My personal favorite (no offense to winner Mainman) in the recent Classic-Space BSG contest on Flickr (blogged five minutes ago) was this adorable little Cylon raider from Arpy 2.0:
Yearly Archives: 2006
Micro Battlestar Galactica by Justin Vaughn
A Battlestar Galactica building contest was recently held in the Classic-Space group on Flickr. With four entries, the pool wasn’t very big, but it resulted in several nice micro-ships.
Spacer Justin Vaughn (Mainman to most) won with with Galactica:
Superior Insurance against Enemies with Guns Everywhere
Linus Bohman merits two posts in a day with this sleek “S.I.E.G.E. tank”:
Bohman uses lots of pieces in interesting ways, including a gun built from old train rails. (Click the picture above to leave comments for Bohman on Flickr, or see more pics on Brickshelf.)
The Omnibus LEGO Doctor Who Post
Hurray! Another all-in-one post inspired by a recent new LEGO creation!
The various Dr. Who TV series have inspired many builders recently, and since I only started to watch the most recent series on Sci-Fi this season, I had no idea what these builders were posting. Now I’m going to get caught up.
Here’s the most recent creation, the Doctor, his Tardis, and a Dalek by Flickr user Camera Wences:
A big Tardis by Brickshelfer balin:
A squat Tardis by Brickshelfer Earthman:
And one of the older Doctors by jjrailton:
The Omnibus Serenity and Firefly Post
I’m a huge fan of Serenity and Firefly. It’s always nice to see minifigs, vehicles, and vessels from the ‘verse, so (low lighting aside) I was pleased to run across Alex Peacock’s hover mule:
That reminded me of some other great mules and ‘verse LEGO creations I’ve seen on Brickshelf and elsewhere. Here’s a beautiful, larger-than-minifig-scale mule by Will Vale:
Another mule by Brickshelfer theReflexx:
The final mule of the day, by Brickshelf user Lord-Thrawn:
And last but most certainly not least, Christopher Doyle’s not-quite-minifig-scale Serenity:
Bohman’s Space Minifig Weapons
Using an interesting technique discussed in this thread on Classic-Space Forums, Linus Bohman presents a couple really cool minifig weapons:
(A quick “program note”: Bear with us as Josh and I get caught up on a few days of creations we’d like to highlight. I can’t speak for him, but all my LEGO time has been spent building — a good thing — and writing far-too-long blog posts. We’ll be getting back to our usual fare now.)
Reader Poll: Blog Feeds with RSS and Atom
A quick reader poll, plus semi-useful information unrelated to LEGO.
1) How many of you have subscribed to the two feeds available for this blog?
2) For those of you who subscribe to either the Atom or RSS 2.0 feeds, which one do you use?
3) Finally, do you prefer short descriptions or long descriptions in your feeds?
Okay, that’s it for questions from me.
Some of you might not know much about blog feeds, how they work, and how you can use them. The basic idea is that you “subscribe” to a feed from a Web site (like this blog) and you’re automatically alerted when there’s a new item in the feed (like a blog post). No need to check the site every day! The software you use can be on your computer (like FeedReader for Windows or Safari for Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger”) or on the Web (like My Yahoo!, Google home page, or Bloglines).
For those of you who are technically inclined, I highly recommend Developing Feeds with RSS and Atom by Ben Hammersley.
Note: Yes, I have a big backlog of great creations to post. I’ll get to them. ;-)
Microsoft: A Day in the Life
My job rocks. Yesterday was by no means typical, but then no two days working for the world’s biggest software company are the same. Here’s my yesterday, warts and all.
6:30 AM: Wake up early so I can get to work in time for the 9:00 AM keynote address that kicks off this week’s “Engineering Excellence and Trustworthy Computing Forum” (EE&TwC). I wear my totally awesome Xbox T-shirt.
7:30 AM: Catch Metro 242 for Overlake. Write one poem and read half an issue of Poetry magazine. Listen to Green Day on my iPod. (Everybody at Microsoft has an iPod.)
8:30 AM: After passing the North American headquarters of my old employer, I arrive at the transit center in Redmond and catch a Microsoft shuttle to the Conference Center. (There’s a whole fleet of shuttles to get you from one end of the campus to the other. There are special shuttles for recruits. There are special shuttles for interns. It’s like the City of the Future.)
8:45 AM: Check in, get my conference ID and free T-shirt (my first Microsoft swag!). Bypass the free food, grab a free soda, and get a third-row seat for the keynote.
9:00 AM: Listening to the keynote by Jon DeVaan, I’m reminded why I love working for Microsoft: I’m surrounded by brilliant, passionate people from all over the world who genuinely seem to care about making the world a better place through technology.
9:50 AM: I’m getting antsy because I have a 10:00 meeting across campus at my building (tucked in some trees behind the world headquarters of this company).
10:00 AM: I decide to duck out because there doesn’t seem to be a break between the 9:00 AM and 10:00 AM sessions. I figure I’ll disrupt the fewest people by going four seats over, three rows down, and across the front of the room. Jon says, “I’m pleased to introduce Steve Ballmer!” So, I get to be the guy who stands up and leaves as a Senior VP introduces the CEO of Microsoft. Did I mention the TV cameras? Yeah, I’d forgotten about those.
12:15 PM My morning improved as I got some work done, and now I’m ready to meet some Japanese friends for lunch. Knowing I’m slammed, they’re kind enough to join me in the cafeteria in my building. The food at Microsoft isn’t half bad, and it’s cheap. If I don’t like the menu in my building, I can look up menus online and catch a shuttle to any of the other buildings. Today’s entree is Indian cuisine, so I choose palak paneer and daal with naan and samosas, swipe my badge at the register to pay, grab some more free soda, and get caught up with my friends. There are conversations going on in so many languages around me that nobody bats an eye at my Japanese (I’m used to fellow white people staring at me). Yup, this is the World of Tomorrow.
2:30 PM: With more “real” work out of the way, I head back to the Conference Center to get a good seat for the end-of-day keynote with Bill Gates.
2:45 PM: I arrive in time to hear a high-level FBI official (speaking about cyber-crime and Internet security) crack a joke about hackers the U.S. has handed over to third-world countries being tortured. Nobody laughs.
3:00 PM: Jon DeVaan introduces Bill Gates. I’m not standing up this time. Bill gets right down to business, presenting his vision for the future of the company and the future of technology. He’s not the charismatic, boisterous speaker that Steve Ballmer is, but it’s hard not to be captivated by the vision of the man who basically invented the industry we all work in. Sure, there’s a part of me that wonders how I went from a Mac-using, Firefox-surfing, Blogspotting and Gmailing (Google products), Flickrite (now a Yahoo! product) to full assimilation in a month, but the energy and potential at Microsoft are contagious.
5:00 PM I’m finished at the Conference Center, and there’s no sense in waiting for a shuttle and doing half an hour of work, so I take the hard copies I’m editing with me and head home. I love my job. It’s a beautiful day.
Windmill!
Ha! You were expecting a castle creation or something, weren’t you? (Via Brick Brick.)
Dunechaser’s Blocklog is now The Brothers Brick!
We’re very pleased to announce that the blog until recently known as “Dunechaser’s Blocklog” is now “The Brothers Brick!” For continuity purposes, the blog’s Web address will remain the same, but I’ve registered a couple variations on the new name and redirected them here.
We evaluated more than 100 entries from 14 readers, but this name stood out because it reflects the team-oriented nature of the blog, leaves open the possibility of adding future bloggers (not to leave girls out, but nearly all of our fellow LEGO fans who we might invite in the future are male), and so on. I personally like the fact that it forms a sentence in which the word “brick” is used as a verb.
Congratulations to Peppermint Pig, who gave us so many great name ideas in this thread over on Classic-Castle Forums that we had a hard time choosing just one! We’re in the process of picking out the best prizes for Pep, so he should expect a little package in the mail from each of us soon.
Also look for an updated header graphic instead of the boring placeholder we have now. Once again, many thanks to all of you who participated in this naming process, and congrats to Peppermint Pig!
To the minimobile, Robin!
Sir Nelson has built a nifty mini batmobile: 
Using one of the strange little racer bodies, Nelson has created a masterpiece! Instantly recognizable as the world famous super car, this mini version is awesome, way to go Nelson!
Take a gander at the gallery
Brody’s Col du Mont Tower
Many LEGO fans go through a period called a “dark age” or “the dark ages” during which we don’t buy LEGO or build anymore. Although I continued building at home during high school and college, I didn’t buy a whole lot of LEGO between 1989 and 1997. Many LEGO fans credit the Star Wars line (released in 1999) for bringing them out of their dark ages, but I joke that I had a second dark age of my own between 1999 and 2004. I feel like I wasted those five years building nothing but Star Wars creations, missing out on all the other great sets LEGO released. But enough about me.
Bruce noticed this wonderful castle from new Brickshelf user Brody — “Col Du Mont Tower”:
Bruce posted his find in this thread on Classic-Castle Forums, drawing Brody out of lurker mode, explaining that he has just came out of his dark ages. It’s amazing to see this kind of creation from a “new” builder. Be sure to click the image above and check out the full gallery to see all the great details in Brody’s castle.