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Black Six

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Blog Entries posted by Black Six

  1. Black Six

    Graphic Design Help

    By Black Six,

    I'm looking for some help from one of you creative types out there. I would like some overlay images we can use during BZPower's streams, both for builds and games, to help share info for people who tune in part-way through and give them more of a BZPower-feel.
     
    For a visual style, I'm thinking something like the overlays we use for our YouTube thumbnails, with the angled line and the gears, but obviously smaller so it takes up less space. Maybe one in the bottom left and one in the top right. One would have generic BZPower info, the site name, URL, and social media names and icons. The other would be mostly empty to be customized for each stream. For sets it would have the set name, piece count, and price. For games it would have the game name. An overlay with directions for the giveaways we do might be a good idea too.
     
    Resolution should be 1920x1080 minimum and the file format should be something I can easily edit in GIMP to add the required text, so XCF or PSD probably.
     
    I am ready to be wowed.
  2. Black Six

    Join the Club

    By Black Six,

    Microsoft recently added a new feature to Xbox Live allowing people to make clubs so people who share common interests can get find each other, get together, and play videogames. I figured BZPower was an interest so I made us a club! Give it a join and hopefully it will help you find some like-minded gamers to play videogames with.
     
    Maybe if it gets some momentum we'll do gaming nights? Would that be a cool thing?
  3. Black Six
    I meant to get something like this posted earlier this weekend, but commitments to BrickFair New England prevented that from happening in a more timely manner, so I'm sorry for that.
     
    In light of some recent developments on and off BZP, I think it's important for us to talk briefly about how the staff take action. Sometimes a situation arises and the staff need time to sort things out, so member accounts are suspended to stop further posts until we can get to the bottom of things. This is generally a temporary measure.
     
    At this point there will be a lot of discussion and research before any permanent action is taken. When the staff does finally take administrative action, such as removing Proto or banning someone, we do so using all of the information available to us at the time. Often we have more insight than the general membership: for example there may be private messages, emails, or server logs that can provide information to help us make our decision. Because much of this is personal, we do not usually openly share it out of respect for people's privacy, especially since there may be other members involved apart from the ones action is being taken against.
     
    Of course if more information is brought to light after the fact we can and do reevaluate our decisions and can reverse or take take additional action. We are not all-knowing robots that monitor everyone all the time.
     
    Finally, we take personal threats to the safety of our members and staff very seriously, and this can often have an impact on the action we take.
     
    I hope that helps clear things up. If you have any general questions, I'm always happy to answer them. I will not be going into any specific details about any actions we have taken though.
     
    Thanks as always to all of our members for their understanding and support.
  4. Black Six

    BZPower Company

    By Black Six,

    No, BZPower is not getting incorporated.
     
    Halo 5: Guardians is releasing next week, and today 343 Industries announced their clan feature for the game and started to allow people to make and join them.
     
    BZPower, the Halo 5 company.
     
    I'm pretty excited for this game, although I'm sure I won't be able to play as much as I'd like. Still though, I think it might be fun to play with BZPower members. If you're planning on picking up Halo 5, feel free to join the group!
  5. Black Six

    Milestones

    By Black Six,

    The past few days have been full of milestones that really have been putting things in perspective for me.
     
    I was born on August 5th, 1987. Today I turn twenty-eight! Go me for surviving this long!
     
    I joined BZPower on August 2nd, 2001. I've been a member for fourteen years now. This site has become a huge part of my life for so many reasons.
     
    An interesting thing happens when you combine those two dates and do a little math. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet I can tell that I was alive for 5111 days before I joined BZPower.
     
    Similar magic tells us that 5111 days after August 2nd, 2001 was July 31st, 2015. So as of last Friday, I had been a member of BZPower for the same amount of time that I hadn't been a member. That means that as of last Saturday, I've now been a member of this community for over half of my life. That is crazy and scary and awesome.
     
    Tomorrow, August 6th, 2014, will be my fourteenth anniversary of joining the staff. I was not always the most active staffer, but I've managed to hang in here for almost a decade and a half.
     
    This came up at BrickFair this past weekend, but it's worth reiterating here, I think. I just can't imagine what my life would be like without BZPower. There's so many meaningful relationships I've made through this site, both personal and professional, that I wouldn't have otherwise. Without BZPower, I would have likely fallen out of Bionicle and LEGO in general. I probably never would have gone to a LEGO convention, especially as an exhibitor, let alone the twenty-six that I've been to now. (That is scary!) I wouldn't have run a podcast for four years, or be a LEGO Ambassador, or have gone to New York Comic Con to help relaunch Bionicle. So many things that have helped shape my life would not have happened that I'd probably be a different person. All because of one little website.
     
    I'm so thankful that I stumbled upon this place fourteen years ago and that the community has been so open and welcoming to all the fans that have come joined me here since then. You all make it worth coming back to each day and working to do better and make the site even more awesome.
     
    Here's to another fourteen years?
  6. Black Six
    I'm putting out a call to all of our BZPower members out there - who lives in the Dallas area or Texas in general?
     
    BrickUniverse Dallas is happening this November and the organizer has been in touch and wants it to be a big event with lots of AFOLs and a big Bionicle presence. If you register as part of BZPower or BioniLUG we can probably get your registration fee waived as long as you bring at least one MOC for the display.
     
    So let me know if you live in the area and might be interested in coming this fall!
  7. Black Six
    Every now and then in conversation someone will mention a movie they love that I haven't seen. There's also a bunch of films from the past few years that I wanted to see but never got around to. So I've decided to finally make a list of all these films to keep track of and help motivate myself to actually watch them.
     
    Below is the list I have so far, but I'm sure it's not complete. That's where you guys come in. What are some of your all-time favorite movies, or movies that you think are worth seeing for their artistic or storytelling merits?
     
    Please make your suggestions in the comments. If there are movies people suggest multiple times that I've already seen, I'll make a separate list of those to help with duplicates.
     
    To Watch:
    The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
    Terminator Salvation
    The Hurt Locker
    The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
    X-Men: First Class
    BZP Lovers 3
    The Dark Knight Rises
    Argo
    Wreck-It Ralph
    Skyfall
    A Good Day to Die Hard
    Monsters University
    The Wolverine
    The Wolf of Wall Street
    The Amazing Spider-Man 2
    X-Men: Days of Future Past
    Boyhood
    Birdman
    Interstellar
    The Imitation Game
    Kingsman: The Secret Service
     
    Thanks everyone!
  8. Black Six

    Brick Badge Bricks

    By Black Six,

    I've nearly run out of ideas for custom bricks for my brick badge. So once again, I'm turning to you guys for suggestions.
     
    Have at it!
     
    Suggested topics to help give you ideas - BZPower, staff, gaming, Halo, Ambassadors, Tolkien.
     
    Thank you all!
  10. Black Six
    Next month I'll be heading up to New York City for ToyFair. Because of the train schedules, I'll have quite a bit of time to kill on Friday, February 13th before ToyFair starts on Saturday.
     
    Would people be interested in meeting up somewhere, perhaps one of the LEGO stores, to hang out? It's always fun to meet and chat with members, and this seems like it could be a good opportunity.
     
    If you're interested, let me know!
  12. Black Six
    I'm looking to make some space on my movie shelves, so these lovely collections have to depart. Make me an offer - I'm more interested in getting them out of my house than making a lot of money.
     
     
     
     

    Torchwood Season 1 on DVD

     
    Star Trek 'Complete' Motion Picture Collection on DVD - includes Star Trek I-VI, Generations, First Contact, Insurrection, and Nemesis
    SOLD!
     
    Stargate Atlantis Complete Series on DVD
    SOLD!


  13. Black Six
    So Destiny comes out tonight and I am super excited. I won't be at a midnight release unfortunately, but I'll be picking up my Ghost edition after work tomorrow.
     
    I figure there's probably quite a few of you out there who will be playing it too, so I made a clan for us. Feel free to join and represent BZP on Bungie.net!
  14. Black Six

    Buried by BrickFair

    By Black Six,

    I got back from BrickFair last night and still have not had a lot of time to recover.
     
    A huge thanks to everyone who attended, sent in MOCs, and supported our crowd-funding campaign (or all three!) - you guys helped make this the biggest and best BrickFair yet. It's always a huge blast hanging out with everyone, playing games, building with LEGO, sharing meals, etc. I hope you all had as much fun as I did.
     
    But now it's back to the grind. I have a lot of un-packing and sorting to do, as well as a mountain of PMs, emails, reports, and other BZPower-related things to take care of (not to mention real life). So apologies if I do not get back to you quickly. As a rule of thumb, if I have not replied within a week, feel free to bug me about it again.
     
    Hope to see you all next year!
  17. Black Six
    BZPower will be interviewing Tim Courtney from the LEGO Ideas team this weekend at BrickFair New England!
     
    Is there anything you would like us to ask him, or any topics we should bring up?
  18. Black Six
    At BrickFair New England, LEGO set designer Jamie Berard will be on hand to give a talk. He has also agreed to do an interview with BZPower. This may just be a text interview, but we might try to do a video for our YouTube channel.
     
    What questions would you like to ask him?
     
    GO!
  19. Black Six

    Philly Brick Fest

    By Black Six,

    Philly Brick Fest is later this week! I don't think there will be too many BZPower members there, which makes me sad. Fortunately though, there will be a ton of your MOCs on display!
     
    I was getting worried because no one had been sending anything in, but last Friday I got three boxes (two of them were huge) and today I got four more! By my count, there will be over FORTY BZPower member MOCs on display (not including mine or any others that show up from other exhibitors). We should have a great Karda-Nui display, and BioniLUG will have a special display too.
     
    I'm really excited to put them all on display and show a new city what BZPower is capable of. You guys rock!
     
    And if you missed Philly Brick Fest, there's still time to send them to BrickFair New England, which is only a couple weeks from now. Check out this topic for more info. And please, if you send something - no styrofoam peanuts! I will take them out of your box and replace them with pain and suffering, which won't protect your MOCs nearly as well.
  21. Black Six
    Are you a devout Chima fan? Do you have tons of sets and a wardrobe full of Chima clothes and a Chima backpack? Have you seen every episode of the Chima TV show, twice? Have you hit the level cap in the Chima MMO?
     
    Even if only some of these things apply, we want to hear from you! BZPower has some ideas in the works and are looking for some Chima people to help out. Leave a comment here or send me a PM with what makes you a huge Chima fan, and if you've got what we're looking for, I'll let you know!
  22. Black Six
    I have recently added a donation goal for the site, in the hopes that we can get some add-ons to help improve the BZPower experience. If you are willing and able to donate, it would be most appreciated.
     
    I don't want to reveal what the add-ons are, as that would spoil the surprise for some of them, but I'll give some (hopefully) tantalizing hints:
    One will help bring back an old feature of the site that you once saw represented in many members' signatures.
    A couple others will be part of a process to help encourage more people to join the site.
    Another one will help people find content that lots of other people like on the forums.
    Our goal is $50, which hopefully isn't too unreasonable. Every little bit helps though - all we need is fifty members to donate one dollar to get us to our goal!
     
    Please be aware, once we hit the goal, it will take some time for us to buy, install, and set-up all the add-ons, so don't expect to see them overnight.
     
    Thanks so much for reading, and thank you even more for donating if you're able!
     
    -B6
  23. Black Six
    I've seen lots of events and a few websites do parts drafts over the years, but I've never seen one done with a constraction set. So I thought, 'we should fix that!'
     
    For the uninformed - a parts draft is where you gather a bunch of copies of the same set, open them up, mix all the pieces together, then sort each different type of part into its own pile. Then people take turns picking piles until they're all gone. There's a little more too it, but that's the main gist. In the end, you get a bunch of a few different kinds of pieces, instead of a few of a bunch of different kinds of pieces like if you had just bought one copy of the set. It can help expand the depth of your building collection.
     
    In our case, I was thinking that BZPower would provide a bunch of copies of a single set, probably ten of them. People who want to participate would then pay a set amount, probably around the cost of the set but hopefully a little less, to buy a spot. Once the spots are sold, we'd have the draft.
     
    As far as how we do the draft, I had three ideas:
     
    First option would be to do the whole thing by PM. I would have to sort the sets into lots, tell people what they are, and you'd take turns via PM selecting which lot you want. This could take a while since you have to wait for each person to reply.
     
    Second idea is to do it live online, where everyone is in a video or voice chat taking turns selecting pieces. We could even livestream it for fun.
     
    These two ideas would probably cost more as I'd also have to pay to ship each person their pieces.
     
    Final idea is to just do it at BrickFair Virginia. There's usually enough members there that I think we could get the requisite ten people to do the draft.
     
    What are your thoughts? Would you be interesting in participating? What sets do you think would be good ones to draft?
  24. Black Six
    The always-generous LEGO CEE Team sent me a package that arrived today, on Valentine's Day of all days. As has become my habit, I did an unboxing video for it. Enjoy!
     
     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWO1tAsZvHo

  25. Black Six
    Hey guys, we're almost halfway through February, and before you know it, it's going to be April.
     
    Why April, you ask? Because that's when Philly Brick Fest happens! It's a first time event and we want to make a big splash with Bionicle and constraction there.
     
    If you're thinking about attending, go check out this topic and let us know. I'll be there, and who doesn't want to hang out with Black Six? Did you know that numerous staff promotions have happened over the years at conventions such as this one? It's true!*
     
    Philly too far south for you? Fear not! There's also BrickFair New England a mere two weeks later. BrickFairs are always great and Todd Webb is awesome and puts on a good show.
     
    I just made a topic for that event too. Last year's New England event was pretty epic and probably had one of the funnest nights I've ever had at a LEGO convention. Let's see if we can top it this year!
     
    If you can't make it to either of those, your MOCs still can! Send them on the BZPower Convention Circuit. For the cost of shipping, your creations can go to four LEGO conventions, and we'll even give you some cool stuff for doing it!
     
    Seriously though, I highly encourage attending or sending your MOCs to these events. They're the highlights of my year - you always have a ton of fun, get to meet cool people, and see so many amazing creations. Plus, it's your creations that make the event even better. So the more the merrier, come join us!
     
    *Attending a LEGO convention with Black Six does not guarantee a staff promotion.
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