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Movie-accurate posing is the most ridiculous thing I've seen you actually care about recently, Jess. And that's saying something.

Reading this made me think of Pridak. The biggest flaw (among several) about that set has to be the attempt at waist articulation. It's good that the designers were trying to do something different, but the result was pitiful and made the set flop around like a rag doll. And that's how I felt just trying to pose the thing on a shelf, much less play with it. I'm glad that design never appeared again (that I can recall). Anyway, I agree to an extent, but it really depends on what you want to do with the set. As a kid I never had issues playing with sets with less articulation since imagination always trumps set limitations (and there was no 'rag doll' effect). Now as an adult, with them sitting posed on the shelf... they look kinda boring. Certainly much less dynamic than the Toa Metru.

Dude, I wish my favorite series went twice a week.

Behold this glorious beast: That's right - it has been announced that Super Smash Bros. 4 will be playable using the almighty Gamecube controller! Let us all bow down and praise Lord Helix, for truly he has delivered us a wondrous thing. Also, if that picture is any indication, we will not only be able to use Gamecube controllers... but Nintendo might be releasing special Smash themed brand new Gamecube controllers as well! While it might not be the standard controller of the console (although if Nintendo truly loves us they will make it so with their next console), it is nice to see Nintendo acknowledging that the GCN controller is the best of their arsenal. The only way this announcement could have been better is if they had announced Agnes Oblige as a new character in the game alongside it.

We explored our Mount Washington hotel thoroughly. We saw the Gold Room, where the setting up of and signing of the International Monetary Fund took place, and a few old fuses - well, I thought they were old. It turns out that the fuses, part of the original wiring put in by Thomas Edison, were actually still partially in use. Honestly it sounds like a fire hazard, but I'm not an electrician. We decided to skip the treacherous Mount Washington Auto Road due to the fact that it's a private road that doesn't have guardrails, and doing so in a car that has well over 100,000 miles on it and has just come off of its fifth road-trip repair in three years is just kind of asking for trouble, especially when the road is notorious for burning out transmissions and brakes. It was just as well, since that was well out of our route. We worked our way through sleepy towns in rural New Hampshire as we wormed our way back down amidst the towering granite faces of the mountains. As we kept on the route to Portland - towards the stadium of the Portland Sea Dogs (or, as my dad called them, the "Portland Dog Drips") - the towns increased in size and had signs that designated earlier and earlier dates of incorporation. The roads leveled out as we neared the Maine border, but we could still look back and see mountains - some still with traces of snow near their peaks. Conway was one of the towns we passed through, and its quirks included a motel with different "themes" for each room like storefronts in the Old West as well as bizarrely funny shop names. Around 12:30 we entered Maine, and got some literature at the welcome center from a guy who was born in North Carolina but moved to Maine when he was young. He'd long since lost any southern accent he might have once had, replacing it with a thick northeastern accent that turned "Bar Harbor" into "Bah Hahbah" and "Bangor" into "Bangah." I didn't hear anything close to that in Boston, where I thought I would. The potholes got really bad as soon as we crossed the Maine border. Only a few were absolutely unavoidable - the fault lines - but these were eased over as best we could. We slalomed through the rest, only hitting one - which was pretty good considering that there were as many potholes in one mile as there are living humans on Earth. It didn't slow us down considerably, so we stopped by the Sea Dogs and got our customary pennant, then set off for the Portland Head Light. Before doing so, we ate pizza at a local place called Otto's, which converts old gas stations into "filling stations" - for your stomach. The crust was flaky and buttery - one of the few crusts I actually liked. Onions, sausage, and marinara sauce gave it a little bit of kick. It was a filling and delicious late lunch. We then got to the Portland Head Light, which was absolutely gorgeous. The Head Light was built at the directive of George Washington and is now part of a municipal park complex encompassing both it and an abandoned fort. Rolling green grass saw much use from local citizens, but our main objective was to see the Head Light. We saw so much more than that. The Head Light itself was interesting - especially since it's still in use! - and the high-intensity fog signal that blasted out was close to deafening if you got too close to the lighthouse. We spent most of our time down on the rocks below, climbing and clamoring over the jagged rocks that claimed so many ships, even after the Head Light was fully operational. Seaweed and assorted flotsam would get tossed up into the rocks. Most of it would just run off back to the ocean, but in a few places, it would pool up in large rocks. An algae that looked like grass flourished in these tiny ponds, anchoring themselves onto the rock bottom of their little world. We were out on the rocks for the better part of an hour, enjoying the challenge of navigation, investigating interesting details in the rocks, and getting as far out on the rocks as was safe before heading back, taking care to avoid the slippery bits. After this rather extensive exploration, we headed back to the car, over a curved drawbridge, and back onto I-295, which eventually merged quite unexpectedly with I-95. Our destination was Bangor, just a short drive away from Bfahome. (He says that it's pronounced "B-F-A-Home," but I pronounced/sneezed it a little more as it's spelled.) My dad and I met him at a bar & grill in Orono. By the end of the day, we wanted to keep him around to be our new GPS, found out that he owns every university from here to Kingston, Ontario, recited bits from old BIONICLE games and the asdfmovie series, discussed the fun and hats of BrickFair, and generally had a blast. 10/10, would Bfahome again. Tomorrow: Acadia National Park.

Source: Amazing Deal on RPG Maker

To clarify, by 'rag doll' I don't mean the joints are worn and lose (although that would certainly apply). I mean that the design of the joint provides far too much freedom of movement and makes the set flop around. With Pridak it was incredibly difficult for me to pose any part of him without the whole top half turning to the side or bending over forwards. And this is how it was like brand-new out of the box seven years ago. It's a frustrating set to play with, I think. All that said, I'm not opposed to a set having waist articulation. I don't think it's a necessary joint, but if I can be pulled off in a way that keeps the set sturdy then I'll have no reason to complain. I never got Maxilos so I can't comment on how well it worked for him. I don't remember playing with Pridak being terribly bothersome, but it's been a long time. I do think that he did not benefit from the articulated waist nearly as much as a more realistically-proportioned figure would. A rotating waist, such as that of the original Makuta set or Evo XL Machine, might have suited him better than one that can rotate along three axes. But on a more realistic humanoid figure you might very easily want to see a more realistic range of movement, and that includes the ability to slouch, or to tilt the upper body from side to side. Personally, part of the reason I am so fond of the idea of waist articulation is that it's basically the only joint from the Toa Mata that was conspicuously implied with a molded joint but never reliably actualized. We've seen articulation added in necks and wrists and elbows and knees, but hardly any sets have ever gotten real, honest-to-goodness waist articulation. And I think after thirteen years that's a real shame, since obviously it was important enough to the original BIONICLE designers to put a joint there, even if it wasn't one that actually worked.

Wait, you're only a freshman sophomore? Wow. Wouldn't have expected it. Anyway, heed Black Six's advice above, but I must put in my two cents -- if the teachers know the material and can help you become acquainted with it, AP Calculus and AP Physics are must-takes. I took them junior year and really enjoyed them, because my teachers were knowledgeable and helpful. (It also helped that my dad has a Ph. D in Physics and my mum teaches calculus at university, haha, but it was mostly the teachers.) With that lineup, it looks like your high school years are going to be very engaging and stimulating, so... have fun!

That would be at the cost of movie-accurate posing. besides i'm not even sure if the legs would bend enough to get the center of gravity correct. it might just end up falling backwards instead of forwards. I suppose it could be attempted by trying a stepping pose but then it might just fall sideways.

That moment you realize you've had a PS2 since 2002, and your TV is so outdated that you connect it through a VCR. Then you realize: "I've been living like this for twelve years."

We left the labyrinth disguised as a hotel at 11:00, having traversed 1031.5 miles at that point. By 11:22 we'd found our first stop at the Lexington Commons, site of the first skirmish of the Revolutionary War. Green troops on both sides panicked after hearing a gunshot somewhere, and began opening fire around the Commons. Only a handful of people were even harmed, but it nonetheless marked the beginning of the Revolution. We visited the tavern across from the Commons, which houses the original door - a door which gained significant fame by having sustained a bullet hole during the skirmish. It's no longer the door, but is hanging inside, protected by a sheet of plexiglas. According to one of the tour guide ladies, most visitors to the tavern do so to see the door, not to stand in the very room the militia gathered in before heading out into the Commons on that fateful night. The next stop was at the Minuteman National Historical Park, which runs along the road between Lexington and Concord and chronicles the events between the battles of both towns. After a brief tour of the area, we drove around Concord to see the homes of the great Transcendentalist authors - first, the house of the Alcotts, then of Emerson, then Thoreau's Walden Pond (which is honestly more of a lake than a pond), and finally "The Old Manse" - the home of Hawthorne. Between our visits to Walden Pond and the Old Manse, we stopped in downtown Concord and ate lunch at a café. They served what was possibly the best reuben in existence, despite having a typo on the menu that flipped the word's consecutive vowels. This time, it was my dad's turn to have a massive sandwich - a gigantic club that could have fed any lesser man twelve times over. He ate it all. We then headed back out to see the Old Manse, which was next to the North Bridge, the final part of the Minuteman Park and where the British were sniped heavily by the Americans in their retreat to Boston. Seeing this after Bunker Hill means that we're working backwards, chronologically speaking. After this final Concord stop, we headed up the back roads to Lowell, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, the city with the second-most canals in the world (this side of Venice, of course), and the home of the Lowell Spinners. We stopped in for our customary pennant and hat, talked with the sales guy, and then got back on the road towards New Hampshire. We entered New Hampshire (only two more states to go until I've been in all of the 48 contiguous!) at 4:00, and almost immediately saw the White Mountains - a hundred miles due north but still clearly visible. We went through a few toll plazas and exited in Manchester to get a pennant at the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. Of course, that was before we realized how backed up the traffic would be. All the traffic fed over a bridge, and even though the stadium wasn't but a mile or so away, it took us ten minutes because the traffic coming into the city not on the exit would keep going until it backed up through the intersection, regardless of the light. Once we got in, though, it was easy to get back out again. We talked with the guy in the team store for a little while about our travels to minor league stadiums around the country before leaving. Though getting into a little bit of traffic, it wasn't anything like trying to get in. On the road again at a little before 5:00, we passed through the second Concord of the day - this time, the capital of New Hampshire. The traffic on I-93 was busy, but not slow, and it gradually thinned out as we traveled northward. We stopped at a rest area, and then for gas in the community of Northfield. However, there was no re-entrance to I-93 northbound, so we had to go through the sleepy downtown of Tilton to access the highway again. This didn't put us back very much, and we saw more of rural New Hampshire than we expected. After an ominous-looking "MOOSE CROSSING" sign, we entered the White Mountains. The White Mountains are unlike many other mountains - sheer granite, poking straight up or curved. Many seemed unnatural at first glance. We never saw a moose, though - it figures. The moose never find us - we find them. It took us a while on a road with little to no people, but we wormed our way through these scenic mountains all the way to Bretton Woods, where we checked into the very same hotel that the Bretton Woods Financial System was agreed upon in 1944, with the end of WWII imminent and the world in the need of a new monetary order. The only downside to this historic and fancy hotel is that they're hosting a prom from a town an hour farther north, and thus most of the four-star dining establishments in the hotel are booked. We did, however, get 8:45 reservations at a place with the same food but a little more casual dress code, which was appreciated - although we brought along suits and assorted nice bits of clothing, we really didn't want to get overly dressed after a long day on the road. It was, quite simply, one of the best meals that I have ever had. It was easygoing, unpretentious, quiet, and serving four-star food without necessitating getting all dressed up. We took a shuttle over to a small cottage-like converted house, originally build in 1896. The server was polite, knowledgeable, and agreeable. My dad and I had a melt-in-your-mouth filet mignon, served with a bacon-sweet potato hash, roasted asparagus, and a delicious Vermont blue cheese fondue - a cold, brown, delicious cheese sauce on the side. My mom had the Israeli couscous salad - a warm mixture of pearl couscous, tomatoes, summer squash, asparagus, and green onion. Before the main course, we were served some kind of polenta-based concoction served on a demented-looking spoon. It was the only part of the meal I didn't like - it was followed by two kinds of bread with butter sprinkled with brown Hawaiian sea salt, and then a small dollop of apple sorbet to cleanse the palate before the main course. Afterwards, we split a marvelous maple crème brûlée and were served two rounds of peanut butter fudge as another palate cleanser - but it was hardly necessary. The brilliant, succulent, and buttery filets were enough to serve as dessert in their own right. We took the shuttle back to the hotel and looked around. The loud music and general busyness on the prom-hosting wing of the hotel precluded us from seeing the room where the Bretton Woods deal went down - we'll see that tomorrow morning - but we looked around the parts of the sprawling hotel that we could. They have multiple restaurants, an astonishing attention to detail kept up through the years from 1902 to the present, with unique features in every room - from massive pocket doors to curved chairs that look like they're from the set of the villain of a late-60s Bond film. Poking around the basement a little - and even ducking into a former speakeasy known as "the Cave" - we eventually decided to head back to our room in preparation for tomorrow's travels. Tomorrow: the possibility of Mount Washington, en route to Portland, Maine, and then possibly the Bangor area if we feel up to it.

You could arrange the feet in such a way as to create a better distribution of weight...

Echoing Aanchir, the vahki were probably my least favourite sets in the entire history of BIONICLE. Big, ugly, specialized parts that are still nearly useless ten years later.

Meh. As I said in response to the original blog comment, I've always hated the Vahki. Many of their pieces were extremely large and specialized. They were clone sets to the extreme. And their piece counts were rather pitiful even for their time. A Toa Metru would get you between 44 and 49 pieces including unique mask and weapon molds, while a Vahki would get you just 32 pieces with just unique weapon molds — which, by virtue of their enormous size, could still be extremely hard to use. Rahkshi were pretty cool though. Good piece count, and the best articulation any set of similar size could boast at the time. It's a matter of context, really — it says a lot that the only BIONICLE canister set ever with fewer parts than the Vahki was Toa Mata Onua.

It's being toted specifically for Smash Bros right now, but the possibilities get me excited. Will I be able to play Wind Waker HD on the original 'cube controller? Will it work with Virtual Console games? If so, all my problems are solved.

Earlier I was looking at how this year's Hero Factory sets compare to similarly-priced BIONICLE sets in terms of complexity. Turns out they fare rather well. Let's look at one in particular: 44024 Tunneler Beast. Tunneler Beast is a $9.99 set coming out this summer (as such, it's at the lowest price point for this year's sets). It boasts 59 pieces (45 if you don't include the minifigure or his accessories) and 20 points of articulation (15 if you don't include the jaw and fingers, which only rotate along one axis each). A typical Piraka cost $9 in 2006, which according to WolframAlpha would be about $10.60 in today's money. Each Piraka had 41 pieces (plus one extra for Hakann and Thok's weapons) and 13 points of articulation. If we reach back a bit further, the Vahki cost $9 each in 2004, which would be $11.32 today according to WolframAlpha. Each one of those had just 32 pieces and only 10 points of articulation (perhaps eleven or twelve if you count the squeezable launcher-jaws, but that's being extremely generous since those couldn't really hold a pose). Now, obviously I'm being a bit selective here. There are a number of BIONICLE canister sets that had more pieces than Tunneler Beast, particularly if you don't include the minifigure and accessories (though several of those sets, like the Toa Mahri, are inflated by lots and lots of ammo pieces, not to mention a plethora of pins and axles). I don't know if any canister sets have more points of articulation than Tunneler Beast, though. Chirox had just 17 including the chest that splits open, and Pridak had just 16 even if you count the mandibles separately. Even Gorast, with her six limbs, had just 18 points of articulation including the wings! And in any case, you have to be just as selective to suggest that Hero Factory, as it exists today, is considerably LESS complex than BIONICLE sets of similar size or price. Just food for thought. I'm personally fascinated how far Hero Factory has advanced since 2010, when the $7 hero sets were pitifully simplistic and repetitive even by BIONICLE standards. There are some rumors floating around that Hero Factory might be ending soon, and now that it's been around for four and a half years those rumors are starting to seem more believable than every other year of its life that they've been thrown about. But we've been assured that its building system is here to stay, and that gives me great confidence that the NEXT constraction theme will not be hindered by such a rocky start. The new building system really did put Hero Factory on the fast track to greater complexity and diversity of designs, and this year I feel like the Hero Factory sets in general not just one or two have finally stepped out of the long shadow of their BIONICLE predecessors.

*Grabs a handheld fan and dissipates the smoke* For afterall we all know ninjas aren't **** without their puffs of smoke

- Indigo Individual

Wait, what. So the penguins who live in the cold are larger than the penguins who live in the cold...? INFINITELY HUGE PENGUINS HYPE Eh, that must've been a typo on my part. I just kept thinking about how penguins are so COOL!

- Indigo Individual

D'oh! --Different Homer

Arguing on the internet rarely ever accomplishes anything, but I believe it does have the potential to become a positive force for social change if used with care and discretion. Getting angry about injustice is a good thing. Sending hate, being bitter and spiteful, and mocking people is a bad thing. I believe that kindness towards people is never a bad approach. Calling out bad and toxic opinions, however, is appropriate and justified. I will not muddle the issue here: if your beliefs and opinions are called out for being bad, you may be offended, confused, and hurt. BUT. Being hurt and feeling like people are disrespecting your opinions is entirely different from people disrespecting your worth as a human. This means that not tolerating someone for a personal trait is not the same thing as not tolerating someone's opinions. Personal traits such as sexuality, gender identity, skin tone, etc, are not decisions that can be changed through argument and are therefore not equal to opinions and beliefs. So being kind to people, that's an imperative. Accepting their toxic beliefs is not because it is not an intrinsic part of who they are. You may be hurt that someone has disrespected your opinion. That's understandable and that's acceptable. But don't equate the worth of that belief with the worth of a human being. They're not the same. This isn't a debatable issue, they simply aren't. So here's what I'm saying. None of us should simply accept toxic views. It's our job to not only call out dangerous and offensive ideas, but more importantly to educate the person with those beliefs as to why they are wrong. Without education, informed change cannot happen. But disrespecting the misinformed person, that's not cool. Let me clarify: I have not seen any disrespectful behavior towards members come out of these debates. I have, however, noticed a negative and unhealthy attitude spring from my own words and actions over the past few months, and it personally concerns me. I apologize for anyone I've lashed out at. I'm not going to say that to be hurtful wasn't my intention, because it was. I was wrong to say many of the things I've said both on and off site and I'll be attempting to readjust my attitude to be a better person to everyone here in my community. Arguing isn't really worth anything to me, so I won't be responding with anything that doesn't need to be said.