Jump to content

danny316p

Premier Reporters
  • Posts

    420
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

Posts posted by danny316p

  1. Hey, if we can encourage kids to be "master breakers", why can't we encourage them to be arsonists too?

     

    I mean, that's why the cities are all cops and firemen, right?

     

    This is much funnier for those of us old enough to remember when LEGO invented fire...back in 1993. It was nearly impossible to get your hands on enough flames to build a burning building until 1998, when this set came out: https://brickset.com/sets/6580-1/Land-Jet-7

  2. Having something less permanent than Krazy Glue is definitely appealing. Then again, with the variety of brackets and Technic elements that can be used to brace things today, I find that there are very few situations where normal LEGO pieces won't hold well enough already. To make matters worse, LEGO has started making more and more SNOT pieces to the point where most places I've been tempted to use glue, tape, cutting etc over the years are now moot - I could make the pieces stay where I want by swapping out old parts for the newer ones.

     

    I wish we'd tried getting video here - we were allowed to intentionally break some samples of glued bricks at their booth. The real fun would probably be intentionally using this weak glue on something that would eventually be worn down, so the MOC would seemingly break free in the middle of a convention. I'm convinced that with proper planning, LEGO pieces alone could un-glue themselves.

     

    On second thought, this might help with less-sturdy GBC designs, too...

  3. Okay, this is epic.

     

    I’ve always liked snap circuits. Now I have to check to see if my old ones are compatible with LEGO. I never thought to try it.

    Your old Snap Circuits parts are compatible with new Snap Circuits parts. The Snap Circuit thingies connect to the adapters shown in the photo above, which in turn can connect to bricks (which are LEGO System-sized, although they appear to be broadly compatible and the Snap Circuits: Bric Structures set comes with their own bricks). Their bricks and adapters should be compatible with LEGO across the board, although when I asked about them having plate-style connections instead of tile-style connections (with a groove around the side), I was told that the ones I saw are technically prototypes and they may change the exact parts before the sets hit stores. Some of the photos show their specialty separator piece which allows the adapters to be removed from whatever bricks or plates they're on top of.

  4. Firstly, that is one heck of steal. Secondly, I had never heard of Five Below until now. Given the name I assume it's some variety of dollar store offshoot?

    Sort of - it's very teen/youth oriented, so it comes across as relatively "hip", especially in comparison to regular dollar stores. The double meaning of the name is that they're a little cooler, like five degrees below something.
     
    Five Below does appear to be somewhat regional, though - I know when I lived in Florida, we didn't have access to them at all. It would drive me crazy that $5 phone chargers were commonplace in much of the country, but buying the same item at the local Walmart would cost me $20+. I'm much too cheap for that.
     
    I used to like that the cachet was the price point - they carry LEGO polybags and collectible minifigures at regular price, since they're below $5 anyway. In recent years, I've noticed them carrying more off-brand products and even their own store brand of bricks. Their inventory seems to vary more with trends and seasons these days, too - last year they had tons of LEGO Dimensions and fidget spinners, and both are long gone now. Then again, there was a different regional discount chain that got even steeper discounts on LEGO Dimensions, and I never saw any of those for myself (it was in the southwest IIRC).
  5. I didn't watch the show much, but I did see Chima as a big presence at the LEGOLAND parks. I believe the Florida World of Chima has been closed, but as far as I know the Chima-themed LEGOLAND California water park is still there.


    If this page is to be believed, the Chima Water Park is only closed seasonally and will be open again summer 2019: https://www.legoland.com/california/legoland-water-park/rides-and-attractions/

  6. I thought about sharing this as news, but I'd like some outside confirmation first. My local Five Below had the 1x1 round storage bricks from Room Copenhagen in stock today. I wasn't certain of MSRP, but searching online a bit, $5 a pop looks like ~60% off. Definitely a good deal for those of us who like giant system bricks and want more cannister-shaped LEGO storage in our lives. Also definitely a deal for people who have a bin marked 3062b and expect people to know what that means.

     

    When I went to the register, though, there was no sign of these bricks in their system - they rang them up as generic storage containers at $5 each. Checking their website doesn't reveal anything either. I suspect this is a new item that they'll be carrying for a little while, but it's also possible that it's just a fluke that these showed up at my location. Have you seen any of these around?

     

    See:






  7. Also the only colors I know to be in ball joints are black, red, light tan, and now this new teal color.

    (I might be missing some please correct me if I'm wrong.)

    https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=32474#T=C

     

    Curiously, it appears that several non-production colors are available on BrickLink. I suspect spray paint may be involved, although mislabeled colors pop up often enough.

     

    Note that the printed versions would have different BrickLink catalog entries.

  8. I am alarmed by how many members of this forum appear to know the black market street value of a kidney.

     

    So excited for Unikitty! Bionicle fans, take note that Puppycorn's tail is a Bionicle ball joint, adding blue and teal to the colors that part's available in…

    We may need someone to build a ball joint ball color chart.

  9.  

    storage bricks are Room Copenhagen, books are DK, Scholastic, and Klutz,

    There are Klutz Lego books? I like Klutz books but didn’t know they made Lego ones.

     

    Quite a few, actually. We've covered some on the front page here, including How to Draw Ninjago, LEGO Make Your Own Movie, Crazy Action Contraptions, LEGO Chain Reactions, and the upcoming LEGO Gadgets. They vary a bit, with some of them including enough LEGO pieces to build all the models in the book, and others being more of an "inspiration" than a how-to.

    • Upvote 2
  10. Another key thing to remember: "LEGO" is a much broader topic than what's technically made by LEGO. Dimensions sets are actually a Warner Brothers product, stickers are Santoki, storage bricks are Room Copenhagen, books are DK, Scholastic, and Klutz, clocks and watches are ClicTime, etc... you can still buy plenty of real LEGO stuff without buying any excluded "LEGO construction sets".

     

    ...which has been good to know for a while, since Toys R Us promotions and rewards programs have been excluding LEGO for months now. The right strategy is to earn points on LEGO, then blow the points on licensed gear.

    • Upvote 1
  11. Something electronic/rhythmic would be nice, but I think LEGO is too kid/family-oriented to push as far as LCD Soundsystem, never mind something with more of a Nine Inch Nails sound. That leaves, what, pop singers produced by Jack Antonoff? Actually, a female voice would be appealingly different here...

     

    Based on things LEGO is goofy enough to try, I'm going to say they'd shoot for something more like Jackie Chan playing Guns'N'Roses on a flute.

  12. How will we tell the "old" and the "new" apart?

     

    This is pretty cool news! It's great to hear that Lego has found a way to use plant-based plastics while still maintaining good quality. :)

    I figured it was a matter of time after one of the clone brands announced that they'd done it. I figure the bits in the press release about the Chain of Custody and Code of Conduct are why it took so long - and if not, that was brilliant PR spin. We're not falling behind, we just take corporate responsibility more seriously!

     

    *late 2000s meme voice* yo dawg, 

    *2010s meme voice* I understood that reference.

     

     

    Does that mean they'll be cheaper now?

    Currently, there's not a big difference in price between oil-based plastics and bioplastics. Plant-based bioplastics actually used to be MORE expensive, but as the technology's evolved and become more widely adopted it's gotten cheaper while the cost of oil-based plastics has continued to increase.

    Those trends may continue, but I don't think it would have a huge impact on the cost of LEGO sets, as the cost of the plastic itself makes up only a small part of the cost of a set. If anything, as LEGO expands their use of bioplastics, we may see piece counts rise faster than prices.

     

    I remember that trend hitting pretty strongly around the 2008-9 sets. A few set designers said things about how the lower cost of oil at the time meant that they could squeeze more parts into moderate Agents price points.

     

    This is dope.

    No, not hemp, sugarcane!

    • Upvote 1
  13. The DUPLO train was actually much more interesting - I really wish we could have gotten a demo of it. They're billing it as "programmable", and it can be controlled from either the tablet app or from pieces that fit on the track. The details are a little different (and more train-like IMHO) but it's basically a 15-years-of-improvement version of the Intelligent Train series - see set 3335.

  14. I guess having worked at Hasbro this past summer, it'd be neat to get some coverage of their booth just to see whether any of the stuff I'd worked on gets revealed. I do like to have a better idea of what's been officially revealed so that I can know what I'm allowed to talk about. ;)

    A spokesperson for Hasbro promised to send us information about their latest releases after the show.

     

    Mattel invited us to breakfast in their booth on Monday, but we're leaving Toy Fair Sunday evening. They will send us a full press fact sheet tomorrow.

     

    Regretfully, our schedule also means we'll miss LEGO's Global Head for Product Safety & Compliance speaking on Monday.

    • Upvote 1
  15. Maybe he has connections there that could get us on the list.

    FWIW, I've done some searching around to see if I could get us an appointment to visit Mattel for Mega Construx. I haven't been successful. Black Six has tried getting us an appointment at the LEGO booth unsuccessfully in the past too. I think the heavy hitters just don't need us to give them publicity. Even if we decided to get extremely excited about a Hasbro KREO series or a Mattel Mega Construx line, it wouldn't register as a blip on their bottom line (and it's pretty unlikely that we'd embrace a clone brand much anyway). The limited preview thing we've had with LEGO is more like a favor that LEGO's marketing department does for the LEGO community team for a select few recognized LEGO Fan Media outlets.

    • Upvote 1
×
×
  • Create New...