Hmm... Chirox, Lesovikk, Maxilos and Spinax, Kalmah, and a note from your uncle saying Toa Ignika was on his/her/its way. That's a nice haul Hydraxon included.

I also enjoyed Lesovikk! although the bike is a tad bit boring, it still delivers with the two black fans, green Faxon, and black tube. I also receved a Maxilos for Christmas. Like you said, the see-through gaps were annoying, but I guess it was for the robo look. The waist was interesting, and I would love to incorperate it into a revamp of him. What was your oppinion on the legs? Hydraxon was the first set I kept op for at least three days in years, until I needed his exo fingers. Chirox was intriguing like you said, but his arms were weird... Three cheers for Neo Kratta things!

The Exo-Force for 08 are dimply amazing! The vast haul of pieces will be interesting to put to use. The Chameleon Hunter and Storm Lasher are two sets I have my eyes on currently.

Oh, here is where you lost me! Linguistic trends... various Maori-esquified... brain shuts down.

ARGH! Everyone's getting 2008 sets but me! *writhes in agony*

Anyway, told ya Maxilos was well-worth the money.

Foxtrot is win.

The '08 Exo-Force stuff is cool, but I don't know that it's too much cooler than past stuff. The arms on the two large human mechs aren't poseable at all, though that could be solved with that tiny clicky-joint thing... hard to describe, so I won't bother.

Also, Toa Ignika is pretty nice. I hope you appreciate him as much as I do. Though I warn you, he has an awkward sort of hunch when stood up straight. You might find it worthwhile to tilt the body back so the ball joints on his shoulders line up with those on his waist. His lower leg armor is sort of floppy; I wonder why they didn't use the blue pins, which worked far better when Lyi tested them before getting the set. Also, the mask on mine and on other people's is defective, and tilts to the side-- don't say I didn't warn you.

The back armor is better than I hoped, though it's actually more of a backpack which makes it slightly more tolerable. The warblade seems to work well for him, though I have less enthusiasm for that of Mutran. (The staff is so awesome; why not give him two and avoid making the warblade cliche?)

I hope I needn't comment on the awesomity of the board.

The list of early BIONICLE naming trends would be helpful, especially since I find many custom names that adhere strictly to Maori language rules repetitive or boring. I try to be as creative as possible when naming BIONICLE stuff, with my main rules being "Keep it from sounding too much like a real word," "No Star-Wars sounding names, or apostrophes which imply such," and for that matter, "No names that sound like they belong in an existing fantasy universe besides BIONICLE." Other than that, adhering to other rules serves more as an impediment to me than a help.

I'm about to go back to that old entry on mask names and do a proper critique, now that I'm in the mood.

EDIT: ...which requires me to edit my old post. So it won't register as a new comment. Therefore, read it when you find time.

Quite a lot of good presents in there, ToM.

*is jealous because ToM has the At World's End soundtrack*

DudeNuva

Blue Diamond ~ The legs are pretty much your standard titan legs, but made somewhat worse by the very large gaps and misalignments in the thighs. (For instance, a full stud of emptiness under the Metru feet, then the Piraka thigh armor is at the very back of the thigh, leaving this large dent between it and the Metru feet.) All those recolored iron pieces are quite swell, though...

Bundalings ~ Lesovikk is definitely one set of mine who's never being taken apart, given those fragile single sockets of his...

Takatu ~ You were right, but I still wouldn't have bought him for myself...

Aanchir ~ Oh, the large mechs are of (mostly) no interest to me at all. Never have been, except for Striking Venom. It's the Arachnoid Stalker and Storm Lasher that have my attention – nice shapes, great pieces... and the Chameleon hunter is interesting just by being green. On Toa Ignika, yeah, bending it slightly back is the best way to fix the hunch – I did the same on my Hewkii revamp. Bent mask? Oh dear, hope mine isn't like that... The board actually doesn't hold too much interest for me in and of itself – looks pretty nice, but what I want from it are all those Technic panels...

Thanks also for that in-depth response to the Kanohi names; it gave me a few more ideas to tweak the four I changed for the Mahri...

So I guess the language thing will be next entry, though it might have to wait until I can get home and skim through things from 2001 to check for names I had missed.

My Ignika was fine... ask your Uncle when he got it. Earlier ones seem to be defective. I'm pretty sure mine was a later purchase. The board is really good. Very streamlined. I was excited because I got my first-ever Technic panels. The only Rahi I got in '01 was the Nui-Rama.

Aanchir ~ Oh, the large mechs are of (mostly) no interest to me at all. Never have been, except for Striking Venom. It's the Arachnoid Stalker and Storm Lasher that have my attention – nice shapes, great pieces... and the Chameleon hunter is interesting just by being green. On Toa Ignika, yeah, bending it slightly back is the best way to fix the hunch – I did the same on my Hewkii revamp. Bent mask? Oh dear, hope mine isn't like that... The board actually doesn't hold too much interest for me in and of itself – looks pretty nice, but what I want from it are all those Technic panels...

Arachnoid stalker is cool, I guess... I'm getting a wee bit tired of arachnoids. Still, nice to see they're moving toward that magic number 8 again, which it seemed to be veering away from in the same way as BIONICLE.

Yeah, I'm beginning to believe this part defect is universal... I expect that any time now we'll start getting the "OMG LEGO IS CHEEP AND THEY HATE CHILDRENS" topics again, just as we did for lime parts breaking, or for rubber parts existing (Remember: most rubber these days is just another kind of plastic, not real rubber ).

I loves the board... =( Seriously, it has stylistic consistency galore. The panels obviously match each other pretty well (despite some being of the thin-tube variety) and the Jaller Mahri sword goes well with the Brutaka blades. The Matoro tools match the Matoro armor both on the board and Toa Ignika himself, and the Kopaka wings, which I had expected to be a disappointment in terms of stylistic consistency, don't look all that bad alongside the aforementioned silver parts of the board. Plus, the way they snuggle up to the sides when folded back is just pure ownage. (Once you get him, try folding them foreward-- they fit even better! =D)

Thanks also for that in-depth response to the Kanohi names; it gave me a few more ideas to tweak the four I changed for the Mahri...

Ooh, tweaking is good. That's the benefit of story-based changes like name changes, they're a lot easier to tweak than set revamps and the like.

So I guess the language thing will be next entry, though it might have to wait until I can get home and skim through things from 2001 to check for names I had missed.

Go right ahead. I'm beginning to believe my tolerance for names that don't work conform to 2001 standards is a result of how often I've worked with names from the 2003-era MNOLG2, which used loads of Finnish names as well as names from other Western languages, such as the English "Nixie" and the Latin "Pelagia". These names still succeed in sounding foreign, regardless of how much closer they are geographically to the languages we know so well.

*wishes he could program Flash and make a proper, Matoran-based VNOLG*