PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Chilean LEGO advert

I found this from a link over at The Presurfer. He's a guy from the Netherlands who wastes his time and picks odd things to look at. He links to a page of Unforgetable Advertisements at a website called Toxil. Of course I had to save the LEGO one and put it in my folder of misc pictures that have to do with LEGO. Someday I gotta get around to organizing those better. Right now I gotta go look at a display of Instant Origami. Check out the Where The Hell Is Matt video too. I thought it was really great. Here is some LEGO stuff over at Dark Roasted Blend, which always seems to load slow for me.

Harry Takes Ron To The Cinema

Last friday I was at the Mall Of America. I stopped on the way home even though the weather was threatening to do something. I bet you can guess where I was headed. LEGO Imagination Center? That's correct. I was talking to Joe, who has that distinctive yellow apron, which means he works there, and he suggested building a MOC that has Harry Potter going to the movies. I'm sure he was joking, but I can't always tell. Little does he know I took him seriously. I was glad it happened, I was lacking an idea to spur me to build. I had been pulling together some of the elements for an other piece that should get finished over the long 4th of July weekend, provided I get the last elements I think I need. I just didn't have anything to do right now. So, thanks Joe, for that good idea.  

Back last friday Joe was cleaning out one of the Pick A Brick bins and I asked what was going to replace the old part. I had my eye on the latest issue of BrickJournal, and I really wanted something else to take me to the $25 mark for a stamp in my LEGO Loyalty card. It's an ok card, gives you back $30 in gift cards for each $400 that you spend. Better than than being shanked with a sharpened spoon, and it doesn't matter what you buy, even sale and clearance items count. There wasn't anything in the PAB that I was keen on. He said I could look in the stuff that just came up from the basement. I picked some 2 x 2 white curved "macaroni" brick and some 1 x 4 green plates. Got nearly a cup of each. And the BrickJournal. And a small set to get me to the next level. Sadly, he also said they are having a sale next week, now meaning tomorrow July 1, which is also the first of two double stamp days for LEGO club members. Buy something and get double the stamps. I just need two more stamps to get the $20 gift card. If I go on the 1st it will only cost me $25.

When I got home I separated all the parts and bagged them up. It pays to keep on top of the sorting. I had a bunch of the green 1 x 4 plates in my tile storage container but they work well for grass or carpet or tile so it can't hurt to have a couple of baggies full. I got to playing with the macaroni blocks and piling them up in different ways. I was trying to make a flexible wall that had a lot of texture. I even took the pieces to Friday Night Movie night and stared at them between parts of the movie. Eventually I got home with most of an idea in my head. Over the weekend I built and built and rebuilt and wound up with my first LEGO Triptych. That an old timey word for picture in three parts. The three parts don't need to be connected, and typically the middle piece is larger than the other two, which are usually the same size. I made the two smaller pieces 16 by 16 studs and the larger center piece 16 by 32. Most of the parts came from the PAB.

That's the candy counter, the entrance to theater #2 in the multiplex, and sitting watching the movie. I need to upgrade my shooting space with some nice foam core. I actually need to get some free foam core, that stuff doesn't come cheap. Rather buy LEGO.

.   

Here's a picture of the candy counter. What do they call them in England? It's the first of three important parts in movie going. You could argue buying your ticket is important, or the trip to the bathroom, but really the first one is boring and the second, I certainly don't want to see that, and I hope you don't either. Movies and snacking, how else are we going to keep our figures like they are?

 

Here's the entrance to the theater. You can see it's number 2, indicating that there might be another theater we can't see. The checkered flags don't mean anything, they are just decoration. I got those out of the PAB also. Most of the orange came from there, or one of those grab-bags that turn up occasionally. You can see Ron bought a bar of chocolate and they have found their theater. Good ol' number two. Not that! Geez! You can read more about my new work and see some different pictures over on the MOCpages. That's a water fountain, that red thing. Not all movie theaters have good water fountains.

Here's everyone watching the movie. You can see Ron is nodding off. I bet he'll wake up when they go for ice cream.

Science Fiction Sunday 7

Devil Girl From Mars is a 1954 British film, based on a play, about an alien invasion that's told on a totally personal level. I enjoy that subset of the alien invasion genre. It's one girl from Mars, and her huge robot pal, that invade a Scottish pub and terrorize the locals. It's another of my favorite 50's science fiction films. It's got it's flaws but they are minor and the story is mostly pretty entertaining. A reporter and a science guy are looking for a crashed meteor in the Scottish countryside. They can't find the place and stop at a pub for a drink and a room. While there a space ship lands and covers the area with an invisible impenetrable shield. The Devil Girl makes her first appearance, and she's great. She's got a shiny black leather uniform that hugs every evil curve of her body. She's got a ray guy that disappears anything she shoots it at. Who wouldn't like that? And that robot, it's Hagrid huge. Hagrid from the books, not the puny Hagrid of the movies. There's a bunch of characters in the pub which is run by an older couple. She's in charge and her husband is the comic relief machine with a bit of a taste for the drink. Their nephew is staying with them. Their bar maid knows the escaped killer who has just broken out from jail. He shows up at the pub pretending to be a hiker who lost his wallet, but the reporter spots him right away. There's also a woman hiding out from her crappy man who starts a romance with the reporter. The DG tells them she's recruiting men for the love staved women of mars. Seems they killed all their men during the gender war. Well, you can imagine all the men want to go there, huh. No matter, says our Devil Girl, who's name is Nyah, she's going to help herself to the crop in London town. She's only here because her ship had some trouble. Once it's repaired she's off to the big city where it's raining men in her mind. The group tries to kill her but she's just too powerful and well protected. The science guy gets the idea to trick her into taking him on the ship so he can destroy it and the invasion. It almost works but DG picks the escaped murderer. Will he give his all to save everyone in the pub from death and the men of London from being turned into a bunch of human cattle for a Martian Stud Farm. You can see the whole movie on Google video for free. Aren't the internets great. Maybe even better than that uniform.

 

Destination Moon has no Devil Girl, and is the poorer for it. It's just some straight forward 50's science fiction of the science guys building a ship to go to the moon type. No aliens, just science. Some human issues and some danger you'd associate with the early days of space travel. The screenplay was co-written by Robert A. Heinlein and based on his novel Rocketship Galileo. I really liked Heinlein when I was younger. I read everything and he was my favorite writer in the early 70's. I haven't read him since then. I should dig out those old Heinlein books from the basement and read them when I have some time. The technical jargon is better than most of these movies. It's almost documentary like. Very colorful and well made. I still enjoy these old films but I'd rather watch Devil Girl again.

Friday Night Movies 176

Billed as Pakistan's first Horror film in decades and first Gore film ever, Zibahkhana, or Hell's Groundhere in the USA, was our first feature tonight. It's the kind of horror movie where some kids go somewhere and get killed. Except these are some dope smokin' Pakastani kids, in a van, decorated from bumper to bumper with some bad murals.The director is a horror movie fan and ice cream parlour owner and his movie really harkens back to the 70's style of horror movie. The kids are sneaking off to see some band several hours away. First they run into some zombie like people who have been infected by polluted water near their village. Then while trying to make up lost time they take a short cut and run into a burka wearing person who kills some of them. It's a pretty low budget film but it has it nice moments and it's funny at times. It's a bit slow and occasionally not much is happening. It's short, only 78 minutes, and that seemed like enough. I wouldn't go out and buy one but I enjoyed seeing a horror film from some place that doesn't make many of them.

Arachnia is the same sort of film as our first feature. Some people are in a small plane that is forced down when a meteor hits. They walk until they find an abandoned house. The owner shows up and invites them to his house. That night some giant spider like critters show up and the killin' starts. There's one funny thing after another in this Brett Piper film, not all of it intentional. Piper's become a favorite of Sperhauk's, and he's been Netflixing his pictures. I have to admit he's grown on me too. Not the greatest film maker but he's certainly entertaining with both his stories and direction. He just doesn't have the great actor's to make the characters work really well, but he does very well with what he has, and those kind of deficiencies don't bother me much when I am being entertained. Both the stop motion spiders and the large prop versions were pretty good. It was too clearly animated but that doesn't bother me either.  I'd buy one if I found it cheap, it'd be bankin' a laugh for the future. Can't get a better return than that. 

Science Fiction Sunday 6

I spent most of the day looking at Brickworld photos on various websites but that didn't stop me from watching some crap on tv too. A Sound Of Thunder is an adaptation of one of Ray Bradbury's short stories. It's directed by Peter Hyams, who has made some ok films, but never any great ones. He's not very original most of the time and here he's fallen far. The story has a rich business man, played by Sir Ben Kingley with a giant white mop of hair, selling other rich business men a chance to go back in time to shoot a T-Rex just before it dies. That's the trick, not changing the future by changing the past. Of course something goes wrong almost right away and the future is soon under attack by time waves. Quickly it's jungle time in NYC with a host of bitey critters and agressive plants. Man, that's some crabby grass. The hero, played by Edward Burns, has to enlist the science lady that developed the time travelling machine to figure out how to change things back. Turns out one of the business men had stepped on a moth and Ben, trying to cut electrical costs, had turned off the detection unit that scans the returning time travellers for foreign matter. Ain't that always the trouble, some greedy business man screws you while saving a buck. They are the monsters, not the poor T-Rex. At least you know where you stand with Rexy. Inside his belly. The business man kills you slowly while sucking the life blood from your wallet at the same time. The movie has so many flaws and bad scrip ideas that it isn't funny, which would have been a help. The CGI isn't very good either. It poorer than you expect for a $52,000,000 film. Must be why the Wikipedia tells me that it grossed $8,000,000 world wide. That can't be good and it might be why Hyams hasn't worked much since. Good thing I didn't waste money buying this. The SciFi channel version cuts some 20 minutes from the DVD version. I don't think it would have helped. I'm just going to forget it ever existed.

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins is a made for DVD spin off of the popular Toy Story. I did not think I would like Toy Story but I became a convert after seeing it. At Star Command Buzz is being forced to take on a new cadet as a partner. Something he doesn't want. He lost his last partner tragically. He winds up getting help from several young cadets, including the giant janitor, when he goes toe to toe with the Evil Emperor Zurg. They have to get the Unimind back for the Little Green Men. Zurg stole it. It's all good fun and just the thing to wipe the taste of the previous movie from my mind. Tad Stones is the director. He's worked for Disney a lot and of late has been directing the Hellboy Animated series. Two DVD's are out now and two more are coming this year. I found them to be pretty entertaining. You can see them on Cable, they show occasionally on the Cartoon Network. Stones is also working on the Turok: Son of Stone feature, which is adapted from a comic book series. I look forward to that. Humans fighting dinosaurs. I hope that turns out good too. If you liked Toy Story, you might like Buzz's solo adventure. They both are good natured and pleasant to look at. Good voice casts in both movies. Buzz's solo feature spun off into a 62 episode cartoon series, which used the feature slightly chopped up as 3 episodes. I have not seen the series.

TwinLUG at Brickworld Mo' Pictures

   

There's the Mansion Collabrative picture I found on Brickshelf. I kept a couple of pictures and now can't find that folder. Most of the first part of the series is setting up some trains for Brickworld then came some good photos of the show. If you find it let me know, thanks. Sadly not many people came with rooms. I heard that Gary's kitchen on the lower left and Esther's staircase were a big hit. Nice. A better shot of Godzilla and another shot of the TwinLUG Moonbase modules.

Update: It's back. That folder with pictures on Brickshelf. Be sure to check out both folders. There are some good pictures there - thanks Zepher.

Update 2: Esther emailed to the LUG:  Hi all- Dylan came in second in the Chess tournament- loosing to Steve Hassenplug- a name I'm sure you all know- no disgrace there! And he beat a couple of real brainiac Mindstorms guys, too. PLUS, because everyone said he was the most fun to play against and such a great sport,they talked Steve Witt into giving him a nice prize (originally only the winner got to keep anything- they get the UCS chess set), so Dylan will be bringing home a Green Grocer! Got pics of the "TWINLUG" moonbase today- it looks really nice. Oh, also Dylan is a finalist (one of 4) in the Best Youth Build division. He's done us proud! And it turns out that, other than some parts of train layouts, our LUG has ALL three of the ONLY FFOL MOC's in the whole show! Alice's "REAL cafe corner", Judy and my Belville, and my Mansion builds. - Esther

TwinLUG at Brickworld Friday

   

There were more pictures at Nannan's Flickr Photostream again. Here's a picture of a round arena like build on the left. Nice, huh. I could not read the card with the title or name of builder but it's not anyone from the local group. Nice though. There's Judy, who is a TwinLug member and train fancier, with some train layouts there in the middle. I'm not sure which are her's, perhaps someone could tell us. The TwinLUG Moonbase modules are complete and ready for business on the right.

   

There's Kyle and some guys posing, Roy and some guys not posing, and the back of the TwinLUG Moonbase project. No sign of the Mansion Building or Belville projects. Maybe they will turn up in a later batch of photos. I shouldn't forget a big thanks to Esther for taking my stuff to Brickworld. Yay, thanks.

   

There's Mike's crane next to the Post acopalypse buildings that spell LEGO. I don't know who made the Godzilla but I like it. That's South Sea Kyle's Tower and several of his robots and battle armour.

Friday Night Movies 175

We watched George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, and it, like Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project, is shot on video cameras, and it, is much better. It just goes to show you that an old idea in good hands can yield something enjoyable. Just the lack of unwatchable shakeycam puts DotD into win territory. A good script and pretty good cast hit a home run. The only thing wrong is it's pretty heavy handed, gettin' all messagey near the end. Some amateur film makers are making a horror film in the woods. A woman is being chased by a mummy who keeps moving to fast. Shamble, the director complains, and they all take a break. The tech guy has some internet news feed on and they see and hear some horrible things. The dead are coming back to life. They get all freaked out and mummy guy leaves with another gal. They are heading for his rich parents family estate. He invites everyone over to hide in it's heavy fortitude. The rest of the troup, with the director filming everything that happens, leave in an RV. There's a bunch of people who get picked off one after another, often with some heavy emotional soul searching because they just killed some zombies. Some of these characters are very annoying and you won't miss them. The rest survive with various skills or luck. The effects are good. I liked the zombie's head being eaten away with acid and the pool full of zombies. Things sure happen very fast in this universe. The outbreak kills most of the world in a couple of days. That sure sucks, huh. The director didn't make it but his girlfriend puts the documentary together as a message of the true events that happened. By the first few hours in the film the government was already covering up what had happened. Isn't that always the way. You'd think we wouldn't care anymore. 

There was nothing to care about in our next feature. It was the Cinematic Titanic version of The Doomsday Machine. That's Joel Hodgeson, et al who block part of the movie and make jokes. Not all of the jokes were good. They were especially deadly over the credits at the beginning of the movie, where a joke was made about every name that flashed by. There were some pretty funny bits in the middle of the movie but the last third, man, that was brutal. And I'd seen this crap fest before. It's in one of the 50 movie packs that I have. TDM is a film started in 1967 and finished in 1972 without the original cast. All the spaceship shots are from other movies. And not good movies either. Part of a Russian movie is used to show two astronauts who have taken refuge in another spaeship. The ending is pretty bad, but then the movie displays the most beautiful words in the English language. The End. Sadly even CT could not make this movie enjoyable.

TwinLUG at Brickworld

As a group the TwinLUG members built a 7 module Moonbase that spells out the name of the LUG. It was touch and go there for a while. That one Kyle, he was rushin' to finish the T at the last group meeting and it didn't look good. This picture shows the layout while still incomplete. Brian is showing up later in the day with the L and G. Roy made the W, which is armed, that's my I, Max made the N, and the south sea island bound Kyle made the U, which is a Mech holder. The photo's are from Nannan Z's Flickr Photostream, which I learned about from The Brothers Brick. Thanks Nannan. And maybe you recognize this guy.

I think that the L is TwinLug member Dylan and the E is Max's. I am not sure who the others are but I will find out. Again a big thanks to Nannan for taking the photos and posting them to Flickr. I will keep an eye out for more photos.

What I Read In May 2008

Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger by Louis Sachar has another 30 stories from the really tall school. If you don't remember, the school was built with all it's rooms piled one atop the other, instead of being horizontal along the ground. There's no elevator and it's 30 stories tall. I bet it's the tallest school in the world. And by world I mean a story in a book. Still, I'm glad I didn't go to that school, all the interesting things going on aside, that marching up and down the stairs several times a day does not sound like fun to me. This is the third book and it originally came out in 1995. It's still pretty funny. When we last left the school it was full of cows. The school year doesn't start for the Wayside School on time while Louis, the school's yard teacher, cleans out the cow poop. It takes over 240 days. There are some old characters and some new characters. Mrs. Jewls, who teaches on the 30th floor, has to take a break from teaching to have a baby. There are some issues with the substitute teachers. They get resolved and there's a pretty happy ending. Mrs. Zarves makes an appearance, teaching her class on the 19th floor. This is odd because there is no 19th floor and no Mrs. Zarves. She gets a new job and leaves the school. This is easier than it should have been, since she doesn't exist. The school finally gets an elevator but it only works the one time. Mrs. Jewls returns and Louis gets some action. All is well.

The Merlin Effect by T. A. Barron is the second book about Kate Gordon that I have read. I think it's the third one. I have the other but it's not surfaced yet. Kate and her dad are working off the coast of Baja California. He's looking for the wreck of a Spanish ship that sunk in 1547. It might have the legendary Horn Of Merlin aboard. They find it and some weird stuff happens. Barron ties in the legend of Merlin to the ship and the still living inhabitant. Can you say fountain of youth. There are some villians and lots of running about. It's a pretty good read but I won't keep it. There are so many more that will re-read much better.

Dragonsdale by Salamanda Drake is a great example of a manufactured novel. It just feels like it was produced to match the foldout cover. It's an ok story and the writing is average but there's something missing. Mostly a writer that understands fantasy stories. The story is about a dragon ranch. It could be a horse ranch, it means so little. The young girl of the series, the second one just came out, can't ride dragons because her mother was killed riding dragon's and her dad doesn't want to lose his daughter too. She has to overcome that and win the big dragon riding contest on the young dragon that the bitchy spoiled daughter of the rich guy had been riding so poorly. Underdog much. I don't mind formula books if I like the characters. There's no one much to care about here. Toss the book into the pile to go back to the store.

Temple Of The Dragonslayer by Tim Waggoner was much better than the previous book. It too is a series book. I picked it up with some credit at 6th Chamber Books. They had volume 1 and 3 and all I bought was the 1st. I won't bother with the rest. It was ok but nothing great. A young girl wakes up in the midst of trolls and cannot remember who she is or how she got there. Some people befriend her and that jump starts the quest for her memory. There are some magical bad guys with an agenda but I'll never know how that comes out. This is another one that I will toss into the return pile. Get me some credit and buy some more books and LEGO. Reducing space and weight. That's the nice thing about LEGO, much lighter per square inch. I know I'll appreciate that as I get older.

The Story Of The Amulet by E. Nesbit turned out to be better than anything so far this month. Some kids get a magical amulet that takes them through space and time. They have some adventures with the assistance of a sand-fairy or a Psammead. They travel through time looking for the other half of the amulet. There's some humor and a lot of eating. J K Rowling and Diana Wynne Jones both have commented on how much they like Nesbit's writing. It reads pretty good for a hundred year old book. I am slowing picking up her books in paperback. You can download most of them over at Project Gutenberg.

Fantomas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre is a 1911 novel from France. That's the original cover there. You can read a synopsis of the book at the Fantomas website. It's a very detailed story about a supercriminal. The writing is better than I expect from the turn of the century. There were 32 novels written between 1911 and 1913. Fantomas is a pretty nasty piece of work. He kills and steals from people, mostly the rich. There is a cop who chases him but to no avail. There are a series of regular characters, some of whom are introduced in the first novel. Sperhauk had lent me his copy and I buried it under the stuff on the table for months. Finally it surfaced and I read it. I rarely borrow books. I might not be in the mood for something and there it is staring me in the face. Or I bury it and forget it's there. That's more common. It was a good read, I was always interested in what was coming next. The character Fantomas wasn't a guy I would like to know. I prefer my criminals to be like The Saint. He's cool and he only kills bad guys who really need killin'. Mostly he just robs 'em. And no one enjoys the rich being robbed more than me. If the other 31 novels turned up magically I probably would read them. I'd just hate to borrow them. It might take a while to get through them.