Allow me to declare that listening to The Sky and the Dawn and the Sun by Celtic Woman at exactly the moment the sun comes up is a wonderful experience. I love jetlag going west; you're usually awake by dawn and get to enjoy it in its fullness...
Now, Belgium! It was very relaxing and quite fun. We went shopping for bandes dessinées on various days, walked all over Brussels a few times (both good exercise and fun in and of itself), went to Bruges one day to listen to my mom give a paper... We
As promised!
Started out as a doodle in Astronomy class, imagining the Akaku with a visor. I liked the idea, and I've never liked the real Akaku Phantoka (though it -would- be acceptable if it only had the scope on the right side), so I decided to go with the concept and translate the rounded, organic features of the Akaku Nuva into the more angular, geometric style of the more recent masks. I kept a few features of the real Akaku Phantoka – namely the lens and bits of the mouth area – an
It had to be said.
The apostrophe is almost never, ever, used to make a plural of anything.
There is one, and exactly one, exception to this. The only time an apostrophe ever makes something plural is with individual letters of the alphabet. Not acronyms. Not abbreviations. Not dates. And for Mata Nui's sake, not other nouns.
The plural of "book" is "books." The plural of "MOC" is "MOCs." If you say "book's" or "MOC's," you are describing something belong to one single book or one singl
As shown above, a delightful batch of pieces recently came to me. Takadox swords, a couple #1 angle connectors so I don't have only one in those colors, glow in the dark spines, smooth Technic panels, red Mahri tubes and black tentacles (I have no '07 playsets), and then a bunch of lime and purple and dark blue Technic pieces for my stockpiles of those colors. Because they're awesome colors and I have too few pieces in them. Plus some random pieces for other MOCs.
But the whole reason I got t
I don't remember exactly what I said about him at first – the earliest pictures did make him look rather bad – but that did change slowly to moderate indifference. However, forget all of that. Now that I actually have him in hand, I can say without hesitation that Jaller Mahri is the best-designed Toa in years.
Every single thing in his design works together. (Well, not the blue pin in his neck. But we'll skim over that.) His mask, both pieces of his chest armor, and his sword were all de
Not in that order.
First, I'm a senior now? Apparently. Graduation was Wednesday, so since there is now officially nobody above my grade, that makes us seniors. But bah, I'm going to miss the class of '08... at least a bunch of us intend to do a bunch of things throughout the summer...
Going backwards once more, Monday was the last day of school. Shortened classes in the morning to get back our exams, then some presentations, commencement rehearsal for the seniors, lunch, and then the awar
For real this time. They aren't ponies, but they are little (to us, at least), and at least they're ungulates. Maha!
It would really have been awesome to see the Maha as sets in 2001. Clearly a model was designed for them, or else one wouldn't be able to perfectly replicate their structure – I'd assume they were going to be in the Master Builder Set but weren't due to a lack of Throwbot limbs therein. Anyway, I could easily see a pair of Maha sold for maybe $10 as the smallest of the Ra
Dear Lego,
I both hate you and love you right now.
» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «Gresh has lost half of his awesomeness. The prototype version of him had this absolutely incredible ring of lime spikes around his head: the lime Mistika claws, as are still there, but then under his chest armor were two lime Nuparu claws, so you got this stunning slope of lime. And then his chest armor used to have lime at the top, but now it's the same as Kongu Inika's – dark green, with
I had been really looking forward to using "Ave Mahria" as a title in praise of the Toa Mahri... But unless these are indeed prototypes and change drastically before their final forms, it looks like that won't be happening.
"I must confess I am actually shocked at the mostly positive reaction here so far. These sets appear horrid to me. ... 2007 has started on such an admirably high note; I do not wish for it to end on a bad one." – Sméag
"I usually look for the positives, but... There are f
I think the world would be a better place if everyone, everywhere, all at once, stopped what they were doing and spent five or ten minutes listening to the same song. Maybe, just maybe, people would stop fighting and hating each other and bickering over pointless things, if only for a few minutes, because they spent a little time sharing the same experience.
Something sweeping but also sweet, peaceful but riveting, something we could all relate to even if it's in a language we don't understan
It's been a long while since I've gone out and taken photos of Tohunga around my yard. I miss it. I mean, partly it's because I've been at college and all that, but it's also been because of a lack of new Kanohi from which to make new Tohunga. But I have some now!
First up is Shenyu, whom those of you who have been with me for a loooong time just may remember.
He's the reason I've been craving a dark blue Miru since 2003. He's a Ga-Matoran (and yes, male) who goes on a series of adven
Or at least according to Bloom County I do. I don't even like that style of hat that much, but I do love the little tab of paper stuck into it...
We should have something like that for Yearbook.
~ ToM
A couple possible designs for the shoulder armor I mentioned two entries ago... The one on the left is much more finalized and is Bionicle-stylized (note the practical pistons, Aanchir), but some of the other stylization is bugging me. For instance, the rectangular indentations on the upper half – I'm not sure if they look so great where they are. I might get rid of them and leave the top smooth, or they might migrate to the middle section of the top rather than the sides...
The one on the ri
I have, at last, entered BBCC 50. :3
To see the entry in full, click above. It's one of my personal favorite MOCs to date, though it looks better in person than in pictures, I think, because you get odd perspectives with a camera.
Fortunately, there will be many people who will see it in person next week. And Ellengo and the poster and one General Grievous.
~ ToM
Just a few things I dreamed up, which are of no particular importance or relevance, least of all to each other...
Maxilos's mask looks like the Hau; he's a servant of the Order of Mata Nui, and Mata Nui's symbol is the Hau, but he's possessed by Makuta, whose trademark is the infected Hau. So it works both ways, when possessed and when normal.
Phantoka means "spirits of the air"; if the ka at the end is the same one that usually means energy or power, it could be something like saying "the
Now that we've finally gotten a few things resolved, I thought I'd share with you guys what the First Place prize in the Short Stories Contest 5 will be:
1388 Huki and 1390 Maku, the Tohunga from the 2001 McDonald's promo, MISB.
Second and third place are being resolved. HH and I are still investigating things for these.
(I don't get to use this category often enough)
~ ToM
Oh my god.
Brickfair was basically the best weekend of my life. In brief. I'll be going into detail a lot more in later entries, but I think that will do nicely as a summary for now. I met so many awesome people and we had epic times hanging out and at Brickfair and dressing up in fancy clothes to go to completely non-fancy restaurants (with Steve Witt!). It was amazing getting to see all these friends I knew online in person, and their MOCs and art (had some fun sketchbook exchanges with Ray
My cold's finally getting better – now hopefully I won't have just jinxed it by saying that. I had thought I was doing okay on Wednesday, but then I wasn't feeling so great in the afternoon. Then yesterday I did go to school, but I only stayed until 3rd period so I could go to Greek for review (my last class ever with Katie! I was so sad!), then spent much of the rest of the day miserable on the couch. But today I finally felt actually good, or at least definitely did not feel bad, and I actuall
I'm baaaaack.
Some of the things I've done in the past two weeks: Visited seven different colleges in the New England area and discovered that I would be perfectly happy at just about any of them, so it will be nice having the choice limited by whichever ones accept and deny me. Next April or so will be very interesting, because Katie and Leigh Ann and Sam and Brook will all be trying to persuade me to go to different places if I get accepted to them. Fallen helplessly in love with the librar
After Latin class today, I am left with a burning curiosity to perform scientific experiments involving throwing ostriches out of helicopters.
Discuss.
~ ToM
I received the package containing my MOCs that went to Brickfair (Viridian, Ellengo, and Grievous) today.
Inside were a bunch of Mardi Gras beads.
(the picture's blurry, but I don't care)
I do not know whose idea these were, but they are absolutely fabulous. I suspect KIE was involved. Just because. But I do not know whether Sméag, DV, Mak, Kohaku, Six, and Rayg were or were not. Even if they weren't, they're still awesome (that refers to the people, but the beads are too).
You pr
IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOOOOWWWN
... Sméag has clearly corrupted me.
Ahem. Anyway. This is the beginning of my last week of freedom. Summer went by way too fast. I thought I'd have a full month when I got back from travelling, but no, it was only two weeks, and they're almost over... As always, I didn't get half the things done that I wanted to this summer. But I did get done much more than in past years, and that makes me happy. And I spent lots of time with my friends before they went off t
