Too Much News Means Few Posts

Unfortunately, despite being back in Boston for about ten days now, after my rushed trip back to Canada, I have not got back into the swing of posting. Part of this is obviously due to the upset routine--which continues to be upset, since I'm no longer in school for the year, and I'm busy packing up my apartment (and LEGO) to move out May 31st--but this is also due to things like the discouragingly cloudy weather Boston has been enjoying, which has discouraged me from taking pictures, which are often an important catalyst in my blog-writing process.

It'll be interesting, as an aside, to see how this blog fares once I get back to Canada for the summer, since I'm only taking a very small fraction, a mere token of me collection with me. The rest will live in storage...

Meanwhile, while there is bad news in my life, there's also been good news. My girlfriend is no longer my girlfriend, but my fiancée.



The wedding isn't for a little over a year (subject to when we can or can not book things), and I doubt it will heavily impact this blog, which remains a LEGO-blog first.

On the other hand... I wonder if we can set up a gift registry at the LEGO Store...

Aquazone Breakfast News: 017

Some Statistics

Unfortunately, Boston has been cloudy since I've been home, so today's post may be a bit more boring than it might have been in the weather had felt cheerier. Of course, I'm talking about statistics today, so it's possible that no amount of pictures would make that better. On the other hand, I don't think I would have decided to talk about some statistics if I had pictures...

Anyway, you've been duly warned.

I've been using Excel to keep a record of my LEGO collection for some years now. I had a paper record ca. 2000 that listed when I acquired all of my older sets, which remained current until about 2003-4ish (just before the Great Take Apart), and the current Excel document was started in 2007, so it's a mostly accurate record of when I acquired my sets, a completely accurate record of what sets I have, and has also developed into a bit of a statistical chart, as I keep track of the "ratings" my sets get.

Each set is evaluated on five criteria (developed on Classic-Castle in the course of reviewing Castle sets on the official review threads): Parts, Playability, Figs and their Accessories, Design, and "Nostalgia." Obviously, these are all open to subjectivity, and since the point of the whole exercise is more or less to figure which sets are my favourites, that's not really problematic. It's been interesting to compare where sets line up with Lugnet's rating system, and it would seem that (for the most part) once you average out my five criteria, you end up with fairly standard assessments. "Nostalgia" is the trickiest of the five, because while the other four aim for objectivity (while admitting it's a biased process), Nostalgia is there specifically to provide a category to account for sets that I really like (or dislike)... and can't give any good reason for.

On the basis of these statistics, I've also calculated the averages for each subtheme. The numbers are less fair here, since I've only evaluated sets that I own, so a theme with two small (and often mediocre) sets in my collection will probably not rate as well as a theme with 15 sets ranging from small to large, which in turn will not rate as well as a set with only one or two of the largest sets (which often get the best ratings from me). However, as a measure of "favourite," I think this list is fairly accurate, and it's as good a way as any of listing them.

Some other day I might go into a discussion of my favourite or least favourite sets, but for today we'll just look at the favourite and least favourite themes in my collection. Starting at the top, my favourite themes according to this criteria are:

1. Adventurers-the Egyptian Subtheme from 1998, with a 9.85 rating
2. Black Knights, ca. 1992, with a 9.3 rating
3. Designer (the large house sets from the 2000s-2010s), with a 9.25 rating
4. Imperial Guards, 1992-5, with a 9.0 rating
5. Legoland Castle, ca. late 1980s, with a 8.94 rating

The interesting thing about this list, is that the only theme from the 3rd Millennium is the Designer line, probably reflecting the fact that the earlier sets have a higher nostalgic quotient. Indeed, both the Black Knight and the Imperial Guards have been looked at as "Ones That Got Away," and Legoland Castle and the Egyptian Adventurer line would have counted as the same if I had not, in fact, caught them.

At the bottom of the list (of 86 distinctly considered themes--not including Bionicle, Technic, or Duplo) are the following:

82. Alpha Team-Mission Deep Sea, from 2002, with a 7.35 rating
83. Soccer, from the early 2000s, with a 7.25 rating
84. Aquasharks, from 1995-8, with a 7.25 rating (technically a tie with Soccer)
85. Xtreme Island Stunts, from the early 2000s, with a 7.15 rating
86. Junior Pirates, also from the early 2000s, with a 6.4 rating

I do not think it is coincidental that the bottom bunch of sets tends to hail from the early part of the 2000s, nor that Junior Pirates is so abysmally below the rest--Jack Stone would probably be there too, if I'd ever got a set from that line. The Aquasharks are perhaps unfairly in the bottom five, mostly due to the fact that I have only got two sets, and one of them is the abysmal Super Sub, also know as The Aquashark Dart, which has a 6.6 rating.

All of this only goes to show, perhaps, that I am either too much of a nerd or have way too much time on my hands... or both. But I doubt I'm the only one out there who has done anything like this.

Aquazone Breakfast News: 016

I meant to get this up on Friday, but when I attempted in the earlier morning, Blogger was having issues that prevented people from logging in... hence it comes today, after I've returned to Boston. With school out, and being back, there should hopefully be a greater frequency of new content again.

Aquazone Breakfast News: 015

Sorry about the lack of updating lately. First there was an engagement, and then I had to rush back to Canada for a death in the family. It's been the best of times and the worst of times...

...but Lucien and Alex soldier on!

Aquazone Breakfast News: 014

...and now we move on to the third batch produced of Aquazone Breakfast News, in which we get to see Formendacil's love of bad puns.

Grandfather's Tale Character: Marcel of Flamond

Since one of the major purposes of this blog was as a vehicle to discuss my LEGO stories--a selfish purpose intended to help motivate me to stay on track with it a bit more--today's post introduces a new theme of posts that will appear from time to time: a discussion of the characters in the titular story, Grandfather's Tale.



Marcel of Flamond was introduced in Chapter 1 of Grandfather's Tale as the Lion soldier who comes with the 1463 Treasure Cart, who is doing what he does: carting treasure to Castle Montjoie, King's Mountain Fortress. He arrives there in Chapter 3 at the same time as the adventurers who bring news of the bad guys' impending attack, and so he is swept up in the story as the soldier who lucks into escaping the castle with Princess Anne and the adventurers, Giles and Humbert,

Thus far--that is, Chapter X, the extent of the published story--Marcel has sort of just been riding along, while the real leadership has been provided by Giles and later Rebecca. Princess Anne is equally inexperienced and untried, but because of her royal station she's been taking some stands of leadership already. Even in battle, Marcel has yet to do much, since he gets told to stay close to the Princess while Giles and Humbert deal with the Fright Knights, or to stand back while the Forestmen shoot down the enemy.

So what is the point of having Marcel in this ensemble-cast story?

Well, first of all, Grandfather's Tale is being written as I go along. I have ideas of where it'll end up, ideas that are changing as I go along, but it's hardly fully formed. Thus, originally, Marcel got included because I needed someone's point-of-view to follow, some fairly normal character in a world of heroes, royalty, and magicians who could provide a starting point for me. The decision to include Giles and Humbert, which came about a chapter later, meant that when they got thrown together directly in the flight from Castle Montjoie, it made dramatic sense to have Marcel and Giles clash--and since Giles was clearly an experienced hero, Marcel quickly became the young, inexperienced hero.

This was a bit of a turn-around, because Marcel was never intended to be inexperienced, precisely. He was intended to be a competent, disciplined soldier--young enough to have a story-arc and even fall in love (although I didn't decide if that would be with the Princess), but the inexperienced part fits. After all, why would a soldier whose chief duty is to cart taxes to the king's castle have a broad experience of an adventurer or royal? Thus, by the time we get to his inactivity in the Dark Forest, Marcel is deliberately being cast as "not contributing much," to provide a deliberate contrast for later chapters (as yet to come...) where he will grow into one of the main heroes. And, yes, the door for romance is still open.

So why did I pick Marcel specifically to be my hero? Obviously, I wanted to start with the classic Lion knights, which were my first Castle faction (King's Mountain Fortress was my first Castle set), but why did I start with the little fellow from Treasure Cart? Why not one of these guys:



The answer is that Marcel came with a sword. This made him the "favourite" of my Lion soldiers growing up, since my brother and I had a strict hierarchy of soldiers: swordsmen, axemen, spearsmen, archers, crossbownmen. Within this schema, Marcel (who only received a name when I started Grandfather's Tales) was the most highly favoured soldier. It was also a chance to introduce Treasure Cart, the set, for a brief moment of completion. As of Chapter X, we've also seen King's Mountain Fortress, Wolfpack Renegades, and Dungeon Master's Castle. Although the point of the story is not to focus on the sets; rather to use the sets to tell the story, I enjoy having the opportunity to include the sets, as integral nostalgic elements of my mental LEGO landscape.

Finally, although I King's Mountain Fortress and Treasure Cart, my brother only had Treasure Cart. Thus, for six years (six highly important years of childhood), until we each got the Guarded Inn, this soldier had a huge place in his collection as THE Lion soldier, and was eventually augmented with parts from an accessory pack or two to become a proper knight--a story arc or trajectory that may not be so different for the character in Grandfather's Tales, so it seemed appropriate.

Aquazone Breakfast News: 013

Minifigs: Roboforce

Roboforce was a relatively small Space theme that came out in 1997. It was the last "human" Space faction before the Dark Ages of Space history (between Insectoids in 1998 and Mars Mission in 2007), and consisted of a total of four sets. Coming on the heels of the rather larger Exploriens theme in 1996, the Roboforce were something of a "one schtick" theme: robots. Despite that, and the corresponding poor press that they seem to have had, the Roboforce had some excellent minifigs, and although I've never managed to get my hands on any of the sets, I do have two figs, one of each main variety: red/orange and yellow/neon green.



The yellow fig was something I decided to get because of an assortment of pieces that I got used for Christmas around 2004 (I'm not positive of the exact year), together with a bunch of pieces that seem to have come with one of the yellow Roboforce sets. The red fig was also a Bricklink build, though he came piecemeal over the course of a year or two, instead of as a single unit. Consequently, he does not have a "standard" Roboforce head, as the yellow ones does.

LEGO Store Acquistions, April 2011

As mentioned before, yesterday was the second 2011 trip to the LEGO Store in Braintree (of all the LEGO Stores, it is the only one remotely accessible to Boston's public transportation system). Naturally, this meant I acquired more LEGO. However, since the whole point of the LEGO Store (in my humble opinion) is to get things you can't get anywhere else, only one item was an actual set...



2258 Ninja Ambush is my second Ninjago set, after the one I acquired at the LEGO Store in January. I continue to avoid the rather expensive spinner sets in favour of traditional boxed sets, and Ninja Ambush is great little addition to my LEGO collection--at least in terms of raw parts. The red ninja minifig is a nice addition to my LEGO ninja army, though red is sadly among the more common colours of ninja. The skeleton is more original, since he's my first Ninjago skeleton, but I don't think I really like him. The new arms are dreadfully non-poseable and their static position is worse than earlier skeleton incarnations. The face is also one of the worse skeleton prints, but I can forgive that since it's a new print. I'm also really not sold on the square-block legs.

Also rather conventionally, I picked up a small Pick-a-Brick cup.



Which looks like this, spilled out:



The main selling point for the Pick-a-Brick were the horses. For some reason, I still don't have enough of them, and while white horses without saddles are low of the totem pole of horse-needs, it was impossible to pass them up. The other most notable addition were the 2x2 dark tan tiles. The rest was fairly conventional, I thought (on the basis of 4 LEGO Store visits in my lifetime).

I also picked up a couple of keychains because they were on sale. Like most keychains I've acquired before, these will probably be de-chained and used as regular figs. The rockmonster wasn't something I would normally have bought, but he was 98 cents. The Classic Space fig is one I ogled before, and at $1.98, I was almost tempted to get two.



The LEGO Store already had Series 4 Collectible minifigs, but I'm less interested generally in the fourth series than the third, and previously I only had the one Elf that I managed to get back in January. Now I have a second Elf, a fisherman, and an alien. I selected them by touch, but I was only certain about the Elf (his shield and bow are a dead giveaway).



It seems that I cannot go to the LEGO Store without using their build-a-minifig section. This time, the lure had to do with the Series 1 Collectible Minifig parts there. I only IDed the Forestman and the Magician parts, but I think there were more. In hindsight, I'm mildy surprised I didn't just make myself three Forestmen...



Finally, there were several bags of assorted bricks... I'm not sure what to call them exactly, so here's a picture:



Opened and sorted through, I discovered a *lot* of 2x1x2 yellow bricks and trans-neon green 1x1 cones. There was also a complete minifig... with several extra heads.



To recap the whole episode, here's a picture of all the minifigs [EDIT: Except for the three build-a-figs]. They're quite the bizarre looking crowd, but after some reorganisation in the collection, they will be fully respectable members, I can assure you. Indeed, I might well do a post on in the near future.



All told, I feel like it was an excellent trip, and I even spent less money than I ever have at the LEGO Store. It helps that my girlfriend got Diagon Alley, so the Pick-a-Brick cup ended up being free (purchases of over $75 let you get a free small PaB cup), and that the keychains were on sale.