May The Fourth Be With You

Because today is May the Fourth Be With You and tomorrow is Cinco De Mayo...

I give you Obi Juan Kenobi!

Lego Delivery

When the Death Star collapsed in Marv's back seat, we had thought we'd gotten it all in the back for Adam.

Marv, however, found a stray the other day.

Today, I ran up to Ocala to give Adam his parts.

The Beast is made for the open road!

The lack of AC is a bit tedious, but it wasn't too bad, really.  I grew up without AC at all and it was a bit nostalgic to drive with the windows down.

Lego Space Nazis

I noticed, building the Death Star, that the Imperial military is amazingly egalitarian.

Two of the seven stormtroopers are women.  Only two of them are Caucasian.

The same sort of distribution goes with the Navy personnel too.

I giggle that Lego is going out the way to have diversity in the bad guys.

Diversity that isn't present in the good guys because the actors weren't.

Fully Armed And Operational Battle Station

I have completed my buddy's Death Star!

Huge.

It's the biggest thing I've ever constructed from Lego.

Now we have to figure out how to get it from my house to his house. 

Every Other Day

Sorry about the free ice cream dispenser being down...

I am wrapped up in this Death Star build for my buddy and it doesn't have a lot of handy off-ramps to stop on.

Basically, each level is two assemblies and doesn't give a good stop point except for completing the level half.

Getting there, though.

He's got Huntington's Disease, in case you wanna find a charity that meets your needs and donate to help find a treatment.

He tapped me to make his kit because his fine-motor skills are already taking a hit.

It's Big

 A friend of mine bought the $1,000 Lego Death Star.

He's got some physical impairments that would make building it a major effort.

So he asked me to.

I'm about half done.

Even if I quit right now, it's the biggest Lego I've ever put together.

And it will get bigger!

Shouldn't Hafta

Just as with my AT-AT and AT-TE, I had to get extra troopers to populate the troop compartment of my Corusant Guard Gunship.

The set comes with an officer, Commander Fox, and two Corusant shock troopers.

That's it for crew.

With the two troopers in the pilot seats, that leaves Fox all by his lonesome in the back.

Five more minifigs fit easily.

A single shock trooper comes with another battle pack.  There's a mech that comes with a single trooper too.

I could get snow-troopers for my AT-AT three to a pack.

Changing the AT-TE from 212th to 501st Legion meant it was easy to get a full crew.

But I had to hit a reseller to get the gunship filled.

Just So You Know

If you hit play on Attack of the Clones as you begin construction of the Lego Acclamator set, you will be able to finish it before its first appearance in the film.

The same cannot be said for making the Lego Venator set.  But you will be done before Order 66.  

They're Minerals Marie!

Lego Mineral collection.

Top row, L to R: Pyrite, Amethyst, Flourite.
Bottom row, L to R: Watermelon Tourmaline, Rhodochrosite, Tangerine Quartz

Remarkably complex and difficult builds.

 

How Big Is The Overlap?

Lego has just announced they're making a USS Enterprise NCC-1701D from The Next Generation.

Included is the main cast in minifig form.

If you act now, you get a minifig scale shuttle pod and a minifig of ensign Roh as a free gift with purchase.

$400.

Like Lego a lot.

I've spent some money on Star Wars sets.

But I don't think there's enough overlap on my Venn diagram between "Liked Next Gen" and "Likes Lego" to spend $400 on the Enterprise D.

I might be coerced into spending on the OG Enterprise and cast though.  Especially if they do the series and movie versions in the same scale.

Scale is a huge problem with Lego for a lot of sets.  They aim for the models to all be about the same size, which leads to them being vastly different scales most of the time. 

Update: An unsigned commenter says that making them all about the same size is called "box scale" and I remember the term and its usage in plastic models... but needed the comment to be reminded.  A pity they didn't sign the comment so I can thank them by name. 

Scale

The Lego Lunar Module is about double the scale of the minifigs. 

Limitations of the media, I suppose. 

Scale

Lego Star Wars sets trend to being underscale compared to the minifigs.

Our reg from the 501st will act to show the scale problem.

Actually, It's two scale problems.

In one scene of "Attack of the Clones" the top of his head should come to about the center of that round joint.  In another, the top of his head should come just, barely, to the bottom of that disk.

The larger scale is closer to how it's shown, most of the time, in The Clone Wars series making it about 1/3 the size it should be.

Lego made a minifig scale AT-AT, so there's a bit of hope they're make an Ultimate Collectors Edition AT-TE for us Clone Wars fans.

Three Days In History

July 19, 1969:

 July 20, 1969:

 July 21, 1969:

 

Update:  All instances of "June" have been replaced with the correct Homeline dates in July.  The management of Infinity Unlimited would like to apologize for this oversight.

I Do This Every Year

I have the Lego of both Apollo 11 and Eagle.

Every year on July 20, I think I should build the LEM because I can find space for it. 

I still wish they'd made a Columbia in the same scale. 

PS: I think this year is THE year. 

AUGH!

 A while ago, Shadow was kind enough to knock my Lego Atredes Ornithopter off the dresser.

Like all such events, it broke apart into its component parts spectacularly.

Because the wings have a folding and flapping mechanism, it was not a simple matter of just putting it back together because the linkages were now loose and misaligned.

I'd have to take it even more apart to start back to reassembly.

So I put it off for months.

Tonight I decided to, finally, put it back together.

I got it all the way to mounting the wings when I noticed I had parts left over.

Structural parts.

I needed to take it apart almost as far as when I started to get those pieces back in.

But it is back together and placed where the cats don't go.

HUZZAH!

 

Casette CD iTunes MP3

I'm getting a bit sick of rebuying my music.

For the most part, I had the problem solved with iTunes, but...

There's a few songs, here and there, that are in a format that can't be read by a device here and there.

Mutter mutter, grumble grumble.

The case in point is the stereo in The Beast cannot read m4a files, despite those files being DRM free from iTunes.

That means having to get new copies in mp3 that it can read so I can listen to them without fiddling with the phone and bluetooth.

The phone plays m4a files, but doesn't show the song on the screen.  If you can't see the song on the screen, you can't take a clever "Hulk In Tree!" pic.

Why no Hulk song?  Why Iron Man get song?

We take a series of "Hulk in the tree" pics every year, kinda like a fun, digital, advent calendar.

Where would you like to see Hulk?

Perhaps Cat Proof

 

 

Displaying your Lego minifigs is a challenge when you have furry assistance.

Hopefully, this cheap Chinese display case will keep them from scattering them to the wind.

Complete

At the overlap of Lego and D&D on the Venn diagram, we find...

Four named characters from Forgotten Realms, one monster and seven non-human PCs.

JT and I hit the Lego store in Brandon right at opening to make sure I could snag a complete set.

It's also Harry Potter day, so there was quite a line formed behind us when they unlocked the door.

Going to the Lego store and getting an unmolested case is the fastest, cheapest and best way to get all of them without duplicates.  Lego packs the case in groups of three, once you know the packing order, you can get them without scanning the QR code.

I do want to get two dupes.  I want another pseudo-dragon from the Tiefling and Harvey wants her own witch.

What They Should Do

WOTC and Lego should have released a "make your own character" minifig pack to coincide with both the release of AD&D 2024 and their 50th anniversary.

$20-$25 and include enough parts to mix and match yourself two or three characters of any race species or class.

It might just be a seller!

$20 accessory packs for different classes for further customization would be a winner too.

Missed chance.

What's Missing?

Lego has two D&D themed sets out.

A Red Dragon castle for $350 and a series of Collectible minifigs for $5 each.

Of the 18 figures in these two series...

One human.  A named character from Forgotten Realms.  Wait, she's an archfey, she used to be human.

So, no humans.

SIGH.