T-Hybrid

Bionicle sets from the beginning were significantly different in design from Slizers. But Hero Factory....? If LEGO had told you that they were just another wave (or form) of Toa would you argue?

I don't get it...it's basically Bionicle figures re-branded as something else. It kinda feels like a bit of a copout to me. I will have to read up more on the line, but I figured when Bionicle ended that LEGO would be trying something new. Not releasing some new Toa under a different name. I know I said we shouldn't pass judgement on something before we know more, but at the same time this doesn't feel right.

It's a good day to be a Twins fan. Mauer is now the 3rd highest paid player in baseball, and has the 4th largest contract in baseball history (the top two are both Alex Rodriquez). I know I may come off biased, but this really is a good thing for baseball that a "small market" team can sign on one of their homegrown stars to such a deal. I give a lot of credit to Mauer's agent, Ron Shapiro, who worked the same magic for Kirby Puckett (again for the Twins) and Lou Gehrig (for the Orioles). I can only hope going forward more agents and players are willing to work with their home teams to make things like this happen. It's also cool to see the Twins finally get to be "that team" making a huge splash with a guy who is arguably one of the best players in his sport.

Seriously? D'OH!

I remember it being a while ago, I just never got around to fixing it. I think I've got it now though...I think.

So at some point, Maj went "away" and became "Majhost". Unfortunately I never really was able to go back and update all my image links. Well, that's what I'm doing now. Or at least, what I'm doing until I bore myself to death. Also, SKOL VIKES!

The Wii is wireless only, so you have to make sure your router (I'm assuming you have one) is open for it to access. Then go to the Wii Setting menu (the Wii button on the home screen), and select Wireless Connection (or something like that). You'll have to send me your friend code once you get it working, and don't listen to them...buy Mario Bros AND Mario Kart.

Nobody gave the Vikes a chance against the Boys, hardly anybody's giving them a chance against the Saints. SKOL VIKES!

For anybody following the NFL, feel free to root for the Minnesota Vikings as they go up against the #1 seed New Orleans Saints. Last year the two teams met in a thrilling Monday Night Game, where the Vikes came out on top despite giving up two TD punt returns to Reggie Bush. With Favre at the helm instead of Jackson/Ferrotte this time around, and hopefully Kluwe having learned his lesson about kicking it away from Bush....this is going to be one heck of a matchup. Who dat sayin' they gonna beat them Saints!

Hadn't really been following LEGO much outside of Bionicle...but was at the store today and saw the LEGO Ben 10 figures. $14-16 for 16 piece sets? For real? I can buy a decent sized Transformer for that kind of money. Not to mention the ACTUAL Ben 10 figures (if I actually collected those). I know there was a lot of hand-wringing when Bionicle was first released. People were concerned that LEGO was losing sight of the original idea of building what you play with. Thankfully Bionicle proved that with a plethora of very talented MOCers. But now this Ben 10 stuff...what the heck!? How can you take 16 pieces and make them into anything remotely different from the original concept? I can't see this line lasting long, even with the Ben 10 license attached.

I don't remember if I wrote this earlier in the year, but my Grandad passed away in June. This Christmas, my Grandma gave me his watch. ...I don't think I'm ever going to take this off. It makes a Hauls Thread seem inappropriate and petty. So none this year. It was a fun Christmas though!

Merry Christmas to everybody. Regardless of what you celebrate, I hope you are able to enjoy this time of the year with the ones that mean the most to you! PS: Expect a post-holiday report on my haul.

I'd prefer to obtain a legit copy. Since I plan on giving it as a gift at some point.

The Insight Bowl might as well be renamed the "Minnesota Gophers Annual Collapse Into Medicority" Bowl. Not that they've ever actually won the dang thing.

So I'm going crazy trying to find a movie that came out a loooong time ago. It's called Sidekicks and it stars none other than the legendary Chuck Norris. I know somebody that is a huge fan of his, and I'm pretty sure they've never actually seen this, so I want to get it for them as a joke gift of sorts. The only problem is I can't find a Region 1 DVD of it, anywhere. If anybody knows a reliable place that might have copies of this, that would be awesome. Best Buy and Amazon have been busts.

For the first time in quite a while, I came away from Black Fridy without having bought anything for myself. However, due to poor research...I currently have three copies of Breaking Dawn sitting on the shelf. This is mostly because stores don't allow returns on Black Friday, and I found progressively less expensive copies of it as I went along. And no, this isn't for me. It's for somebody else. I've never really had bad experiences on Black Friday. Best Buy and Target always do a great job of managing the crowds...and even getting in there around 8 in the morning I still got some great stuff. Was surprised some of it was still available, especially when you're talking $10 or so for a normally $50 DVD set. Wal-Mart was terrible though. Their ads claimed to have all kinds of games at deep discounts, but when I arrived it didn't look like anything of the sort had ever existed. No bins, no slots, no nothing. Horribly marked shelves lead to lots of disappointed (and at times aggravated shoppers). Favorite line overheard at the checkout: "We don't actually need the TV stand, but with a price like that how could we pass up?"

Yeah, this is how I meant it.

I haven't been following Bionicle that closely the past few years, but I guess I wasn't really shocked to learn that things are wrapping up for now. It was one of those inevitabilities that had always lingered in the backs of people's minds...and now it's a reality. I'm not exactly sure what to say here. I remember when Bionicle was first getting started, and I was just getting a feel for what could be done with the sets. And soon they became just another of my hobbies along with other action figures and gaming. It's been what...8 years now? That's amazing when you get right down to it. Look at all the things that have come and gone in that time, such as Galidor *chuckle*, and compare Bionicle to it's predecessors Slizer and Throwbots. Who'd a thunk that this line would have taken off as amazingly as it has. I can only hope that LEGO goes in the right direction with it's "replacement" line, and I hope that Bionicle fans are willing to accept the line for what it is instead of what it isn't. I also hope that the Bionicle storyline will be able to come to a satisfactory close in the time it has left.

It should also be noted that Bionicle gets name dropped in one of the loading screen facts. I think it's something like "More Bionicle figures have been sold than there are people in France and the UK" Does that sound right?

As many have reminded me these past few days, today marks the 25th anniversary of when I graced the world with my awesomeness! Took the day off work, and spent it relaxing. Picked myself up a copy of Foo Fighters' Greatest Hits, and saw The Men Who Stare At Goats. But the bigger part of the afternoon (while I was waiting for friends to get off work), was spent rocking out with that new LEGO Rock Band game. Maybe you've heard of it? I'm a huge RB fan, and also love the LEGO franchise games (favorite thus far being the Star Wars titles). So I owed it to myself to pick this one up. Aside from the traditional Rock Band game play, there's a LOT of charm in here that comes from the LEGO name. While each member of your band (including entourage and road crew) has a default appearance, you are allowed to customize these characters using a wide variety of traditional LEGO parts. This ranges from more standard clothing to various costumes (I recently unlocked Frakenstein and the Wolfman). On top of that, the setlist is top notch for what is considered to be a "side project" comparred to the usual Rock Band title. If you are a fan of Rock Band (of Guitar Hero) I recommend at least renting this. If only because you can rock out to the Ghostbuster's theme (yes, THAT song) in this game. C'mon, you owe it to your inner child!

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Yep. They're silver instead of black.

I was at Target today and saw that they're running a pretty good promo right now. Buy any Glatorian set (Legends or otherwise) and you get a free smaller set of your choice (I have no idea what they are called....Agosi?). On top of that, the sets are a buck off...so really it's too good to pass up. I took advantage of the promo to pick up Mata-Nui (finally) and then since it was free I grabbed the quadrupedal Zesk. I have to say, I'm glad I finally did it because Mata-Nui is an awesome set! Zesk is also really fun for a little set. For starters, it's great seeing a quality yellow set without being overblown like the last few have been. Also, the overall build is pretty impressive, being obviously humanoid and having....HOLY COW...hands. The only set back was that my set apparently got mispackaged, as the groin plate and the piece on his back are the wrong colors. It looks REALLY off given the overall color scheme.

So only a week after going to my first ever WWE house show (which I will get pics up from eventually), I found out at work that I have won two more tickets the Raw show next Saturday. It's at the Xcel Center, in the company suite. This should be a LOT of fun. Bigger venue, slightly bigger stars...hopefully a bit of Y2J (who is awesome). Hopefully I'll have a better camera than my cell phone next time.

I've been reading up on it and it hasn't been directly linked from what I can see.