Battle for the BURPS - TwinLUG Meeting 8-16-09

A heavily attended meeting with several new first timers. We, being the more or less regulars like me, Max, Gary, Tom, Judy, Nathan, Steve, Erik and Roy, were joined by Stacy, Dave, Alyska,Connor and another Steve. That's everyone up there but Steve, no, the new one, and Max who is taking the pictures. Yay, Max for letting me steal his pictures to increase the value of my post. I do rely heavily on the unacknowledged kindness of strangers. Let's hope some of them stay strangers. You can see a picture of Max at his Flickr page. You can see a picture of first time Steve on his wife's blog. She blogged about her hubby going off to the LEGO meeting. As you can see we're in our underground lair's conference room. The only windows are into more lair and someone stole all the reading material in the bathrooms. Stacy and Dave are from Wisconsin and Stacy was recently appointed a LEGO Ambassador over at MOCpages. Alyska is also from Wisconsin. I don't know where Steve and Connor came from. They can tell us if they find their way here.

The big highlight of the meeting was the parts draw and as you know that often leads to bloodshed. Parts maybe parts but some parts is valuable parts. We must be getting pretty good at this now. We unbagged 13 copies of the Indian Jones set 7623 Temple Escape, sorted it all out and picked all the parts in under an hour and a half. The sets on clearance at the LEGO store. I don't know if they are still on-line. I don't think so. It's a nice set, lots of good parts. I like several of the Indy sets because of the nice assortment of parts. This set is a larger one and it has 554 parts according to the box. 138 different parts, according to Bricklink, which means about ten picks per person and a few extras for the reverse round.

 

It looks pretty civil there but the tide turns quickly to trash talk under all the lure of the brick. I was eyein' those nice Blay and Dark Green BURPS, as was Judy. I was out of luck and she beat me down. I have a bruise today. I don't know if you know about parts draws but the idea is each participating person brings a copy of the set, which are opened and the parts sorted out by type. You mass all the like pieces together, then after picking numbers out of a hat, or plastic tub, you draw a part from the assortment and take it home. You go through as many complete rotations as you can until there aren't enough parts to make another pass. Then you reverse the order and the last guy gets to pick again, followed by second last until there are no parts. Sort of makes up in getting to pick last. This set had 138 different parts but we fudged with that by combining some parts, like the dark green wedge plates, which come in a right and a left. We stick both in the bag. That makes sense, and no one winds up with half of what should be a pair. Same for Minifigs, they are sorted out and assembled. People get all of one minifig. This time someone got all 26 of the Skeleton's and all the extra body parts they throw in. It's like a bonus round. I didn't get the skeleton's but that's ok. I have quite a good stock of those. I did get the Jock minifig. I like to go for the minifigs and accessories, at least some of the time. Jock's got a great shirt, so, now I have 13 of them. We get the hats too, or the hair. What you go home with really depends on the parts, who's playing, and who's interested in what at the time of the draw. Because there is such a wide range in quantities of each part you can wind up with more or less parts than what comes in a set. I wound up with 728 parts on a 554 part set. That hasn't been the norm, usually I wind up with a quantity closer to the set total. It could be either side of that number. This set had some parts in large quantities. I got 273 of the 1x2 dark Blay log, which comes 21 to a set, and who ever got the 1x2 tan logs got 286 of them. Nice, huh. That's a good number, nearly filled a sandwich bag, which means you can build some thing bigger than if you only had a baker's dozen or two. Roy's haul, he showed us, could be held in two hands, all small parts, but interesting ones like the silvery robot arm. What's 8 times 13. I don't know, but it's a lot of robot arms taking up a tiny space. The 65 12x12 dark Blay bricks with three technic holes that I picked first filled a whole Indy box and I had a nice double handfull of other stuff on top of that. I stacked all the 12x12 bricks with the others that I had and it's a stack nearly three feet tall. You could kill a guy with that thing. Looks like a massive Micropolis skyscraper. Then we cleaned up the choas and returned to the meeting.

I got the idea for a group build from JD Luse and Chas Irish over at MOCpages. They call it a MOCcomparison. You take a picture, in this case of a spaceship like that one, and everyone tries to build it. The rules are pretty fast and loose. I posted this to the group on the friday before. I wasn't figuring anyone would get a ship done but I thought I would try to make one for the meeting. Roy said he would try to. We both made ships and they are widely different.  Next month, when the rest of the group has time to try, we'll have some pictures. I might see about making another version but we'll see, MocOlympics will have bitten by then, and I figure to be busy with that. Both Stacy and Dave are in the MocOlympics. Stacy and I have first round byes. Dave has to build a mech. He might have a surprise. I just haven't built enought mech's to be good at it.

Judy suggested a parts swap idea. Bring a quantity of a piece you don't need in a bag. There should be what you figure is worth $5 in the bag. You swap with other people for parts they don't want. I thought it was a great idea. I might have some parts for that. It's hard to get rid of stuff sometimes. What if you needed it a week later, and now, some other schlub is drooling on it. No one wants that back, all moist, eeewww!. The reason is sound. Some people never use all the parts they have and might want to trade for parts they want. Remember trades envolving multiple partners can lead to fullfilment. So, what are the suckiest pieces you have to get rid of. Judy was saying that the baggies should only have one sort of piece in them. That's fine but how about minifigs, can we stick an assortment to trade, or say with wheels, can we stick in axles too. I wouldn't mind expanding it to mixed parts in a bag, but parts that are related to each other. 

There was talk of TCBX. What's up! There was talk about the FallCon, a local large comic convention, where we had a nice display last year. We are considering a themed build, besides some Micropolis, which might attract more attention from kids. Last year we had Microplis, which was having a pretty bad day, and that was pretty well recieved. There were a few other MOC's, some of which were comic related. I still have my Batman moc but Roy trashed his Hall of Justice for parts for his recent masterpieces. I suggested making some small buildings, minifig scale, that might depict an American city in the 1930's with gangsters. I stole the idea from the recent picture of an abandoned LEGO theme. They were going to do a gangster theme but it never got produced. Sad, huh. Of course they did do the Indiana Jones sets which have an element of that gangster past.  The Indiana Jones set Shanghai Chase has two cars that really fit the bill and there are two great looking black suits in each set. Perfect for the gangsters, as is the Indy fedora which comes in two colors, brown and black. Not that that set is the only way to make a gangster themed build. I was thinking of Corner Cafe size buildings on 16 by 32 or 32 by 32 baseplates with LEGO baseplates for roads. I wanted to make a bank robbery. Then a lot of small buildings sandwiched together in a street scene. A few buildings could be taken to FallCon and if the TCBX goes ahead then we could hopefully plan for a larger display. As Max would say, time to throw down. Well, really who has the friggin' time. I need a patron, so I could quit my job, and just build. And watch tv. That's important. If you see one, and you're already established, send them my way. I'm ready to go, got my tv and my brick, ready to go.

Part of the business we talked about was a LEGO program that seems to be working it's way to the US. The company would sell club members, who actively promote LEGO in a couple of shows in your area each year, some discounted brick. They are doing this in Europe, and those cats could use the break. LEGO is cheapest in USA and it's still expensive to get a small amount. We'll get more info as time goes along. Several people are interested in the concept. The FallCon is the prefect place to show off the LUG and the brick. Packed with people who need a new expensive hobby, and their kids, and their kids are already interested. It's getting late and I need to shuffle off to Buffalo. I can't think of much of anything else now. If anyone has some other input let me know. I'll take free LEGO too. 

Comments

[Nathan Stohlmann]

It was I who beat you to the BURPs, not Judy. :-)

But I did trade her four of them for four of the balls that she got.

["East Side" Steve's Wife]

MOComparisons? MOC Olympics? TCBX? Is there no end to the mysteries of the LUGgerground? The more I learn, the more I must blog. I think soon I can write my own Dan Brown novel about you guys...

[Garth Danielson]

Sorry Nathan, my poor memory is sad. Now that you say that I remember you and her traded those balls. That history for ya, all lies.