dviddy

Andrew you are such a nerd. Voted and I love the Pokemon names.

It's viewable in Russian- I can almost guarantee the other-language videos are under the control of different regional LEGO company offices.

if your memory is twisting it, mine must be too, because I also remember this kind of stuff being front-page news as far back as 2006 when I first joined. seriously, for as long as I can remember, any time an online store like Amazon has posted set listings ahead of time, BZPower has reported on it. those aren't leaks. they're early, but not leaks. leaks are grainy cell phone pictures of sets or lists of names that have "CONFIDENTIAL" stamped across them in big, bold letters. leaks are when people with access to secret information deliberately betray the trust of whoever is providing it (usually breaking some NDAs and laws in the process) to sneak some pictures or whatever and reveal it to the public when they know they're not supposed to - hence the term "leaks". official sources, especially businesses, getting ahead of themselves and putting up product listings a bit too soon isn't a leak. People get it! And LEGO asking us to take it down (as they did all the ambassadors) doesn't mean we couldn't post it, it just means they got mad at Amazon and are doing damage control. That's life.

I'm still just incredibly jealous of the pitch-perfect fox/dog prancing pose. You definitely deserved the trophy, now let's fix the tail!

It was funny while it lasted.Stop. As per our leak policy, vetted by lego themselves, we were free to post the information. That never precludes lego from asking it to be removed. You're gloating over something you have no understanding over.

I liked these so much I've only stolen like three pieces off of them so far!!

Because that list and this list have very different origins.

I have attended every single Brickfair in Virginia since it began in 2008. We started with a core little group of BZP staffies which I was quick to join, being promoted to staff while at Brickfair itself that first year. What a crazy ride it's been since then! We're down to just two of those first handful of Brickfair folks these days, just Andrew and myself. This has sort of made me sad, and probably him a little too, but something about this year sort of turned that around for me. For a long time after Brickfair became the de facto BIONICLE convention for BZPers and, let's be honest, our staff members, there was a silly/serious east coast conventions vs west coast conventions rivalry, and some weird cliquey things kind of happened. Not only in the different coastal cons, but also within the Brickfair group itself, as we hit critical mass of like thirty to forty members at Brickfair in 2011. I mean, splinter groups are natural, and even now at Brickfair VA we seemingly have two distinct, yet intermingled, groups. The older group, and a group of younger members. We all intermingle at big BZP events, laser tag, dinner, etc, but let's not pretend here- they are two different levels of friendship, and that's okay. What wasn't okay was the exclusivity a lot of us openly yet secretly practiced at these conventions for a long time. It probably started with us just wanting to continue spending quality time with the friends we already had, as for many years Brickfair was our only reunion. And since you spend all year looking forward to seeing those friends, it becomes harder to let other folks into that circle. The fact that our circle was most of the BZP hierarchy was a sad coincidence, and that we were mostly only Brickfair attendees an unfortunate one. First, I want to apologize for purposefully supporting some of this stuff. I really really like almost everyone I ever meet. I'm aware that sometimes my writing has a tendency to come across abrasive, rude, and hostile, not to mention smug and condescending. It's not (usually) on purpose- I'm a person of strong beliefs, strong opinions, but also one who really really likes getting to know people. I've had so many folks in the last seven years tell me they couldn't believe how different in person I was from what they expected after interacting or just watching my posts online. This is tragic to me, and something I've tried so hard for years to counteract. I think at times I'm just too sassy for my own good, and I'm sorry for that too. But the thing is, us wanting to just spend time with our friends turned very quickly into a number of us (not Andrew, who I want to make a strong statement here is the best possible public face for BZP and our staff and our community you could ever imagine) purposefully excluding certain people simply because they had been a west coast con person, or because they were on the bad end of one of our group. I can't count the number of times I've had people in my friend circle over the years say "oh no, person x is coming, let's go avoid them, I don't like them". I'm sorry for that, and I'm sorry for going along with that. I've tried really really hard not to do that the last few years, and I think this convention finally broke it down for me. There are, naturally, going to be people in your lives you don't enjoy being around, and there are still people at Brickfair, Brickcon, BricksCascade, etc, that I want to avoid at all costs, mostly because of events that have transpired in the past that aren't really BZP appropriate. But there are distinctions- those people did things morally incorrigible, things that border on the illegal or obscene. I'm not talking about that. This year at both cons I've attended I got to break through some barriers and sit and talk with people I've known for years but never talked to. I regret the last part immensely, as some of them are quite possibly some of the best people I could ever want in my life. I mourn years of potential close relationships lost. I strive to make that a different experience in the future. This was a weird convention for so many reasons, but this is the biggest takeaway for me. I didn't win any trophies, and honestly I don't care at all, as if I weren't a selfish human being who voted for my own MOCs, I would have easily voted for both that won, as both were higher quality than anything I brought with me. Congrats to both Jess and Trisha, your MOCs were the highlight of the BIONICLE section for me and so many others! There weren't a lot of high-profile system MOCs, and I don't think Brickfair has ever seen such low public attendance. But I got to spend time with so many good friends, in so so so so many good conversations, and I got to spend time with so many new good friends. I am especially glad for the deepening and solidifying of one friendship in particular, and I hope it is one that lasts long into the distance. This is way more rambling than I intended and I'm not sure this is what I set out to write, which was going to be more of a retrospective on being at eight Brickfairs in VA, but this is what came out, so it's probably what needed to come out. I've been thinking about it a lot. Anyway, basically, let's all be friends except for the small number of you who are actually bad bad people. Which is like three of you, ever, in the history of the site, probably. TL;DR: Life is messed up, Brickfair is a good time, I'm old, yay friends.

You're one of the good ones, Ben.

I have one of those masks, and I think Yanni does as well. The rarest item I own is probably the trans-orange mask of fire with a solid center. As far as I'm aware it's the only one that exists. I also have a prototype Lehvak, and a prototype McToran Matoro, and a good number of the misprints, prototype masks and parts, the NYCC masks, the SDCC mask, etc.

You're so old god.

It's okay, we are so adorable that we terrified you into skipping us! Or something. I don't know, but don't feel bad about it, Brickfair is crazy.

We didn't get to spend a lot of time together- but the time we did I cherish deeply. I hope it's obvious after this weekend that even though we don't talk a lot, you are an important person to me and to many others, and we will always do what we can to keep you going, and to keep you well. You are our friend! I'm so glad you were here this year.

Oh man, tell me about it. I'm keeping the look on people's faces when I showed Metalbeard's gear function close to my heart. You absolutely deserved that trophy. I'm so proud of you!

Hi Nate!

This is true. I won one of the three games last year, she won the other two. This year I placed second and third, though the second game my pack turned off halfway through and it reset my score to zero and I had to catch up. I feel like third was pretty good considering.

The MOC situation was weird. I've never seen such a low turnout at Brickfair before, and it's been discussed in the backend after the con has ended now too. I've never been able to say Brickcon has a better display based on quality before, because Brickfair normally blows the rest out of the water, but MOC registration and talent was weirdly low this year. Same with public attendance, where we did less than half what we normally do. Just a really weird year.

I am so glad you were there! It was a great time hanging out, and I'm glad you got to see some of us more behind the scenes. We're a rascally group, and I think any idea of us being sticks-in-the-mud or boring rule-obsessed folks is pretty easily shattered in person. We're honestly pretty terrible.

The saying too much thing worked out okay in the end, I think. I'm glad we're friends!

Going to echo this pretty hardcore. I wish we could report on these projects in a less "GO GIVE THEM YOUR MONEY" kind of way, too.

"There *is* an official reason" should be "there *was*"... Nope. The official reason there was no review is still a current official reason. Ergo, there is an official reason why there was no review. We only do reviews for sets currently available.

Okay but there is an official reason for the lack of a review. Until recently when TLG finalized an official site support position, we were sent sets to review sporadically. So most reviews were done by staff members who went out and purchased the set themselves (which is still how we do most of our system reviews). Simply put, no one bought it and wanted to review it. There was an attempt to do an official bzp staff video review at Brickcon that year, but it didn't meet our quality standards at the time.

As had been said before, the bag was not a donation to bzpower, but to B6, Tufi, and myself. We did indeed save several dozen for bzp itself, but we parted the rest out amongst those of us in our hotel room at NYCC. Some of those from our collections have already been available, I hosted a blog contest whet I gave away five, and I also take one with me once a month to LEGOLAND CA to give to a random person who seems interested in the BIONICLE section.

It will be fun and I will have your prize from that contest since you never sent me an address!

ISO is your camera sensor's sensitivity to light. A lower number means a lower sensitivity, and higher number means a higher sensitivity. 100 is standard and "normal", but terrible for low-light situations, as the sensor is not very sensitive to light and won't pick out the variations in a dark room. Note too that higher numbers have more noise, as the higher sensitivity comes at the expense of sharpness. So a lower number will be sharper, but needs more light, and vice versa. In point-and-shoots or for people not using any manual settings, I suggest leaving it on auto. AF lock is auto-focus lock, and this happens automatically on all digital cameras when you push down the shutter button. However the button with this label also comes in handy if you are shooting a moving scene and want to freeze an action in a blurry background, as you track the subject. You can hold it down and freeze your focus at that exact length and distance. It's handy, but I don't think I've ever used it. AE lock is exposure lock, it lets you lock the exposure settings in for multiple shots instead of the camera changing them in between. You'd want to use this if you're shooting a lot of photos at once, or if you're shooting something for a panorama, or if you're shooting things in sequence, really. FE lock is flash lock and since you'll probably never change your flash settings (most people don't), and since the on-camera flashes are all so terrible and should be avoided like the PLAGUE, you will probably never use this ever. I haven't, and most pros I've talked to haven't either (of course, most of us use off-camera flashes we bought extra, too.)