellowship.  Or at least give me Aragorn, Legolas (See, his name even has Lego in it!) and Gimli together in a cheapish set.

I do wonder what sets they'll come up with.  I've seen some awesome fan creations at the various conventions I've attended, but they're all MASSIVE.  I don't see Lego giving us a full scale Minas Tirith or Helms Deep (although mini models would be cool).  But either way, I'm sure I'll be trying to collect these sets, if just for the characters.  Although they'll probably be fairly overpriced, considering it's a licensed theme and all.

And I guess that makes my representations of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli obsolete.  

(Also, yes, another Lego LotR entry.  Bite me.)

A while ago, I blogged about my latest attempt to sort through my Bionicle / technic elements. Well, this is the weekend before finals, but since I've been totally cramming for a while before that, I spent time relaxing and decided to start sorting through my system collection.

For the most part, I sorted my collection into three main categories; bricks, plates, and slopes. I also separated elements that were minifig related or technic, smaller special elements, and then pieces that generally didn't fit in a category. It's been about 5 days of on and off sorting, but I think I managed to sort through my entire selection (not counting pieces still in sets or MOCs). Now my main problem is that the piles I sorted are too big to fit into the smaller containers I have, so I either need to further sort them or buy larger containers. (I'll probably further sort them out during winter break)

I'll describe a bit about each category.

Bricks: In addition to all the regular brick types, I included all the modified bricks (with clips or hinges added to them) and round bricks, as well as technic bricks with pinholes in them. It is now a very big pile. And after two summers of buying bricks for mosaic-ing, I now have a healthy selection of 1x1 bricks to work with. I am tempted to further sort these by either type (regular or special) or by size... I haven't decided yet.

Plates: In addition to standard plate types, I included all various types of modified plates... and I have a lot of those. I never really realized how many plate elements I have; the pile size is about the same as my brick pile, but the quantity of elements is much higher. I'll likely sort the plates by size, so that I can group all the smaller elements together.

Slopes: This is the smallest of my main piles. Along with general slopes pieces, I have inverted slopes, wedge pieces (except for the plate ones, which are in the plates pile), arches, and cone pieces. A bulk of these pieces are while, because I took apart a section of my giant dojo that was mostly built out of white 2x8 slopes... so that's what's really standing out in my pile. I'll probably sort it further by type or size... again, I haven't really decided with this.

Minifig Related and Technic Elements: I already have an advanced sorting system for both technic / Bionicle parts and minifigure related elements (body parts, accessories, ext). During the sorting process, I didn't want to put those pieces into their correct bins yet (it would've further complicated the sort) so I grouped them all together with the intention of sorting them out later. It turns out I found a fair amount of technic axels and rods hidden in my main collection, but overall the pile's a lot smaller than the three main ones.

Special Small Elements: There are some pieces that I use a lot to decorate MOCs with, but are hard to find in a big pile of pieces. So as I sorted through my pieces, I put these elements aside in their own special pile. This includes pieces like the 1x1 round plate, 1x1 tiles, 1x1 round bricks, 1x1 cones, 2x2 round dishes, and 1x1x2/3 slope pieces. These pieces tend to come in a great variety of colors (and many are trans) and are essential to any MOC. So now it's nice that they're all together in one pile, so I don't have to search for them elsewhere.

Other: Okay, this turned out to be my largest pile yet, but really all these pieces ended up going straight back into my main tub, where I previously held all my bricks. The first to be put in this were partially built sets or MOCs; creations that were too large for me to want to tear them apart to get to their individual elements. But then I filled it in with all the elements that really don't fit into any of the above categories. This includes windshields, wheels, panels, plants pieces, hinge elements (that didn't qualify for either the brick or plate piles), large specialized pieces, and more. This one is just screaming for further sorting. But the important thing is that I got many of the essential elements sorted of of this pile. So yeah.

My next step is storage. Like I mentioned earlier, the three main piles are too large to fit into my smaller containers, and I sure don't want to mix them into the big main container again, so I need to figure out some system for storing them.

And enough of my ramblings about sorting stuffs. Next I need to start building!

Today’s been an interesting day.  Here are some highlights.

Woke up to watch the lunar eclipse this morning.  I was slightly worried I wouldn’t be able to see it; we’ve been having heavy fog in the mornings recently.  Luckily, when I got up, the sky was still clear, and I had an excellent view of the moon right outside my bedroom window.  (Score, didn’t have to go outside in the cold!)  (Also, Rene, we just got the window fixed, after you helped me shatter it.)  Sadly, just as the total eclipse part was happening, the moon sunk behind a tree… the tallest tree on the horizon.  What bad timing.     But it was still cool to see.

Braved the crowds at the store to do some Christmas shopping, ext.  Mostly bought stuff for myself… yes, I know I’m horrible.  But managed to save an overall of 30% on my purchases, so not bad.

In the previously mentioned shopping experience, I picked up the Knight Bus set.  Luv the purple bricks… will be good for mosaic-ing.

And driving home, I saw a bald eagle flying over a field.  We get lots of hawks in our area, but not bald eagles.  Sure, I’ve seen them in the wild before, but not locally.  So that was cool.  Sadly, I didn’t get a lot of time to watch it, since I was driving.

Anyway, I have finals next week (two back to back on Wednesday morning… curses).  But then I’m finished with school for the week.  BZP-wise, I’m thinking about entering the system contest, but I really need to sort through my parts first, since I don’t even know if I have the elements needed to do what I want.  Also I’ll probably enter a sci-fi story for the COT Short Story contest.  I have a great idea all planned out… just need to write it.

Two of my design classes (coincidentally taught by the same professor) had final projects due tomorrow (today, I guess.) The idea for the first class was to link video and audio together... artistically, or something. The second one was to render a story using digital media. In short, I did animations for both of them. The first one is a scene where a guy flips a light switch, and the background keeps changing on him. The second one is a sci fi story about scientists with a tree farm that gets burned down by the ruling oil company. (Oh, and the trees produce electricity).

I've spent a long time on these projects. I worked on the basic drawings on and off for about two weeks (including thanksgiving week). Last week, I really put my nose to the grindstone as I looked up all the video and audio clips I'd need. (Availability of some caused me to alter my storyboard. Then I spent most of my waking hours for the last three days in the school's lab creating the final product.

I used a ton of programs on this. On my computer, I used Flash Professional to draw out the animations, and RealPlayer to grab audio clips off the web and convert them. (I also had to download a specialized program just to upload movies from my digital camera... it was a pain. Next time, I'm using the camcorder, which ends up being easier with better quality.) At school, I edited audio files with Audacity, images with Photoshop (no, really?), animated the visual stuff with After Effects, and then put it together with the audio in Final Cut. Suffice to say, there were a lot of file conversions going on, and my thumb drive is now completely full of project-related files... so much that I had to start deleting content in order to make room. (And it wasn't a small thumb drive either... I'm talking GBs of space I had to delete.)

Now... well, I'm finished with both projects. I'm more satisfied with the first, because I narrated the second and I just don't like my recorded voice. (Seriously, how do people listen to me on the powercast) Now I just gotta show up to class tomorrow and present it... but in the meantime I'm blogging about the process. Just in case anyone cares. Or so I can refer back to this post when I become a famous animator. (Because animators become very famous!)