Other Pete J's thread of Lego building (current project: Barad-dûr)

Not trying to be mean, but I feel like this is quite a common sentiment I see expressed about Lego sets these days, and it's a bit of a downer imho. I think of Lego as a toy and something to be played with and enjoyed rather than an investment But I'm just an old man shouting at clouds.

 

Nothing stopping it from being both!

 

And off we go!



Probably sounds a bit weird for the hobby, but it's the first model I've done in recent memory that is (almost) entirely just bricks rather than involving a degree of Technic pieces.

Anyway, a LONG way to go. Which hopefully will give me enough time to decide how to display it. Though I already have the lazy susan, which helps with assembly.

 

Not an update on projects, but a rather strange occurrence in the Lego world:



Long story short?

• Son of very ill old man arranges a consignment contract with a "Bricks & Minifigs" store for his extremely large Star Wars Lego collection.
• Company owners then get rid of store owners and don't return the stock.
• Turns out the owners are Mormons in Utah and the police are also Mormons, corruption shenanigans ensue (covered in later videos).
• Ongoing.

So, yeah. Weird. Hope the people who deserve punishing get punished.

 

That would explain this video that keeps popping up in my feed, which I haven’t watched yet

 

I haven’t watched that Leonard French video. I started, but regardless of any factual accuracy in what he’s saying, his script is just riddled with “AI voice” and it really put me off. All I took away from it was that this guy, the original owner of the Lego sets, son of the aforementioned old man who’s now very ill, really should have filed some form I’ve never heard of with the state that would have cost $20, because it would have made things much easier for him.

So now LegalEagle has a video on this.



I haven’t watched the whole thing, because it’s nearly an hour long, but jesus tapdancing christ… This story has a lot of twists, turns, characters, and nuance, I can barely even keep track of who’s who.

 

Yeah, it's a bit mental. Started with Lego (or Legos if your from a wrong part of the world ) and ended up with exposing police corruption in a small American town, and getting the CEO of Patreon's blessing.

In other news, I'm very excited as rumours of the next Technic supercar have surfaced:

42232 Koenigsegg Sadair’s Spear





The above images may not be real though (or an earlier version) as hunting around comes up with different things. Anyway, 4104 pieces and a price tag of ~£390. Not the prettiest car in my opinion, but I love building and like having a complete collection. Will be picking it up when I see it go to £300 or less.

 

Fun fact #34985234598757848348934959945.2 - The CEO of Patreon is the keyboard player in the baseball cap & bum bag here:-

 

[pedantic rant]

I was watching the LegalEagle video, and he starts off calling it “Legos”. Ok… fine… that’s a dumb American thing, but so many of them do it that there’s no point being pissy about it. What really pissed me off was the seemingly off-the-cuff remark that “I know, the plural of ‘Lego’ is ‘Lego’ not ‘Legos’, it’s stupid”.

No, Devin, it’s not “stupid”… It’s only “stupid” if you refuse to accept that languages other than English exist and find it perfectly acceptable to use a brand name derived from an adjective as a pluralised mass noun!! “Lego” is a contraction of “leg Godt” which is Danish for “we play”. It is an adjective who’s contracted form became a brand name. I don’t have “Legos” and neither does anyone else - we have Lego sets, and Lego parts, and Lego pieces, and Lego bricks!! There’s a good god damn reason that the store at the centre of all this is called “Bricks and Minifigs”!! Me saying that I have “two Henrys” would sound really stupid when what I actually have is “two Henry vacuum cleaners”, because “Henry” is the brand name and vacuum cleaner is the noun!!

[/pedantic rant]

 

To be fair, I've never been in a position where I've had access to more than one Henry.

Both the hoover, and people, come to think about it.

 

Yeah, I would absolutely say "Two Henrys" and I don't think sounds stupid at all.

 

Sudden thought - They should absolutely create a feline-themed pet vacuum, which we would all call...

 

I inherit vacuum cleaners and step ladders at work that get left behind.
I have a set of RGB Numatic vacuum cleaners in my workshop; Henry (R), George (G) and Charles (B) currently!
I wish I'd known that all the Numatic innards are replaceable for a customer who binned a yellow Henry a few years ago

 

I did clarify in advance that it was a pedantic rant, there’s no need to take things so seriously

I’ve been in that position more times than I can count, although not for a long time now…

Admittedly on those occasions it would have been a short-hand for “Henry the 8th”, as in, “1/8th of an ounce”, and referring specifically to weed.

It’s all metric these days, and I have no idea how to contextualise it…

If you told me you’d bought a ‘teenth (1/16th of an ounce) or a Henry (see previous paragraph) of skunk, I’d know intuitively that this isn’t a huge amount, and therefore you probably don’t smoke that much. If you told me you’d bought 7 grams, I’d have to look up what that is in ounces to know wtf you’re talking about. (It’s roughly 1/4 ounce, by the way, what I’d have once called “a Q”, and the amount I’d buy most frequently - I rarely had the money for a half or a “full O”.)

But if you’re telling me about a recipe and you say it needs half an ounce of flour, I’d tell you to piss off and give me a measurement in grams.

Funny how our brains work like that… It’s all down to context and frames of reference, I guess. Like how I’m only now getting used to what it means when distances for things like driving journeys are measured in kilometres instead of miles. Though I don’t think I’ll ever get my head around “litres per 100km” (or “kilowatt-hours per 100km”); I need miles per gallon, and specifically UK Imperial gallons, not that frankly batshit “231 cubic inches per gallon” standard used in the US.

Er… sorry…

Where were we…?

Oh yes, vacuum cleaners and Lego. Henry vacuums are ace, and it’s still “Lego” not “Legos”.

Please, continue…

 

I need more Legos.

 

@Pete J - Your Robocop there, is that a MOC of Lego or another brand?
I know I've seen it in another brand, I thought it was Bluebrixx, but they seem to have stopped selling them.
Was always on my wish list. Along with a big ED-209.

 

Any MOC I undertake, I include a link to where you can get the instructions on the first page of this thread - you're welcome , I only ever do MOCs that are designed with official Lego bricks. Unfortunately one or two have since been taken down - but not Robocop!

Link to Robocop instructions (it's a store page, scroll down to find them)

Please be aware that this model has quite a few rare Lego parts, which means it's expensive - REALLY expensive. One of the parts is so rare, that the instructions have an alternative build option that still looks pretty good (if you're wondering which bit, it's the cod piece ): I managed to find a whole used set at a reasonable price just to get my hands on it, and fortunately it was basically in new condition.

If you find a big ED-209, please let me know as I also would like one! Currently I have a little one which is a little larger than minifig scale. Same for RoboCain!

 

There was an image in my post, but it obviously broke.