Black Six

Intro Happy Fourth of July everyone! Another short update this week, for two reasons. One, it's a holiday. Two, not much is going on. Updates Pruning continues at its slow an steady pace. We'll get there eventually, just watch us. The site is back up and running at full strength. This includes news, Premier Membership forms, the Set Database, everything. If you notice something we've missed though, by all means let me or another staff member know. As part of the Lego Ambassador program, I'm supposed to act as a go-between for you guys and Lego. So while this may not be strictly Bionicle related, it may still be something you're interested in. Check out this topic to see how you can suggest ideas to Lego for the City theme. If you have cool set designs or a theme you think they should use, send it to me so I can pass it along to Lego. Hopefully there will be plenty more things like this over the next year, and I'll see if I can make some suggestions of feedback they might want; or better yet - you can tell me what you would like to tell Lego and we can try to put together a survey or something. Any ideas or questions you have, let me know, and if I think they're pertinent enough, I'll try to get them answered for you. So I think that's about it for this week. The new sets are finally appearing, hopefully we'll have some reviews this month to showcase them. Mailbag We had some questions this week, but due to an unfortunate browser crash they were lost. *Facepalm.* Maybe next week? Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion So that's it for this week. As always leave comments or send me a PM with any questions, thoughts, or ideas you may have. Bye all!

No, send it to the news email address, as always.

Nope, not related at all. That's a forum software glitch. We'd have to wait for a patch from IPB to fix that, in all likelihood.

Intro Very short update this week. Thanks for reading - no, not that short. Updates We're continuing to work on getting BZP back up to full strength, so bear with us. If you don't know what I'm talking about, read this topic. Currently everything is working except for our news system and Premier Membership form, that I know of. If you notice anything else not working let me or another staff member know. We're getting there, just give us a little time. Mailbag No questions this week. Send me some! Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion Thanks for your patience and understanding as we work on fixing the site. We'll try to get it working as soon as possible. Until next time, thanks for reading, and leave some feedback!

It's a new group that has to be created for the new Reporter, since an appropriate one doesn't exist it yet. I suppose it could see further use in the future, but there are no plans to promote others into the group at this time.

Intro Welcome back to Celebrity Jeo... wait, wrong intro. Thanks for joining me once again as we talk about various fun and exciting and maybe some not-so-exciting things. Updates So there hasn't been a lot happening of late that you don't already know about. The pruning has been continuing and tens of thousands of posts have been deleted so far, with many more to come. It's a slow process, the Forum Leaders have to go through every topic to make sure it's something that can be deleted. Believe me, we're taking our time on this one since we want to avoid deleting stuff that may still be useful or have historical value. That said, there's still a lot of useless posts out there to be removed. The new Reporter is coming. He is currently undergoing our rigorous training process under my close supervision to make sure he doesn't break the site once he is given access to the news. Oh you might laugh, but it's a very real threat. I'm hoping we'll be making an announcement next week. A new member group will also have to be created, which may help narrowing down the possible candidates. The entry period for Member Interviews is next Thursday. We have over one hundred candidates so far, so the competition is pretty stiff. But one of them will be the lucky interviewee! I'm pleased with its success so far, and look forward to its future growth. Mailbag 1) Classic Rock. Harry Chapin. 2) SciFi/Fantasy. The Matrix? It's so hard to pick one... 3) Timing and experience. 4) The Lego Magazine. I had always been a Lego fan and this theme seemed to combine things I liked about Technic and Throwbots with a cool story. 1) I had to look up what these new flavors were, so the answer is no. I've only ever had original (good), Baja Blast (OK), and Game Fuel (good). 2) I have closed many of my own topics, either because they were revived or no longer needed. 3) Have a LOT more free time. 4) It's different than in previous years, but I think it's quite nice. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion So that wraps it up for this week, hope you enjoyed it, as always. To continue to sounds like a broken record, leave comments or send me PMs with any questions, comments, or complaints.

Intro It's the BZPower Weekly Update, Friday the Thirteenth edition! Ok, so that means absolutely nothing, but it's cool to mention. Updates Topic pruning is off to a slow start. We've lost a couple thousand posts or so already, but compared to the over 5 million that we did have it's not that much to be noticeable yet. Hopefully this weekend the Forum Leaders will have some more time (myself included) to work on cleaning things out. Give us some more time and things should improve. In other news, we'll be promoting a new News Reporter soon. It might be a bit of a departure from the norm, but I think you'll all agree with the choice. Other than that there's no a lot more to talk about. There are a couple things going on behind the scenes, things we're not ready to talk about quite yet. In addition, planning is beginning for BrickFair 08, which will take place near Washington DC at the end of August. There should be some announcements soon about that and the role BZPower will play there. Mailbag 1.) It feels pretty good. We're still in the planning stages of what we're going to be working on right now, and I've been pretty busy with other things as of late, so I haven't done much yet. There's a lot of potential though, and that's what matters. 2.) I'm not a fan of scary movies, so I don't watch many of them. One that I remember seeing when I was little that scared the stuff out of me was The Langoliers, which is based on a Steven King book. So I wouldn't say it's my favorite, but it's memorable. 3.) Who? Wait, The Who, yeah they're great. 4.) See above. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion So, that is all for this week. Go forth, don't spam, and leave feedback or send in questions or ideas. Until next time...

There will definitely be pruning going on, how much remains to be seen. BBCC #50 will happen when it happens.

Intro Greetings from your local Lego Ambassador. That has a nice ring to it, and I hope I can put the title to good use over the next year. But that aside, let's see what's been going on... Updates Obviously the biggest announcement was the Topic Pruning that will be starting in a couple days. I'm really glad to see a fairly positive response to this, and appreciate everyone's understanding. This will definitely speed up the server, what remains to be seen is how much it does so. With over five million posts, there's a lot of spam and old topics that are no longer needed. So I think there are enough that can be removed to help speed things up. You may have noticed some new mini-banners on the front page recently. Something I hear from time to time from members is that they don't know when stuff is going on here, such as contests or whatnot. Currently we have one for RPG Contest #10 and now one for Member Interviews. Obviously the RPG one will disappear when the contest ends, but the other should be there for a while, and may be joined by others (how do you think a Weekly Update banner would look?). Hopefully this will make people that just may visit the front page aware of the many other things that go on at BZPower. Finally, a couple days ago it was announced that I had been accepted into the Lego Ambassador program. This is a great opportunity for BZPower to get their voice heard. So if you ever have something you feel should be brought up, let me know and we can see how other members feel and send Lego some feedback. Since I'll be under a NDA for a bunch of the things I see, I won't be able to let you all in on it. But there should be plenty of tidbits I can let out that you'll be able to appreciate. Thanks again to everyone who supported me to give us this opportunity! Mailbag 1. Requests for Member Interviews can be sent from now until June 26th. Anyone who submits will be considered for the review that will be posted on July 3rd. You can only request for this upcoming one, not ones further down the road. 2. Nope, not at all. 3. Sprite. 4. Pohatu's a fine set. I like the designs of the Makuta better though, personally. 1. I'm not sure what you mean. Haven't I always been 4-Speed? 2. No they didn't. I've seen plenty staff without pony names. You're just not looking hard enough. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion That's about it for this weekend. As always, be sure to leave questions and comments or send me a PM. Have a good weekend everyone!

I've yet to receive any information about how I will interact with Lego and the other Ambassadors, though I'm sure when I do I won't be able to talk about where it is.

I am the ambassador representing BZPower. There are a whole bunch of other ones that represent different parts of the online Lego community.

Today is an exciting day. Although there was an omission on the initial release on LUGNET, I was indeed accepted into the Lego Ambassador program. Hopefully this will help give BZPower some more pull in the Lego community and I hope to have some input on changes that are going on. You can be sure I will look to you guys for input and will be posting discussion topics and polls to see what you guys think (if I'm allowed to discuss it, at least). Thanks to everyone for your support and votes in the nomination process, and thanks especially to Binkmeister, Bionicle Rex, GregF, Swert, and Arpy for their support and/or testimonials during the process. I couldn't have done it without you!

Actually, there was an error when the list was posted on LUGNET. I was accepted into the Ambassador program. Sorry to spoil your celebrations.

Close enough.

Intro So tonight brings us some nice discussions that cover a variety of recent happenings on BZPower. Some interesting stuff, I hope. Updates First things first, congratulations to Shilo and Ben (Omicron and ChocolateFrogs, respectively), who, along with myself, were BZPower's nominees for the Lego Ambassador program. The latest I've heard is that the selection committee is having a hard time narrowing down the pool since there were so many great candidates. Hopefully that means one of us has a shot! You may have seen that BZPower Reference Master bonesiii has updated the Storyline & Theories Rules and Guidelines recently, adding a thorough spoiler policy to clear up any confusion that might have gone on in the past. You can discuss the policy here and be sure to check out our calendar for when you can discuss certain spoilers. I can tell you the Reference Staff have been working on the policy for a while now, trying to come up with fair, consistent rules. They got input from Greg and Bink, and there was also some discussion between the BS01 staff to make sure the two sites' policies didn't vary too much. Like I said, this policy has been a lot of thought and work, so it's going to be around for a while. So if you're a story fan, familiarize yourself with it so you make sure you don't break it down the road. This week the long-awaited Member Interview program has begun! The entry period for the first cycle is over, and the interview will be posted on June 3rd. You'll have to wait and see who was chosen, but if you submitted your name and didn't hear back, then sorry, it wasn't you. There will be plenty more opportunities to try though, so fear not! A big thanks go to all the staff that helped out in the planning phase, deciding on the format and presentation, and suggesting lots of questions to be asked. I think this is going to be a really fun project, and I hope you all enjoy it. Be sure to check out General Discussion on June 3rd for the first interview, which is also the first day you can submit to enter in the second cycle. Finally, a note on BZPower's server. We're aware things have been quite slow recently, with the whole site going offline at times. We're looking into things and have at least one long-term plan should hopefully help speed things up. With any luck it will be announced this weekend. If you want to keep complaining let me know and I'll just delete your account, which will speed things up by having one fewer member in our database to deal with. Mailbag 1. Yes. 1A. Lewa Nuva. 2. I believe it has changed a lot since 2001. Whether or not you consider it downhill is a matter of perspective. It appeals to a wider range of fans, I think. This has come at the cost of some things older fans liked, such as gears and collectibles. But again it's all a matter of opinion. 3. I was always a fan of collectibles, though I do think they could have done a better job with some, especially the Kraata. 4. No, questions are fun! Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion So that wraps it up for tonight, since I will be leaving shortly to enjoy my weekend. As always, leave your questions and feedback and have fun here on BZPower.

A couple Sundays ago I finally went to see Iron Man with a friend. He's always been one of my favorite Marvel heroes; I guess his lack of 'powers' and he intelligence and mechanical ability appeal to me. Plus, powered armor rocks. I thought they did the character justice in the movie, while at the same time effectively updating it to modern times (terrorists instead of communists and things like that). It was a good movie, not too long, with a lot of action, and a nice mix of comedy thrown in. Not much more you can ask for in a summer blockbuster. Or is there? Last Friday some friends and I saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I had heard mixed reviews about it and tried not to get my hopes up too much for it. That said, I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, more so than I did Iron Man. Parts of it were a little far-fetched, especially the ending (they could have just disappeared, they didn't need that) but it was an interesting story. I think I rank it above Temple of Doom on my list of favorite Indy movies (for first and second it's hard to pick between Raiders and Crusade). I think it's been my favorite movie so far this year, out of the few that I've seen. Finally, on Saturday I saw The Eagles at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. It was an awesome show, almost four hours long. They did all their biggest hits, from Hotel California to Take It Easy to Heartache Tonight and my personal favorite, Life In the Fast Lane. They did some songs from their new album, Long Road Out of Eden, as well as other songs from their solo careers. I thought that after all these years the performance might be a bit lackluster, but they could still hit all the high notes (even in Witchy Woman) and Joe Walsh was going crazy on guitar more than a couple times. It was a thoroughly awesome show and if you can catch any of their other tour dates (they'll be in Madison Square Garden this weekend) and like their music, don't miss out! So that's some of the stuff I've been up to recently. It's been a while since I did a non-Weekly Update entry, so I figured this would be a decent topic to write about. Hope you enjoyed, go see some movies and some bands!

The person being interviewed will be randomly selected.

Soon, like within the next couple of days, I hope.

Intro Tonight's update will hopefully be pretty good. I have a few topics worth discussing. We can talk about promotions, Ambassadors, and member behavior, oh my! Updates So, this past week we had two pretty major staff promotions (which happened to coincide with two people stepping down). First, which most of you have probably seen by now, is the ToM Dracone, or Yannick, is now part of the BZPower news team. If you've read any of his reviews on BZP, you know what a skilled writer he is. We thought we'd put his skills to good use writing more frequently than the occasional review. In his first week he's already posted two stories, so keep looking for more to come from him! Next up, which you might not have seen, since it was only announced a few minutes ago, is that Makaru is the new Blog Leader. He came on to the staff as a Blog Assistant, and though he moved on to the forum side, he returns once again to oversee his former blog staff-mates. His experience will prove invaluable in keeping the blogs running smoothly and I know there's at least one project Toaraga was working on that Mak will continue. Now, you might be wondering, 'But Toaraga was just promoted, is he leaving or something?' Fear not, this was all planned in advance, Toaraga took the job as Global Mod knowing Mak waqs going to replace him. It's usually better to spread out the work load among a few staff members rather than having one or two that do everything. It allows for better organization and prevents our staff from getting too stressed out (most of them, at least). Of course that leaves Janus, who recently stepped down from being a Global Moderator and now stopped being a Reporter. Sometimes things in life get busy and reduce the time a person can spend on BZPower. It's unfortunate, but it happens. Robert decided that it would be better to let some new blood into those positions since he could no longer dedicate the amount of time he wanted to. So that's that. Next on the list, the applications are in, and you can now vote for the top three candidates to be nominated for Lego Ambassadors. I'd like to thank everyone so far for their support and wish the rest of the candidates good luck in the selection process. The poll closes at noon tomorrow, so get voting! As far as the Ambassador program in general goes, I've seen many people asking for specific things to ask Lego. While I'm sure the company is open to ideas and feedback, it remains to be seen if individual requests are really considered. Whatever the case, if anyone from BZP is chosen as an Ambassador I hope they work with the members to get feedback on different issues, and bring our voice to Lego. We're a large community with a lot of opinions, and I think Lego could gain some useful insight from us. Here's to the future! Finally, I'd like to take a quick moment to talk about something some members don't seem to understand. Staff are people too. We have lives outside of BZPower and do all the same sort of things all other members do. We hang out with friends, listen to music, go to parties, play sports, go to school or work (or both), etc. I encourage all staff to act as professionally as possible while on BZPower, setting a good example for other members to follow, and generally I think we do a pretty good job of it. Sometimes, however, something will come up that members think is inappropriate for staff to do, but if they did it it would be alright. Double standards aren't cool, and people need to understand that staff aren't perfect and have all the same sorts of flaws and strengths as everyone else. Mailbag Nothing this week. Send me your questions! Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion And that wraps it up for this week. Hope it was more interesting and insightful than it has been recently. I want to try to update this thing (my blog) more often with non-weekly update stuff, so keep checking back to see if I get around to doing that.

Intro Short update this week. Someone need to give me an idea for something to discuss. Updates So, first up on the list is that Lego is taking applications for new Lego Ambassadors, and BZPower (along with other Lego communities on the Internet) get to help nominate candidates. We get to nominate up to three people to be considered for the position, with at most one from the community being selected. If you're 18 or older and are interested (no matter where in the world you live) by all means get some testimonials and send an application over to me so we can send it in. I'm giving this a shot and seeing if I can become an Ambassador. Obviously the Bionicle line does quite well and is always one of the better-selling themes, but many AFOLs still seem to overlook it as being 'kiddy,' which is ironic considering we're talking about a building toy. I've been trying to help raise awareness with things like LAML Radio. Speaking of which, hopefully I won't be the only proponent of Bionicle to appear on the show, but when that happens is up to James, not me, obviously. Anyway, I think Lego can gain a lot from someone that grew up with the classic themes like Space, Pirates, and Castle but also enjoys Bionicle. So if it comes down to a vote for who gets nominated, be sure to make the right choice. Sometime this weekend there should be a couple of new staff announcements. One is sort of a continuation of a recent staff event. Actually, so is the other. If that doesn't get you thinking, I don't know what will. I'm sure all the promotions will work out for the best though, otherwise they wouldn't be happening. Mailbag Nothing this week. Send me your questions! Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion Like I said, nothing much to this week's update. Hope you enjoyed it nonetheless, and if you'd like to see me talk about more things, let me know and give me some ideas!

Are you suggesting Lego told them to post it just so they could tell them to remove it? I see what you're saying and how it could be used as a marketing scheme. But I assure you I talk to enough people in Lego that work on Bionicle and other themes to know it's not the case.

Like I said, Lego contacted us to let us know the video should not have been put online and asked us to remove our story. They did not sanction anything.

Intro I'm hoping tonight won't be as boring as the past few weeks. To find out for yourself, read on! Updates So the biggest news, I think is last night's promotion. Once again, congratulations Toaraga! I'm sure he'll do a great job, he was already nuking signatures last night, so he's off to a good start. Unfortunately that means Janus is no longer a Global Moderator. This was his choice, as he felt he no longer had sufficient free time to continue with the work and get other things done. It happens, real life does take priority, but it's good to still have his experience available on the staff. Also, this is the first of a few staff changes you'll be seeing in the coming weeks. Some of you may have noticed a news story today referencing a popular Europe song. It featured a link to a new movie with some 2008 hints and spoilers. We were informed shortly after putting it up that the site that was hosting it should not have made it live yet. Being the considerate people we are, we removed the news story. I wish websites would adhere to the release dates that Lego gives them, it would make things a lot easier. Imagine if sets and books came out on their scheduled release dates instead of randomly one to two months in advance. It would save people from running around trying to get a product as soon as someone finds it. Also, it would prevent spoilers like this from ruining the story for people. If you have seen the video, do not discuss it or link to it. Thanks. As a side note, this isn't the first time the site has done something like this. It's quite unprofessional and reflects poorly on the staff over there. In other news this week, we learned that the company in charge of LegoLand will be building a theme park in the state of Dubai (part of the United Arab Emirates). From what I've heard the country has become a bit of a tourist attraction in the Middle East, with lots of beautiful beaches (some of which are artificial) and other tourist attractions. It seems like an interesting choice, and I would have thought of other places that would have gotten a LL theme park first, but he'll see how it works out in a few years once it opens. Mailbag This is a feature of the forum software. One of the more common requests on BZPower, however, is to remove the star ratings from Blogs and Member profiles, which cannot easily be done. So I don't think there would be a big interest in adding the rating feature to topics. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion So that wraps it up for this week. Again, please don't spread the video (if you've seen it). Otherwise enjoy your weekend and check back next week!