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Intro Today is the last Weekly Update in April. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing, but I thought I'd point it out. Anyway, we have a whole lot of nothing for you tonight, with some more rehashes of stuff you've already been told. Yeah I know it's no fun, but it's the truth. Updates So, first things first, the Calendar. A couple events are up there - if you look hard enough, you might find something really cool. Speaking of calendar events, go let us know what you think our spoiler policy should be so we can add events as needed to the calendar. Next, member interviews will hopefully start early to mid May, once my semester has ended and I can focus more time on organizing things. It'll be here, don't worry. Oh, and maybe sometime soon there will be some interesting staff announcements. Maybe. Mailbag That promotion ended a long time ago. We don't have any Kratta anymore to give away. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion And so my much ado about nothing concludes. If you want to see more stuff in here, leave some ideas in the comments or in my PM inbox!
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Intro Doctor Who season premier on SciFi tonight, so I better get this done quickly! A lot of people are really busy this time of year, what with taxes, and semesters ending, and AP tests approaching, so don't be surprised by the lack of activity. Updates One piece of news I'm happen to report on is that is all goes well we should have a new set review up tomorrow! You'll have to wait to see what the set is, but there aren't very many options at this point. The setting for the calendar have all (hopefully) been configured, so we should start seeing some updates on there in the next week or so. If there's something you think would be a good addition to the calendar, leave a comment or PM me or another staff member so we can see about adding it. That's about it for now, we're still working on getting the Member Interviews up and running, but I wouldn't expect to see the first one until May. If you have any questions you think we should ask members, let us know in the comments! Mailbag Well, it just so happens that our next BBC Contest is #50. That may or may not mean something special is happening. You'll have to wait and see. 1) We're hoping to be able to still be able to ship out those Hunas, but the details are still being worked out. 2) See above. 3) That is one of the things we are hoping to do with the calendar. Check out the rest of the update for a little more info about this feature. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion I hope you feel you have been properly updated and enjoyed this edition of our Weekly Update. As always, leave us your questions, comments, and other feedback.
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Intro Another week, another update. Not very much exciting to discuss, but read what you will and enjoy. Updates We're looking into getting the calendar started up and populated with events soon by our staff members. And maybe we'll let you guys add some events at some point. If we do they'll be moderated so we have to approve them before they're live. If you can think of any types of things you want to see on the calendar, let us know so we can include them. LAMLradio #33 was posted the other day, and while I wasn't on it, BZPower did get a mention for our April Fool's joke. I'm glad to see that other Lego fans liked it. In other news, it was interesting to see Greg's announcement of the book schedule for next year. I guess that just goes to show the books have not been the best sellers in the Bionicle line. Maybe this is a sign that Bionicle will start focusing its storying more in the comics and on the website again like in the beginning of Bionicle. Or maybe it will boost book sales. Only time will tell. On another not, do you think the weekly updates are something that should be advertised more, maybe mentioned in the forums or on the front page (not as a news item, but maybe a sidebar link)? It's hard to tell just how many members read this, and I'm sure there are people that don't visit that could get something out of reading this or provide some nice feedback. Thoughts? Mailbag 1. Like I'm doing my job. It's not a power trip or anything, just something that has to be done for the betterment of the site. 2. First I would have had to wait for the Proto system to have been implemented, and then get boosts. So probably a couple of years. 3. Dealing with people that don't follow the rules. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion That's about it for tonight. As always, leave your comments, suggestions, and feedback in the comments so we can make things better.
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Intro Welcome to the BZPower Weekly Update. As always I'm here to tell you about stuff that's happening on BZPower and such. And then it will be time to watch some Battlestar Galactica before the final season premiers. Updates Obviously the biggest news this week was the announcement of a new line of Bionicle books. Ok, so maybe it was an April Fools joke, but it was still pretty funny. Major thanks go to Bionicle.com webmaster and former BZP Admin Binkmeister. He pretty much thought up the whole thing and made the very convincing mockups – you rock Kelly! While it may not have been a huge site takeover, I think it still succeeded as a prank, and was much more potentially believable than something like VahkiPower (which still rocked in its own regard). Of course there's also BBC Contest #49 going on now. Can you make something awesome using only black, white, and grey? Speaking of contests, the RPG Forum COntest #9 is all wrapped up now, congrats to the winners and all the entrants that made this a bigger contest than we've had in a while. Member interviews are still in the planning phase, more on that as progress is made. I also recently appeared once again on LAMLradio and got to talk with James. It's fun to go on there, but when the talk goes to building I'm not exactly the best person to have on the show. Don't worry though, James has asked me for a little help on something and hopefully it will result in Bionicle getting even more attention on the show. Finally, I direct your attention here. Would you like to see this used for more than just birthdays? What do you think could be posted on there? Contests seem like the obvious choice, but anything else? Let me know what you think! Mailbag 1) Much less stressful than the six and a half years the followed. 2) Forum Leader; I still get minions to boss around, but don't have to worry about any of the big stuff. 3) Premier Members and Outstanding BZPower Citizens did not exist when I joined. I went from being a Member to a Moderator. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion That's all for today and this week. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, be sure to leave any questions, comments, or feedback you might have!
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Intro Thank you for joining me for another fun-filled weekly update. Well, maybe the filling won't be fun, but that's up to you to decide. Read on to find out. Updates So the response from last week about the member interviews was pretty positive. So much so that we're hoping to move forward with it soon. Not sure when, but when we are there will be an official-type announcement. Just so you all know, this is an example of a member suggesting an idea and us running with it and making it happen. So don't think we don't listen. Aside from that, something I mentioned in the update two weeks ago might be coming to fruition too pretty soon. But you'll have to wait to see what exactly that means. Also, be sure to vote in the RPG Contest Semifinal Polls before they end tonight. If you're reading this and the semis are closed, you can find the final poll in this forum. Go vote and then join us in the RPG Forum for some Roleplaying Action! Mailbag 1- If I knew how to keep him from coming back, he'd have been gone a while ago. He keeps on reappearing though. 2- Time, patience, and proving I was the best (or maybe only) candidate for the job. 3- There are always spam topics. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion And that's it for this week's update. Hope you enjoyed it. As always leave your comments and feedback, and see you next week.
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Okay, last week I was in Florida on my Spring Break so I couldn't make a entry. My dad has also banned me from going on the computer, so I might not do entries every week. I got three important things on my vacation: Lewa Phantoka, Tanma, and Shadows in the Sky. All three are awesome, and I can't wait to get the other Nuva. We got CGI images of the summer sets, and they look a lot better than the ones at the Toy Fair. Gorast's mask power is disruption of elemental powers and Bitil's is summoning versions of himself from the past. Bitil's sound like he can create an entire army of clones. We still don't know what Krika's is, though. Krika is the one responsible for Takanuva flying, and Takanuva has just found out that Bomonga has killed Btuaka in the Dark Mirror universe. So he is trapped there for now. Tren Krom is just nasty. Skull-faced, red, tentacled? Ughhhh. *Shudders* Lewa almost got drained by a Leech, and Chirox created the Lohrak and Doom Vipers. This is only a little, but all I have time for right now. That is all for last week, my fellow BZPower citizens. Here are the CGI images: CGI Images
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Intro Today is the first full day of Spring, and with the return of warmer weather in the Northern hemisphere I was greeted this morning to a reading of 29° F on my thermometer this morning. Spring may be a wash so far, but today's Weekly Update isn't. Read on to see what we have in store. Updates Currently there are two contests going on here at BZPower that hopefully most of you are aware of. Voting has begun in the BBC Contest #48: A Slice of Life. Semifinal voting ends tonight and the final round will begin soon after. Be sure to cast your votes! And, of course, the Ninth RPG Contest is underway as well. The entry period ends tomorrow at 11:59 PM, so there's still a little time to get your RPGs entered. After that voting will begin! This RPG contest is looking to be much bigger than some of our recent ones. I'm glad interest has been rekindled. In other news, not much happened. There's been a steady stream of content from Bionicle.com and BionicleStory.com, thanks to our good friend Kelly (aka Binkmeister) that has been keeping all the story buffs busy. Aside from that, however, there has been relatively little news to discuss. That's ok though, quiet periods happen. It just means that sometime in the near future there's going to be a flood of new stuff happening! One thing someone suggested to me is interviewing different members and posting the interviews on the front page. It would sort of be like the Member Spotlight, except go into more detail and be an active member, not just someone randomly pulled from the database. Personally I don't think the front page is the best place for it, but would anyone be interested in seeing this happen either on the forums or here in my blog? Let me know in the comments section! Mailbag 1. The staff have to pay for Premier Memberships as well. The only exceptions I'm aware of are the Administrators. 2. What's so special about April 1st? 3. Yes there would be a possibility. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion So that's it for this week; I hope you all enjoyed reading the update. Please leave comments, especially about the idea of member interviews. Your feedback is always welcome and appreciated. Until next week!
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Intro It's not quite the Ides of March, but in fact, it's better. It's PI DAY. The day to celebrate such an important number in the world of mathematics. I will be celebrating after I post this. Oh and also it's time for our Weekly Update. Updates Unfortunately I was not able appear on LAML Radio this past week. I was sick on Saturday. I should be able to get on there in the next couple of weeks though. It's been pretty slow in terms of Bionicle news, so there's not much to discuss this week. One thing I will mention refers to behind the scenes stuff. I have been thinking of some ways to help organize things on the site, as far contest and such. Would you guys be interested in that sort of thing? Mailbag 1) Usually for our anniversary all members get the benefits of Premier Members. This includes the ability to start blogs. Once the anniversary week is over they can no longer update their blogs. If you mean me in particular, I'm an Admin, so I get all the Premier perks. 2) When we need them. 3) Someone created another account with an invisible character in their name the make themselves look like me. They then used that account to spam. They have been banned. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion Yeah so that's it for this week. Go eat some pie and enjoy the mathematical holiday! As always, feedback is welcome and requested.
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Well, from now on I will do weekly entries. (That is, if I remember to.....) Well, Shadows in the Sky came out this month, and spoilers will be allowed on Saturday. But now, let us scream the one thing we can say. TERIDAX!!!!!!!! The Makuta of Metru Nui's real name at last. Finally. The OGD was locked by ET this week because we put up so many spoilers. And Toa of Kenn's awesome new topic about his Mutagen theory is amazing. He has the whole thing figured out. Bonesii has awarded him the Golden Key to Nongu award, which is neat. And, on a different subject, a new game is up on the web. Chirox and Kirop finally get some action. Federation of Fear came up this week, and the most important thing: Botar is DEAD. We get the name of the nine-foot tall warrrior from Gali's blog, though. His name is Trinuma. The team has been given weapons, but they are trapped on the island of the Mainland by the mysterious and disgusting Tren Krom. Brutaka has been captured by him also. I am now a Steely Visionary. Fear my white Akaku. And, courtesy of Hihkan:ChosenOneOfLight, I have a new pet leech, Cade! He goes with me around the forum. You can see him sleeping or eating on my posts. For now, that is it. Goodbye, peoples. ~~
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Intro This week seems to be another Mailbag Extravaganza, so there probably won't be a whole lot else here. I'll see what I can do though. Updates So first off, I'd like to once again congratulate Nikira, Taka-Tahu-Nuva, and Takuta-Nui as our newest Forum Assistants. It's always how funny how nervous they are at first but how quickly they settle into their new roles. What can I say, I pick them good. That's pretty much all I have to say this week, things have been very slow and life has been very busy. I'll let you enjoy another huge batch of mailbag questions now. Mailbag We know the ranks are out of date. It's one of the many things on our list to update. As far as plans, I'm afraid I can't say anything officially. 1. There was no activation lever I could see, but the tips are all linked so that if you move one the other two move as well. The same goes for the Midak bays on the T9 and the wings on the T6. 2. I'm sure there will be something to replace it eventually... 3. Already answered. 4. I do think I've read about it somewhere. I'd have to know more about it before I even considered endorsing it in any way. 5. Well, the Rockoh can fly and attack from a distance, so I'd say it has the advantage. 6. Hard call. My guesses would be Dume for the first and Axelara for the second. 7. Never spit into the wind. 1. Switch to a major that you can do something with like engineering. 2. Hablo un poco español. 3. Does Guitar Hero count? Didn't think so... 4. Depends on the situation. I'm still accustomed to Imperial for most everyday things, but for anything scientific it's metric. 1. No, solamente hablo ingles. 2. Enough. 3. That's not a question. 4. Flight or regeneration. 5. Nope. 6. Nope. 7. When I was little, I read children's books. Then I jumper right to adult fiction pretty much, so nope. 1: Log directly into the server and restore everything. 2: The first. 3: Long story. 4: I'm not sure what you're referring too. 5: Well, you wouldn't know where or when to show up, and if you did they wouldn't let you in, since you're not on the list. 6: Enough of what? 7: 2001. 8: We'll get to them. 9: I might go with Krika. 10: Takanuva. 11: Right now I'm answering questions. The last game that was in my Xbox was Guitar Hero 3. 12: Black 5ix 13: Zero. 14: No. 15: The original. I never even bothered getting the others on DVD. A) When this topic was posted. B) The first game I got for Xbox was Halo: Combat Evolved, after playing it for hours and hours with my friends. C) What's in a name? Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion That's it for tonight. Please send/post any questions, comments, or suggestions you have. I look forward to reading them.
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Intro Welcome back to what I'm sure you all look forward to on Friday evenings: BZPower's Weekly Update. Not much new these past seven days, but take a gander anyway. Updates Congratulations to Kex and Smeagol4, our newest Forum Leaders. I think everyone agrees that they earned it with all the hard work they've put into the site over the years. In other news, we should have a new set review up tomorrow, after a bit of a hiatus. Don't worry, we haven't forgotten about them. After the initial rush though, things tend to slow down. We'll get to them all though. 39,000 members. That's a lot. Some people have said numbers aren't important, and in the big scheme of things they're not. But it's still pretty awesome if you ask me. Finally, I may be appearing on LAML Radio's Lego Talk Podcast again soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that! Mailbag 1) You get invited by Lego. 2) An understanding of the rules, respect of the site, members, and other staff, a good attitude, and fun-loving nature. Probably some other things too. 3) Umm... no. 4) Sorry. 1 - What defines a "great topic"? It's all up to the members to decide if they like it or not, nothing I can do. 2 - You mean Bink? No, we've never met. 3 - Nope. 4 - We felt we needed some more to help out since other Forum Leaders have been busy and not as active. 5 - Lego has graciously invited us since 2003. We represent a large portion of the Bionicle fan-base, and Lego likes for us to get the information out to you guys as quickly as possible. 6 - Yes. 7 - Every now and then, but not often. 8 - I guess it's a genetic thing. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion So that's it for this week, thanks for reading. As always, give me some feedback so I know how I can improve future shows. Until next time!
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Intro Alas, ToyFair has come and gone, and we have to wait until next year for similar excitement. Our coverage isn't quite done yet, you can expect one more article about the new sets that weren't on display at the Collector's Party. But now it's back to the grindstone. Updates First off, I'd like to thank Andrew M for coming up to NYC and attending Toy Fair with me. I'm glad he was able to come and hopefully in the future he'll be able to join me again. I'm not going into discussion of the sets anymore here; I think that's something I've covered extensively elsewhere. Next, I want to thank Toaraga for the honor of being the very last Blog of thee Week. Yes, it is indeed the very last one. That doesn't mean this will be the last you hear from the Blog Team though, so don't fret. We're just looking at some new and different ways to promote blogs and to thank Premier Members for supporting our site. Now that things like the above are over, I'm hoping to have some more time to look at some other things on BZP. This may be short-lived, however, as the next RPG contest is coming up. We may be making some changes to that, but you'll have to wait until March to find out. As far as those other things, we may have some more changes in the staff, or maybe we won't. Not much else to say, so I suggest you just go ogle the new sets for now and let us get some work done. Mailbag 1. You mean there are sites other than BZPower? Nope. 2. Kapura seemed to have it pretty sweet. 3. I think either the Jetrax T6 or the Axalara T9. 4. Sure. 5. What's the catch? 6. Kirop in the sixth round with a knockout. 7. If you say so. 1- I wish it was. 2- I'm guessing it has something to do with his plans to take over Minnesota, but I can't be sure. 3- So I could beat the game and see how it ended before someone spoiled it for me. And I did take a couple short breaks. 4- I love it. I haven't played it recently, but I'm working on my third playthrough. I can't wait for the DLC for it. 5- Yes. Things were so much simpler before. 6- I just play a mean person on BZP. In reality we're good friends. 7- No, that was the other Andrew. 8- Never. 9- Such a hard question. I think I'll go with The Matrix if I had to pick just one. 1) I had been using the name for years before coming to BZP. The name's origins are shrouded in mystery. 2) Fox. 3) This topic may have been it. 4) It was a dupe topic. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion And that's it for tonight. As always, please send or post your questions or comments. Also, if you have a topic or something you would like me to discuss, just ask, I'm more than willing to take something and run with it. Goodnight all!
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Intro Welcome back to another edition of the weekly update. I'm your host Black Six, but you can call me Andrew. Let's see what's happened this past week in the Bionicle world. Eh, who am I kidding, things have been dull... for now! Updates The highlight of tonight is the Mailbag. I had a massive number of questions submitted over the past week and it took a while to work through them all, so the rest of this issue might not be that long. Sorry, you'll get over it. One thing I mention in the Mailbag that I'll go into more detail about here, is the BZPower Staff Page. This past week it has actually been updated somewhat! Sure most of the bios are out of date, but now it's organized by staff group (Admins, Globals, FLs, etc...) and the members are now listed in alphabetical order! I know, it's amazing. I'm still looking into maybe adding a couple small new things on there, but if there's anything you guys think we can do to make it better, leave a comment or send me a PM! The other thing I'm going to talk about is the LAML Radio podcast I've now appeared twice on. I really enjoy it, especially since it's like having a podcast without having to do all the work editing and hosting it (James, your dedication is inspiring). I think it's a nice break from the norm and I like getting the chance to talk about some other things in the Lego world aside from Bionicle. What do you guys think of it? Of course, there have been a few news items this week, the biggest, I think, being the new Bionicle games (released today on Bionicle.com) and the Bionicle Battle Cards that were found in Croatia. According to Bink, they're going to be making their way through Europe, so keep your eyes peeled for them! Oh yeah, tomorrow is ToyFair! Who wants to see a photo journal like I did back in October when I got my new computer? Let me know soon so I know to take random pictures tomorrow. Mailbag 1) Every now and then. I've actually been doing some work on the staff page recently. You can see that the staff are broken up by their group and there are a couple new bios. 2) Hard work, lots of posting (meaningful posts) and great timing. 1. I would figure out what being in fate meant, and then I would take appropriate action. 2. If the sausage happened to be sentient and liked Bionicle, it very well might join BZPower. 3. I'm not a fan of colas, so I'd have to pick water as my favorite beverage, with Sprite and iced tea close behind. Who said I decided? Perhaps I was told to be an admin. There was an opening, it needed to be filled, and I was the best candidate, so someone had to do it, and that someone was me. #1 Every time something crazy happens and I have to deal with it, a little part of me wouldn't mind stopping. #2 I've always been a fan of RPG. #3 Getting to tell people how the world works while only having a slightly more than cursory understanding of it yourself. #4 "Cross my heart, smack me dead, stick a lobster on my head." #5 Nope. #6 This one. 1: The practical applications of cloning have yet to be fully realized, but I think I've found at least one good use. 2: It was cooler than the Bionicle fan site I was running at the time on Yahoo! 3: Maybe around a dozen for the original Xbox and another dozen-ish for Xbox 360. 1 - Well, you see, due to the causal effects of the this, the that, and the other thing, conditions occur at just the right time and place to make it so. 2 - Let's go with the Piraka, they were pretty good villains. 3 - Muaka and Kane-Ra were pretty sweet back in the day. 4 - Nope, not a fan. 5 - I felt it was time for a change. 6 - Yes. 7 - Me, as illustrated by Schizo Kaita. 8 - A dolphin. 9 - I'm his boss. (1) Muaka and Kane-ra, as above. (2) Tahu. (3) Fire. (4) I think Bionicle Heroes or the Mata Nui Online Game. The Voya Nui Online Game sucked me in for a while too. (5) Definitely. (6) Three more Toa, three more Makuta, and some larger sets. I keep my expectations low so I'm not disappointed. (7) I think the art style is pretty cool. It's a lot more set-oriented then Sayger's style was, but that's not a good or bad thing. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion And that's all folks! The next you'll be hearing from me will be after ToyFair in wonderful New York City!
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Intro First and foremost: congratulations Giants! Sorry Patriots fans, but it was a great game, and the best team won. Anyway, Bionicle. There were definitely some interesting stories this week and it should be interesting to see how they turn out in the long run. Updates One of the biggest stories this week is that Wal Mart stores have stopped ordering Lego products. Anything you see on the shelves is all that's going to be there until some sort of deal gets worked out. Some people have been blaming Wal Mart, others on the Canadian government. Very few have been blaming Lego, though in truth all parties are at fault in some way. Now I'm and engineer, not a politician or banker, so I try to not worry myself about these sorts of things. Hopefully though, we'll see democracy and capitalism at work. The Canadian dollar has a value as determined by the market. That price should dictate how much Lego charges for selling their sets to retailers and customers. As the Canadian dollar has risen, however, the cost of sets (and other products imported into Canada) has not fallen. From people I've talked to in Canada, it's gotten to some ridiculous levels. Now, I'm sure Wal Mart and Lego want to keep making money, and I'm sure there are lots of people in Canada creating a demand for Lego products that shop at Wal Mart. There will be a resolution, as they would be stupid to do nothing and lose potential sales. The next important item is that the new artist for the Bionicle comic series has been revealed, one Leigh Gallagher. There has been a very positive response to the teaser page we posted (thanks to Greg for that). Many say it calls back some of the earlier comics that were illustrated by D'Anda, and I'd tend to agree. Don't get me wrong, Stuart Sayger definitely left his mark on Bionicle, and I think change is good to keep things interesting, but every now and then it's nice to get a little throwback. Aside from that, we should have a Radiak review posted tomorrow, and hopefully a few more after that. Toy Fair is a week from tomorrow (so don't expect any set reviews next weekend, just pictures of new sets!). So some cool stuff to look forward to. Mailbag Finally, some letters! As a young child I received lots of Lego sets as gifts over the years. They were great creative toys that provided hours of fun, more than any of my other toys. My interest in Bionicle stemmed out of that, combining the creativity of Lego with the story of Bionicle that we all know so well. Nope, things are generally very busy. As for an article, I always thing it's great to look at how Bionicle has changed over the years and the story and sets have evolved (for better or worse). The best perk, eh? The giant avatars are nice, but I'd have to go with getting invited to events like ToyFair as being pretty awesome. An average day depends on the time of year. Right now I'm taking classes, so my average day consists of waking up, having some breakfast, going to class, doing homework, having some dinner, going back to class, doing more homework, and then catching up on BZPower. Eventually I go to sleep. You're a volunteer. Volunteers don't get paid. Oh, and I like my french fries to be from China. I was just stocking up. It was because I'm older, smarter, and better looking. Oh and that girl was a friend of mine, so I don't think she was trying to defend you too well. Only if you pronounced it nook-yoo-ler, otherwise I have plenty. Those are my engineering manuals. You'd be surprised the crazy things that go on to make the world work. Oh and that pentagram? That was, um, err, your invitation to ToyFair. Yes. Because it begins with 'A,' ends with 'w' and has 'ndre' in the middle. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion That's it for this week, but it was more than usual, so be happy! Until my next blog entry, have fun on BZPower!
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Intro So, the weekend is upon us again. And that of course means it's time for another Weekly Update. Read on to see what's new this week. Updates It's been another week and we've had no more reports of the virus affecting anyone. I'm glad things have finally cleared up. The announcement I mentioned last week was of course that all forum staff have been given the ability to approve posts. This has definitely sped things up and gets new members onto BZP faster. It's good to see things working out. Tomorrow should be the debut of the Makuta Icarax review. There are only a few more sets to be reviewed from the first wave of 2008 sets. Hopefully we'll get them all done before the second barrage comes at us. Thanks again to all the staff that have been reviewing sets! Speaking of the second wave of sets, ToyFair is now only two weeks away! I will be attending as I have for the best few years, and joining me for the first time will be our newest reporter, Andrew M, aka Smeagol4. It should be a fun time in the greatest city in the world. Oh and speaking of New York, go Giants! Mailbag Come on guys, let's get us some questions! Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion So that wraps things up for this week. I hope you enjoy tomorrow's review, and for those of you that are football fans, enjoy the big game on Sunday - I hope I do!
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Intro It's that time of week again. BZPower has been pretty slow lately, but there are a few things on the horizon. Read on to see what's up! Updates First off, as you can see in this story our recent virus problems have now been solved. If you still see some kind of message, clear your cache/temporary internet files and try again. Next up, reviews have been going great! Vamprah should be up tomorrow with any luck, and there's at least one more on standby after that. The new review system we've switched to (behind the scenes) has really sped things up in the time it takes staff to make the reviews and the time it takes me to post them. I'm really please with how it's working out. As far as the forums go, we should have an announcement tonight or tomorrow that should help get posts approved quicker. We're also looking at some long-term changes and improvements to help make things run smoother. Speaking of long-term, ToyFair is in three weeks, and BZPower will be there, more on that as it gets closer! Mailbag No questions this week. Send some in! Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion So that's it for this week. Hopefully that will sate your curiosity. As always, I welcome all comments, questions, and criticisms. So until next week, farewell!
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Intro Very short update this week. Not much to say with school back in session. Updates We've been getting a lot of reviews up lately. Other than that there hasn't been much. We're still working on cleaning up the server, making a little progress, but no big updates. You will see something tomorrow, but you'll have to wait until then to see it Mailbag 1)We work things out so there are no duplicate reviews. 2)I have a template 3)I'll wait until I see the summer sets at ToyFair. 4)I know at least ten that I can think of offhand. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion Sorry for the short update. Maybe something cool will happen next week.
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Intro Another Friday, another week in review. There has been plenty of little things popping up recently worth discussing, and I will do so here. So let's see what happened over the past few days. Updates First and foremost, we are aware of the leaked images of the summer 2008 sets. Lego has asked us not to post any images until Toy Fair in February, and we intend to oblige. If they start to become a serious problem, the usual warnings and administrative actions will be taken. Next up, we had the LAMLradio interview. A lot of people seemed to like it and a bunch seemed surprised by my voice, for whatever reason. We're definitely interested in following this up with either more interviews or a Podcast of our own, but only time will tell what that brings. As many of you have seen, a bunch of new content and designs have been spread throughout the official Bionicle sites. I personally think Kelly has been doing a great job with them and look forward to see what else he has planned. BionicleBattle.com also looks interesting, we'll have to see what the content on there is like when it becomes available. Our staff has been continuing to churn out reviews. So fast, in fact, I've been having a hard time keeping up with posting them. Our Chirox review should be up later today or tomorrow, and I have at least one other ready to go, and there should be more in my inbox this weekend. We've revamped our review system to encourage a faster turnaround time on reviews, and so far it has been working great. That's pretty much all the big stuff for this week. The gears continue to turn behind the scenes, we'll share more when we're ready. Mailbag 1. The hardest times are when we have to take the site offline for an extended period of time, such as last summer. This site is here for you guys, and it's frustrating to know we're not able to always give you access to BZP. 2. There have been so many over the years, it's hard to pick one. I guess becoming an Admin was pretty big and something I will always look back on fondly. 3. I liked the song Move Along by the All American Rejects that was used back in 2006. 4. I've been providing coverage of ToyFair since 2005, so this year will be my fourth year. It's cool getting to see the sets in person and getting to play around with them, and we're very thankful that Lego provides us with that opportunity. 1.Nope, all they can do is approve and unapprove. 2.That was just the way Mahalis felt like making it turn. 3. That appears to be an error in the database. 4. As any ASCII Table will tell you, most symbols come before letters and numbers numerically, yet tildes come after. When members are sorted, it's not alphabetically, but by the value of the ASCII characters. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion I hope you enjoyed this week's always-exciting Update. As always please leave any questions, comments, or criticism you have, we're always looking for ways to improve. Until next week!
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Intro Welcome back to our weekly updates. I'll try to make this one a little longer than other recent entries and see if I can scrounge up some goodness. Oh yeah, before I forget, Happy New Year everybody! Updates The new year is here, and every week the new sets become more widely available. We already have posted one review of a new set, and we have a few more more coming up. In addition, we have a couple more 2007 sets that were never reviewed. We intend to still post reviews for them, and the first should be up tomorrow with any luck. In other news, we should be increasing the number of Post Approvers soon, to help get posts and topics approved faster. As far as the virus goes, we're aware people are still having issues and are progressing through our options to resolve the problem. We know it's a real pain, but bear with us. That's it on the updates front for this week. Mailbag My favorite year was probably 2003. The first movie was released and that was a huge deal. BZPower was able to go to its premier and was really recognized BY Lego as the premier Bionicle fan site in that year. Since I only have one, I'll have to got with Mantax for that. I had just turned 14 when I became a staff member. That was almost six and a half years ago, wow... Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion So that's all there is for this week. Hopefully some things we are scheming about behind the scenes (all good stuff) will be able to be revealed in the coming weeks. But until that point, keep checking back!
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Intro Welcome back loyal readers (all five of you), except most of you can't read this right now. That's the unfortunate result of cyberterrorism. It seems Google's ad system was compromised and had the result of affecting a number of websites out there. We're hoping things get cleared up soon and we can bring things back online. We have to make sure nothing on the server was damaged before we do that though. So yeah, enjoy the rest of the show. Updates This week has been fairly slow, with the forums offline. 2008 sets have been spreading, and there have been sightings across the country, in Canada, and in Europe as well. If you want to find the new sets, get out there and look for them, they should show up soon enough. We should be wrapping up a small part of our 2007 set reviews tomorrow. We hope to start 2008 reviews as soon as our staff are able to pick them up. I'm sure things will pick up once the holiday season has ended. Mailbag We have a few plans for BZPower over the coming year. There's a lot of things we'd like to do. We'll just have to see if we have enough time to implement it. Expect to see more reviews, weekly updates and other coverage of Bionicle, as always. The return of the BZPowercast is something I'd like to see. If there seems to be enough interest there's definitely a chance of it coming back. The community is definitely the best part. We're fortunate enough to have some great members. I got into Bionicle in 2001 with the initial ad campaign, like many other people. There's a lot of great entries out there, things like The Gate, A World Gone Mad, A Midnight Grey, and A City Divided all look to be good competition. I've always been partial to fire, for whatever reason. Farscape, The Hobbit, and Halo, among others. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion For those who celebrate, Christmas is only a few days away, I hope you get everything that's on your wishlist. Everyone else, I hope you enjoy some time off, be sure to spend it with your friends and family. We're doing our best to get the site back online, hopefully you'll get to read this before the holiday. Take care everyone!
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Intro This is going to be a real quick post tonight. I have places to go and people to see tonight. Read on for a few new things though. Updates Not much has happened recently. With the holiday season in full swing many staff and members have been less active, so there's not as much to do. Unfortunately there still seem to be some problems people are experiencing. We are looking into it, but so far have not found anything on BZPower that could be causing the problems members are reporting. In other news, we should have our first 2008 review in the next couple of days. Also, I'm glad to see some positive feedback for the return of a BZP Podcast. I got one of these for Christmas, so maybe I'll put that to use on BZPower. Mailbag 1. It was great, I already showed one of my presents above. In addition to that I also got a bunch of DVDs and books, plus other things. My family and I had a good time. 2. Probably the Sennheiser headset. 3. Nope. 4. I'll wait until I've seen them in person to make a decision. 5. RPG holds a special place for me, in terms of BZP. 6. Hard is relative. In relation to being a member? Yes. Hard compared to working or pursuing multiple college degrees? No. 7. There was a need, I was the best qualified, so I do what I can to help out. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion Like I said, tonight's update was short. I hope everyone had a good Christmas. I'll talk to you all again next week!
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Intro I'm sneaking this one up just in time. Another busy Friday, but hopefully the last one for a while. Maybe I'll go more into that another time. Anyway, we're about to reach the end of that seven day cycle we call a week, and it's time for that BZPower recap-like thing. Updates So, one or two things might have happened this week, just maybe. Some more set reviews (with another in the pipe for this weekend hopefully) were posted with much fanfare. A new Blog Assistant was promoted, and told to keep his hands off my blog; I don't want anyone messing around here. Congrats Valenti! Of course there was also the announcement of the Post Approvers group. Kex, WaWa and Mak have been doing a great job already helping keep the approval queues low. In an ideal world, we won't have to keep the New Member Approval system around forever, but for the time being, these guys are lifesavers. Thanks again guys! Oh yeah, and the 2008 sets appeared on S@H; I guess they figured everyone else was doing it, so they wanted a head start. There's still plenty of time left for a certain Santa-based holiday, so get to bugging your parents if that's what you want to see under the tree. It's interesting to note that the first 2007 sets showed up on Shop@Home in early November of 2006, so things actually happened quite a bit later this year. I'm fine with that though, they're 2008 sets, they should release them in 2008, in my opinion. As always, opinions seemed to be mixed on these guys, but I think they'll grom on most people after a while. Mailbag Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Nobody submitted any questions this week. I feel so unloved. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion Only two more Weekly Updates until we hit 2008. Who knows what will happen then, maybe things will change completely, or maybe they'll stay the same. You'll just have to keep checking back to find out. Thanks for reading everyone, and see you again next week!
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Intro Another week done, another update to post. I wanted to try to post this a few hours ago, but a little game called Mass Effect sucked me in. It's a great game I recommend to all Xbox 360 owners. Anyway, time to look at this past week on BZPower. Updates So obviously the biggest news this past week is that RPG Contest 8 has begun. Ok, maybe it's not the most important thing, but it's pretty exciting, and if you have any interest in RPGs you should take a look and consider entering. We have over a dozen entries so far and there are about two weeks left to enter, so get working on it! Obviously the real big news is 2008 sets appearing in stores. I've seen reports of them showing up at various Lego stores and outlets, so if you have one near you check it out! With the availability of news sets comes a lot of new images of the winter 2008 and some of the later sets, such as the ones we reported on today. I predict a lot of other news coming out soon too, so keep your eyes peeled on the front page. And speaking of today's news, we're going to be wrapping up our 2007 reviews in the coming weeks as well. Expect to see another review tomorrow. Also, if you hadn't noticed, our usual Holiday Signature Policy is in effect once again. Last but not least, I'm going to stop teasing you guys about new staff announcements. They'll come when they come and I'll talk about the retrospectively from now on. Things come up that delay them, so who knows when the next announcement will be. Mailbag Electric Turahk asks: Possible? Yes. Would it be easy? Not really, so don't expect to see it any time soon. .::Toa Stheno Nuva::. asks: 1. I had participated in Text-Based RPGs in the past and thought it would be something the members of BZPower would enjoy as well. 2. All time I'd have to say the original Halo, I have a lot of good memories from that. Recently I've been playing a lot of Mass Effect; it's a great game. 3. I enjoyed being a Moderator. It was a lot easier back then (the low number of members might have helped too). 4. There have been so many, it's hard to keep track. Kaiapu's 'Anti-Physicist' was pretty funny though. 5. Another tough one. I was assigned to Promotions for a long time and still check in there regularly. Even though there aren't as many promos as there were in 2001 and 2002, it still holds a sentimental place. Want to see your questions answered? PM them to me and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Conclusion That about wraps it up for this week. As always, questions, comments, and feed back are welcome. Talk to you again soon!
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Intro Hey, I'm getting this out on time this week! I'm also going to try some formatting and see how that works out. So sit back, relax and enjoy the read. Updates So, the biggest story of the past week was the Senior Staff announcement. I'd like to thank the old fogies again (not that I have any room to talk) for their commitment for all these years. As always, I'm going to tease and say the staff updates aren't done yet, but we don't really have a time frame on when we'll be making anything public. Let's see, what else? We should have a staff set review popping up this weekend, so there's something to look forward to. We're also working on some other ways to stop spammers, nothing as drastic as the New Member Policy, but something that will hopefully be just as effective. Don't want to reveal anymore on that until we're ready though. Other than aht, things have been fairly quiet. Bink has obviously been going great guns over at Bionicle.com, I can't wait to see the new design. Some comic news from Greg too, it should be interesting to see how the new artist works out next year. Oh yeah, RPG contest starts at 12AM tomorrow morning (about 2 hours from now)! Mailbag I brought this up last week and got some positive feedback on it, so I figured I'd start it up. PM your questions and put 'Mailbag' in the subject line. I'll pick the few I like the best and answer them in the next update. Sound good? Great! Conclusion That's all for this week. These things may not be too exciting, but I'm trying to let people in on how the site works some. People claim we're very impersonal, and while it's true I don't have time to post a lot on the forums, I will reply to PMs and IMs and Blog Comments. I'm here for you guys, and am always willing to hear from you!
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And so it begins, once you start slipping from your schedule, there's no going back, or so I hear. I was busy yesterday with Black Friday and friends home from school, so I didn't get a chance to post an update. I have one here for you now though, so better late than never. This isn't going to be a long update, the past week was fairly uneventful. We had our usual helping of spammers, but with Tufi's help we were able to take care of them fairly quickly. With Thanksgiving, there wasn't a lot of time to focus on the site, but we've been brainstorming some things based on feedback we've been getting from members. It may take a while before you guys see anything tangible come out of it though. I'm hoping to make a small announcement tomorrow, nothing that will affect any of you, but just another little thing we like to do. I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving and is enjoying their weekend. Feedback is always welcome! Speaking of which, would anyone be interested in a mailbag feature where you guys send me questions and I answer them in the next Weekly Update? See you next time!
