How many times have I told you....

Author: jawapro
Date: Thu 04/02/2010 09:15 PM




...we need locking mechanizms on the vehicle doors?!

Bonus points if you can identify that quote.

Anyway - a brief update so you know I'm not dead...

Klutz has been a legend and fixed my new webserver, so we're about ready to move across. John and the rest of Team Savage were legends and invited me to a LAN at Bishopsburne. My Pajero is a legend, but was less legendary when it decided to lock the back door again and not let me get in. Managed to load everything through the front and drive home, where my legendary dad helped me pull the door apart and lube the latch that was sticking.

Between being busy at work, a lego project or two, the church website, working on the Pajero, and Mass Effect 2 (which I haven't played much yet) I've been pretty busy. I'm not dead though - so expect some more posts shortly.



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Brickvention 2010 Part3

Author: jawapro
Date: Tue 26/01/2010 04:35 PM




 

That’s my name badge after I modified it. The dude with the beard and glasses is my Sig-fig. A sig-fig is a Lego man (minifig) who represents you. In this case, the guy looks a lot like me - but some people choose figures that represent their personality etc. The orange guy is just along for the ride.

Also in the photo are the castle minifigs I ended up with in the Dirty Brickster game (see below). Sweet eh?

Ok - so time for more photos. As there are hundreds of them - I have put them in a semi-temporary PHP gallery. At least until I get around to writing my own.

http://www.headlessmoron.com/images/blogged/brickventure2010/

Please take a look - there are some insanely good models on there.

Here are a few photos for those people too lazy to make the jump.

 

There were heaps of spaceships, including a few large ones. This one in particular took my fancy.

See all those domes on the back?

 

Fighter craft! It carries 20 detachable fighters!

Take a look at the gallery for the other spaceships.

 

This was epic castle was called ‘The White Tower’. It was awesome and had detailed interiors etc. But the owner decided to dismantle it when he packed it up. As I left, it was being broken down block by block. Almost enough to break your heart. I just hope he builds something else by next year.

 

One of the smaller sets - this is a Steam-punk R2D2!

 

Richard and Aaron brought along some modular houses. These all clip together to make a street. The closest one is an official lego set, but the others are MOCs. Seeing the effort they put in and listening to the stories they had developed about all the different furniture and minifigs etc was great. Enough to make me want to build some now.

 

The winner of the ‘Best in show’. This Airbus A380 was fantastic. Until the batteries ran out, it had working landing gear, engines etc too.

 

It was only half a plane - the other side was cross section of the interior.

 

Darth Vader always flies first class.

 

Snakes on a plane - and Samuel Jackson!

The whole Brickvention was awesome. Can’t wait for next year now.

Oh yeah. I had a very small spaceship on display, and I just realized I’ve never released it to my blog. It’s in 2 of the photos in the gallery - see if you can spot it? I’ll post about it sometime.




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Brickvention 2010 Part 2

Author: jawapro
Date: Tue 26/01/2010 12:54 PM




Ok - so for this post I'm going to describe some of the stuff we did and got during the actual convention.

Showbag.

We got this awesome bag of goodies just for attending. As there was a problem with a courier, some stuff was added later in the day - but that just added to the enjoyment of collecting more free gear.

 
 

• Your name badge. (I requested the website be added to mine)

 
 

• A Minifig (lego man) with the Brickvention logo.

 
 

• An issue of Brick Journal (one I haven't got yet) as well as a collection of other magazines and stuff.

 
 

• A lego keyring.

 
 

• A commemorative Lego kit.
• The build in the bag set (see below).

 
 

• A Brickvention shirt. (you paid extra when you registered if you wanted a shirt though)

Build in the Bag.

 

This was a group competition. You were all given a small racers set that was sealed in a small clear bag. The idea was to put the set together without opening the bag. It's tricky - but heaps of fun. It's quite fun to be part of a group all doing the same thing at the same time. I came somewhere around the middle of the pack. The top 6 got to progress to a shoot-out with another set. The small car set was yours to keep to (both of them if you made it to the shoot-out).

 


Speed Build.

There were three copies of the Freeko Speeder Star Wars set. In groups of threes, you got to build it against the clock. The winner got a brand new Freeko Speeder set, while 2nd-4th got the sets that had been used in the comp. I came somewhere around the middle of the scores here too.


Speed Sort.

A number of very small lego pieces in different colours. You had to sort into colours faster than anyone else. I didn't get to do this, as I ran out of time.


Dirty Brickster.

This was an awesome game. Doesn't need to be based around lego either - you could do it with anything. Probably not a good game for kids, as they might get upset if they don't get what they want. Here's how it goes.
Everyone brings a present of lego worth between $10 and $20. Some generous souls brought more valuable presents. Most were new sets, but some were collectible pieces etc. All presents are wrapped up.
Everyone takes a number out of a hat.
The person with number 1 goes first. He/she opens a present and puts the item in front of them.
Person 2 and onwards have a choice. Open a new present or steal one of the existing ones.
If your present is stolen, you get another go before the game moves on to the next person. If a lot of stealing happens, this make mean the next person has to wait a while.
You can't steal a present straight back from the person who stole it from you.
After a present has been stolen three times (people need to count!) it is out of the game, and the third stealer gets to keep it (it goes under the table).
This keeps going until the last person has stolen or opened a present. Then the FIRST player gets to put his opened present (maybe his original choice or another one due to stealing) back in the middle, and has the option to take it again, or steal. This is because he didn't get a go originally. The game keeps going until someone claims the present from the middle - thus ending the game. Everyone that's still 'in the game' gets whatever is in front of them.

Confusing? It's not once you see it played. Heaps and heaps of fun though.

We had about 30 people playing, and I was number 26, which means a lot of things had been opened when it got to me (the popular early stuff had already been stolen and was 'out'). However, a second box of Army Men from Toy Story had recently been opened, and was on it's second steal - so I claimed that and was out. The Army Men sets were very popular.

The very last set was small and obviously not a box, and was being ignored. Finally someone opened it - and it was a set of 6 classic castle minifigs! Very nice. The guy who got it doesnt do castle though, and said he'd have to put them in his city, so I offered to trade the Army Men if he wanted - and he agreed (post game trading is encouraged). The Army Men are very cool - but the castle soldiers are better - and you can buy Army Men still.


Bickwars.

Sort of like Warhammer but with Lego, a Brickwars match was due to happen on Sunday during the public expo - but due to the massive crowds, didn't happen.


Public Expo.

 

The Sunday was opened to the public. Last year about 1000 people came to have a look apparently. This year it was close to 3000! People were everywhere - and the cue for the lifts (we were on floor 12) stretched out of the building, halfway along the block, and around the corner!

The only thing I was displaying was a small spaceship that was surrounded be a heap of more impressive ones - so I was able to walk around and take more photos. Other guys stayed behind the desks answering HEAPS of questions about the models and demonstrating the different aspects (opening the roof so you could see in etc).

It was insane - but heaps of fun.


Shops.

 

There were a couple of stalls selling lego around the place. These were run by people with bricklink shops who brought their stock along. There were a few smallish things I couldn't resist - and then I saw that one of the stalls had viking sets! I've been collecting the sets from ebay - but here they were in the flesh so to speak. I had already decided I'd like to do a Viking MOC sometime, and this was the cheapest way to get the pieces, so I bought 4 sets (2 of the fortress, 1 longboat, and 1 catapult thing). Very happy with them - but it did sort of change the budget a little. Would rather have saved money by not eating so much takeaway - but I guess you have to eat something...

 

Apart from the Viking sets, I didn’t spend much. I got a little set of a hummer, 3 Aussie flag tiles, another keyring (for the Pajero’s spare key), and a nifty lego measuring device. It measures studs one direction, blocks another, and axel lengths in the center. It’s often difficult to tell the length of a technic axle, so it’s a brilliant idea.

So now I just have to go and count how much I spent...




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Brickvention 2010 Part 1

Author: jawapro
Date: Tue 26/01/2010 12:21 PM




The trip to Melbourne.

 

I’ve chosen to break this blog post into parts as it would be massive otherwise.

First up - a general wrap of my trip to Melbourne. This post is probably pretty boring, so you are welcome to skip it and read the other parts. I just felt like recording my trip.

I went on the ship on Thursday night, and worked the day in the Melbourne office. It was stupidly hot in Melbourne on Friday - it got to 37!

After work, I made my way into town to the Victoria Hotel. It’s an older hotel, and nice and cheap. The thing that’s not nice is the lack of air conditioning. It had a fan mounted to the wall (thankfully, or else I would have died) but that was all.

It was so hot that when I discovered the hotel had a small pool I had to go out and buy some bathers and went for a swim!

I also went to Target on Friday night. Firstly I’d forgotten my Sig-fig (Lego version of me) that I had planned to put on my name badge at the convention so I wanted to buy another one, and I’d promised my mates I’d buy them some beer mugs like mine. I got my mugs last time I was in Melbourne, and Tom and Marty have been admiring them and asked if I could get them a set each.

Well - I got the Lego, but there was only one set of mugs. I bought it, but would have to work out who got it later.

When I got back to the hotel and had my swim, I opened the beer mugs, and discovered there was only 3 in the box (supposed to be 4)! Target was shut, so I couldn’t do anything about it yet.

It was too hot - so I hardly slept on Friday.

Saturday was much nicer. The weather was far cooler - outside the hotel. Unfourtuantly the hotel room didn’t drop it’s temperature at all! I went off to the Convention before Target opened, and planned to return during the lunch break. I ended up taking a walk with some of the other guys during lunch instead, so I’d do it in the evening.

We had another break for tea - so I went back to the hotel, which was just a block from Target. As I wasn’t sure when Target shut, I did a recon trip without lugging the mugs (they aren’t light). Target shut at 6, and it was 5:40ish. I went back to the hotel, collected the mugs, and returned by 5:45ish. But they’d shut! Doh - still hadn’t dealt with the stupid mugs.

Back at the hotel I decided I needed to do something to lower the temperature. It was far warmer inside than outside. The window was ancient, but would open by sliding up. There was nothing to hold it up though - so unless I was going to stand there all day holding it open, I wasn’t sure what to do. I needed something to prop the window up, but I didn’t want to use anything solid in case it fell out and hit someone or a car on the street below (5th floor).

 

I ended up using some lego boxes to hold it open a smidge. I didn’t want to put much pressure on the window, as it felt like the whole window pane might fall out and head streetward if I did.

The window trick helped a bit - it wasn’t quite so hot that night.

By this point I was rather sick of take-away food, so I found an asian place that sold stuff that looked slightly normal - and got a roast beef dish. It was quite nice, but being an asian place, the only cutlery was chopsticks and a funky soup spoon. I ate it with the spoon.

After the evening convention stuff, I went with some of the organizers to a bar and had a drink with them. Hanging out with a nice friendly group.

Sunday morning I decided to listen to some recorded sermons as I didn’t know where to find a decent church, but alas I feel asleep (hadn’t slept well during the night either due to the remaining warmth).

As the Brickvention guys had said the public day started at 11, but some people would arrive at 10  - I decided it was safe to hang around Target until 10 when it opened and return the mugs. Turns out that the doors for Brickvention opened at 10, so I was late when I arrived (not that it mattered).

Target finally opened, and asked me to have a look to see if I could find the missing mug on the shelf with the display models, but I couldn’t. I ended up getting my money back - so sorry to Tom and Marty...

While I was in Target, I got a call from Aunty Bec to say they were already at Brickvention. I made my way back, and caught up with them. Bec, Mike, and Gabs had taken the train from Traralgon to take a look. It was good they got there early too - by 11 the queue from the front door stretched half a block!

I spent most of Sunday taking photos of the Mocs (when I could squeeze through the crowds to take photos). I’d started taking photos on Saturday, but I only just made it around everything when they started packing up! 3 sets of flat batteries and 700mb of photos later...

I stuck around and helped people pack up, and then had to do the heartbreaking task of opening my new Viking lego and jettisoning the boxes so it would fit in my suitcase. They were new and sealed!

I did keep some of the covers of the boxes that I can use as posters or something - and made my way back through Melbourne dragging my massive suitcase and carrying some uncooperative pieces of cardboard around. People on the trams thought I was nuts.

I eventually made it back to Station Pier to catch the Spirit home. I found some sticky tape and wrapped my cardboard up in a newspaper so I could check it in instead of carrying it onboard.

After the heat of the hotel, the air-con on the boat was fantastic. I sat out on deck in the cool and listened to the sermons again (didn’t fall asleep this time) before calling it a night.

And of course I arrived back in Devonport in time to have some breakfast and get ready for work. Ah joy...


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Brickvention Prologue.

Author: jawapro
Date: Sat 23/01/2010 11:14 PM




 

Well - I’m here in Melbourne for Brickvention. So far it’s been totally awesome!

For those who don’t know, Brickvention is Australia’s Lego Convention. A gathering for adults who love Lego to chill and show off creations. There are some absolutely amazing MOCs (My Own Creation – free builds).

I’ll post pictures and a better description of the convention later.



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