Monthly Archives: September 2005

“Blocklog” Explanation

When I named my blog, I did so because I liked how “Blocklog” sounded like “Block Blog.” But recently it’s been bugging me that everybody else calls individual LEGO pieces “bricks.”

Perusing some Japanese LEGO blogs today (links in a new section on the right), I figured out that Japanese LEGO fans call LEGO pieces “blocks” (ブロック). Now it all makes sense! Growing up in Japan, all my friends called them blocks! It just never sunk in that they’re called “bricks” in English. Oops…

Thus “Blocklog.”

Brick-Built Aliens

Twenty years ago or so, my brother and I spent our free time alternating between building giant castles and giant moon bases. To populate our spaceports and star cruisers, I designed several alien/robot heads and stuck them on my space torsos. My parents wouldn’t buy me a digital camera in the ’80s (heh heh), so these are recreations:

(The image is a link to the full gallery.)

Vikings are Useful

Japanese Brickshelf user MOKO is famous for using parts in unusual ways (among other things). MOKO’s latest creations use parts from the new Vikings line:

Can’t wait to pick up my Vikings…

RSS Feed

You can now subscribe to Dunechaser’s Blocklog as an RSS feed. Click the Subscribe! link in the navigation area on the right, or go to the following address:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/DunechasersBlocklog

On Vacation – A Political Cartoon

Here’s a little political cartoon I created a couple weeks ago.

“The president responds to one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history…by staying on vacation for a couple more days.”

In the last week, this has started circulating:

The similarity is striking, no?

More Literary Minifigs

I just uploaded twenty more literary minifigs. Here’s a sampling:

John Thornton and Buck from Jack London’s The Call of the Wild:

Mr. Hyde from Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde:

And links to the rest:

  • Guy Montag from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

  • David Bowman from Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey

  • Piggy, Ralph, and Jack from William Golding’s Lord of the Flies

  • Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley from Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises

  • John the Savage, Lenina Crowne , Mustapha Mond, and Bernard Marx from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World

  • Atticus Finch, Boo Radley, and Scout Finch from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

  • Dr. Victor Frankenstein (and his monster) from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

  • Tom Joad from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath

  • Dr. Henry Jekyll from Stevenson’s aforementioned novel

    • 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, Brave New World — anybody see a pattern in my favorite books? Heh heh…

    Literary Characters

    I’ve been focusing on vignettes for a while, but this weekend I thought I’d try building a bunch of new minifigs.

    Here’s the crew of the Pequod from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick:

    (A note on Captain Ahab: This minifig is an essentially unmodified Hovercraft Pilot from 7045 Hovercraft Hideout. The head even has a scar that spans his face, just as Melville describes. I almost think the designer at LEGO had Captain Ahab in mind when developing this minifig.)

    Here’s the title character from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe:

    And links to several more:

  • Philip Marlowe from Raymond Chandler’s series of detective novels

  • Henry Fleming (“The Youth”) from Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage

  • Santiago (the title character) from Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea

  • Winston and Julia from George Orwell’s 1984 (my favorite book)

  • Jim and Huck from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

  • Billy Pilgrim from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five

    • More to come soon.

    A Dog, a Turtle, an Old Guy in a Wheelchair, and a Lady at the Beach

    Brickshelf user Michael Jasper is a master of using minifig-hands in unusual ways. I’m not quite sure what he updated in his sundries folder, but these jumped out at me today:

    I especially like his beach scene (note the bikini top):

    Updated Blogroll

    I’ve just added a bunch of LEGO blogs to my “Blocklogroll.” (I still don’t know if I like “blocklog,” since most people call ’em bricks — myself included, but I suppose I’m committed at this point. Oh well…)

    I’d just like to highlight klasbricks. Go ahead, click the link.

    You back? A DUPLO blog? DUPLO?! Yes, that’s right.

    Very cool. Or something. Yet another reason to move to Sweden.

    The Stone Table

    It’s been a few weeks since I’ve taken pictures of the things I’ve built. Let’s just say events in the real world have proved somewhat more compelling than little plastic bricks. I’ve created a couple political cartoons inspired by recent events, but I’m debating whether or not to post them.

    In the meantime, here’s something I put together over the weekend — a crucial scene from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe:


    More importantly, though, I’ve added links to Bruce’s blog posts about what adult fans of LEGO can do to help with Katrina relief efforts. Specifically, the LEGO Company will match contributions. My employer won’t even do that for my coworkers, much less for our customers.

    BimPCast

    The podcast from Nikki and Steven over at Bricks in my Pocket is now available on iTunes, so I finally got around to listening to them. Not bad at all. I’ve added them to my blogroll as well.

    Monster Rides

    I haven’t taken pictures of anything this last week or so, but I ran across these wonderful cars a while ago on Brickshelf:

    The perfect rides for my new favorite minifigs.

    Check out the rest of mrzumbi’s gallery. Not a lot in terms of quantity, but he’s made some amazing stuff — I’m honestly shocked that the hit counts on his creations are so low. Doesn’t make sense, given how good they are…