Swert

The biggest thing to consider with the Olmak from Tuyetverse is, when we asked Greg about it we only asked if he had ever planned to use it again. I don't believe we ever explained further what its purpose would be for. Also I should clarify that "spoiler" was actually HIGHLY exaggerated in that it is certainly one of the biggest mysteries in-universe. Outside of it, there is FAR MORE mysteries that Bones and I came up with that greatly exceeds that particular one.

During MakutaFest 2014, we had a grand prize giveaway of a Lego sculpture modeled after the Legend of Metru-Nui Vahi. The winner was, of course, VoxuChro. When I posted the topic for signup, I mentioned I could only ship to North America, due to cost and insurance. However, to make up for this limitation to our non-NA listeners, I agreed to release the instructions to the public so anybody, regardless of country of origin, could get one of they so chose to make one. Therefore, today I publically announce the download link for the Vahi, including a parts list. Click for ZIP I look forward to seeing photos of anybody's attempt at it, and if you can find improvements on the concept I welcome it (I get the feeling I'll be seeing a few dozen gold-recolored LDD models in the next few days, though. Bring it on, I say 8D) Build on.

About 2 weeks ago, my boss' son came to the studio with about 3 bins in hand. Each one filled to the top with Bionicle. "What's that," I asked. "I'm selling my Bionicle to my dad," he replies. "I'll give you first dibs, though." He knows me too well. So I sift through the first bin, and I notice a pattern. There's -plenty- of Kanohi in here. We're talking A LOT. It was in this moment I elected to go ahead and buy all the Kanohi from him. Literally every one I could find. So I did. And then I talked with Toa Lhikan Hordika, who sent me his spare Kanohi as well. And then I got permission to check the other overstock Bionicle in the shop we had left over, to find more masks I needed. I was left needing only 25 more. I then checked Bricklink. I found every single mask I needed. EXCEPT. FOR. ONE. A stupid Red Miru. Nobody on Bricklink is selling it. Figures. So I'll probably track it down via friends first, then if that falls through I'll come here to BST. Once I secure that one, I'll probably move to buying whatever I need left off of Bricklink, though I bet I could buy more from my list of needs here more than I could there. Anyway, rant over basically. Worth mentioning, I have no current desire to track down Krana, Kraata, Kanohi Nuva, or Kanoka. Likewise no misprints or prototypes. Strictly 01 Mata Great and Noble. That may eventually change, but I'm a simple man who is more than satisfied with the simplest collection known to Bionicle fandom.

Huh, I just might go if that happens.

That certainly beats all my individual Lego store brick-and-mortar purchases by a factor of... all. ... Online though, I have everybody smoked practically Good selections.

The hope train keeps chugging along. It has no brakes : D I am definitely looking forward to this, if it happens. There's no doubt a flood of activity to follow in its wake.

Alright, so if you were part of the randomness that was MakutaFest 2014, you would recall I mentioned something about a grand prize. That grand prize was, of course, a Vahi that was practically life-sized, based on the movie-edition, and made of Lego. It took me ~1 hour to build from scratch in the studio I work at, and took me all of 30 minutes in LDD to build and pose. I then took it into another program to make instructions of it, so others can build it at home. The only difference between the winner (Voxumo, if you didn't catch that at the show) and yourself is he gets it for free. Sadly you will have to locate parts yourself to build it, but at least I used common enough parts. I didn't price this out on BrickLink and/or PAB yet, so I don't know what the overall cost will be, so if it turns out to be too expensive I am sorry. Once I mail the prize to Voxumo and receive confirmation that it arrived safely, I will be releasing the Vahi instructions and parts list for all to use. I had fun designing and building it, and I look forward to 2015 where I probably won't be building a Vahi again

AAAAAAAA I'm looking forward to Jan. 2015 now. Seriously, 20 bucks? That's the best win right there.

TNGM is an acronym, standing for Transparent Neon Green Miru, a selective 2001 collectible mask that was, if memory serves me correctly, given out at LEGOLAND. The rarity of this mask is of a lower level, though given the fact it's no longer produced, there is still a limited number in the world of them. I look forward to performing like a monkey for the hundreds of listeners in 12 hours : D I should -probably- go to sleep, though.

In this case, screenname. We want to be able to identify you in some way to be able to contact you should you win.

Until this sunday, the Vahi is -MINE.- I shall cherish it for as long as it is in my household. But I do hope someone wins it. MAYBE IT CAN BE YOU! YES YOU! Enter by clicking the Vahi image:

It's that time of the year, friends! MakutaFest 2014 will be July 20th at 2:30 PDT (5:30 EDT) and this year we're giving away an awesome grand prize.* *Warning: Prize may include bias from the designer. The prize is a custom-designed Legends of Metru Nui-inspired Vahi sculpture/kit (to be determined if it will have instructions or be built up. Leaning towards the first at this point, it is rather delicate.) So yeah, basically to sign up, post in here with your user name, or email to Mesonak@gmail.com with your BZP screenname. This will be used to identify you during the drawing. Due to the nature of shipping cost, we cannot accept entries outside of North America. To make up for it, I will make the Vahi instructions public after the event, free to all to use. Entries will be accepted until July 19th, 11:59 PDT (July 20th, 2:59 EDT).

I'm going to go ahead and say this: I'm disappointed in this preorder item. If ever there was a perfect opportunity for Lego to release a Green Lantern figure, this was it. The only one left of the more well known Justice League canon is him. I respect them for giving us a lesser known DC figure, but if that's the case I'd rather buy Swamp Thing or something. Plastic Man is kinda lame to me. Having said that, I already preordered at GameStop

Actually, what the major problem so far has been most services keep getting blocked by my tracking protection, so for select sites I've had to disable it. On other examples, such as the site for Nostalgia Critic, I elect to turn it off to benefit them. Amazon gets it full blast, but I suspect they sell data to Google anyway, so there's that.

So, I can safely say that despite my best efforts, Google AdSense still found a way to find SOMETHING relevant to me, either through Facebook or basic Amazon searches. Regardless, it found something to advertise that I may have been interested in: Buying tickets to go to the EMP Museum in Seattle to see the Block by Block exhibit they have there. Sounds interesting! Now I will first start by saying by all means, if you're in the great Pacific Northwest, go see it. Like seriously, go. Why do I advise this? Well, that leads to the next part of the humor of this entry: I had my hand in all 10 buildings featured there. Basically, what I'm saying is I'm indirectly paying for myself by viewing these ads. Also of note, of every ad I've seen of it so far, every one features a building I was lead on. So not only did they pick the wrong audience to advertise to, but they use my own suggested buildings. ... Well, I thought it was funny, anyway :| And by the way, yes BZP also had one of these ads when I signed on today. I've uploaded all three kinds of banner ads I saw to BS01 to share what I see practically daily now. Square ad Tall ad Wide ad

I'll be perfectly honest, I didn't buy a thing for myself this time around. Yet I somehow still ended up with BioShock Infinite's Season Pass on DLC, Borderlands 2 GOTY edition with extra DLC, and The Stanley Parable. Otherwise, I didn't buy anything.

We didn't say we're going to live forever, we just said we don't have TUMORS.

I'm happy with the chosen design, it captures 2004 very well indeed. Congratulations, Silverglass ^^ I would also recommend Lego sand blue, though I think a white graphic would work best if that's the case.

Just placed my order on shop@home, and I decided to apply some VIP points towards it. 1300 VIP points, to be exact. So yeah, I just bought the Spaceship for $38 after taxes. ... I cannot wait for this set. It will be glorious.

I just made my purchase of The Lego Movie off of Xbox Video, and it's downloading 7.3 GB to my 360 now. Soooo I guess I'll be watching it tomorrow night? Anybody else buying it digitally, or are you guys getting a physical copy?

So yeah, I've been busy. ... Very busy ._. On the plus side, I've had a lot of stuff happen. I kicked Sprint to the curb and signed with AT&T. In hindsight, I needed much more money than I had at the time to do this, but I'm confident it won't break me. Because of this, I ended up having to purchase a new phone. It was high time to replace it anyway. I decided to get a Nokia Lumia 1020, a wonderful choice I don't think I'll regret until probably halfway through the contract when the 1030 launches or whenever. The only drawback is this particular phone had a mechanical issue with the camera, so I already called away for a replacement (it'll be here tomorrow). The next major thing is I made some sporadic Lego purchases in the last two months, including the Eiffel Tower set (the new one, not the original; I'm not made of money XD), Wyldstyle's motorcycle, Martian Manhunter, a Green Lantern and White Lantern figure (sadly not the original GL NYCC figure, again NOT made of money), a custom Gambit designed by Brickstorms (they were a vendor in our shop during BrickCon Spring Exhibition), Nick Fury and Aquaman (I have a full set of Avengers and Justice League now, strictly because of those purchases), and Lego The Hobbit (which got me both Good Morning Bilbo Baggins -and- Western Emmet, the guy at GameStop recognized me as "that Lego guy" and had some Emmets left over from The Lego Movie VG. I did not complain once). I need to make room for both the new Minecraft The End set and Benny's Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP set, but those are minor. I think I know where they'll end up, then I'll photograph the new bookshelf once I do. Finally, I made two new poster purchases over the weekend, including the Hunters of Achievements poster and Achievement City. I'll need two new frames, and I'm thinking I'll take down my Pink Floyd tapestry for room. The tapestry served my wall well, but blank canvas is needed, especially for Achievement Hunter. Otherwise, that's the collection thus far. I still need to make a mask out of the Lhikan's Hau from the playset, I just realized. Any suggestions there would be welcome, I think I know how it should be done but I'm still mulling ideas.

Before the days of Hulu and Netflix, we were so big into SG-1 we bought all the DVDs. Ten seasons later, it still remains one of the highlights of our collection. Yeah, Heroes was very emotional. I'm also very fond of the episode Ascension and a few other episodes from various seasons that I can't name off the top of my head. Then there's always comedy to break up the tension. Urgo anyone?

oicwatudidthar. BECCA! : O It's gonna be weird not seeing a teal "Hahli Husky" on the boards now. Sad day for all. GSR! AAAAA YOU'RE AN FL NOW! You should also come by the shop at some point again, we actually cleaned it up and actually mounted that City Blocks mosaic I was working on that one day into a lit-up sign. It's pretty awesome actually. But yeah, YAAAY AWWWW [insert appropriate emotion for one retired staff and one promotion here?].

I picked up a custom Green Pea Toys Green Lantern, however if you want to stick to pure Lego figs, may I recommend the A-Wing fighter pilot's torso (2000 or 2006) as a somewhat-close-enough-to-be-a-vague-GL torso? Also may I recommend looking at making Gambit to go alongside Rogue? She could use some company.