In this video by Chris Salt, the Power Miners do not shine in their attitudes towards the women in their midst. However, the animation is smooth, the jerk gets what’s coming to him, and there are singing rock monsters. What more could you ask for?
Monthly Archives: May 2010
Why buying LEGO through the LEGO fan sites you visit is so important [Editorial]
Josh, Caylin, and I attended our local LEGO Users Group meeting yesterday, and someone asked us why Brothers-Brick.com was so slow, and if there was anything he — as a programmer — could do to help. My answer was, “Buy more LEGO. No, seriously!” Readers ask us this question frequently enough that I thought it was important to share our answer with all of you out there on the Web. Read on to learn why.
Over 150,000 of you visit The Brothers Brick every month, loading pages on the site over one million times. Running a website that generates this much traffic costs several thousand dollars a year.
The Brothers Brick relies on you, our readers, to help cover these expenses by clicking through to one of our advertisers when you buy your LEGO. The site then gets a very small percentage back (3%-6%), which in turn we use to pay for servers, bandwidth, software, and other technical expenses. We’re aware that The Brothers Brick isn’t the fastest site on the web, but we just don’t have that extra level of revenue to enable us to upgrade our servers and reliably pay for the increased performance.
Nevertheless, after basic hosting expenses have been covered, we turn everything else back to the community, whether through prizes and giveaways for contests, helping to cover travel and accommodation for LEGO fans attending conventions, or the occasional gift of a Flickr Pro account to talented builders whose work might otherwise disappear when they hit their upload limit.
Realistically, we know that many of us will continue buying LEGO from brick-and-mortar stores — our local independent toy store, Toys R Us, the LEGO Store in the mall, or wherever. But it’s also important that everyone understand how much high-traffic LEGO fans sites like The Brothers Brick, FBTB, and Brickset rely on our readers to pay the bills. Helping to secure some level of financial stability is one way to make sure these community resources don’t go away.
So, if you want a faster TBB experience, if you want to make sure Brickset is always available as a reference, or if you want to ensure FBTB continues to have awesome contests, please consider buying at least some of your LEGO online by clicking through from the LEGO fan sites you visit.
Classic Space base on a very small moon
Though we love Shannon’s great big Classic Space base, we’d be remiss if we passed up this teeny tiny Classic Space base by Tim Goddard.
It’s actually a rather substantial LEGO creation, so not all the details fit in just the one photo above. Be sure to check out Tim’s Flickr photostream for more.
Via MicroBricks.
LEGO Toy Story 3 sets available on LEGO.com now [News]
Pixar’s Toy Story 3 will be out in movie theaters in a few weeks, but the LEGO Toy Story 3 are available now from the LEGO Shop online.
7597 Western Train Chase includes Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Jessie, Bullseye the horse, Rex the T-Rex, and Hamm the piggy bank.
Some of the Toy Story sets look like pretty good LEGO City sets, including a pizza truck and a garbage truck:
All five LEGO Toy Story 3 sets are available on LEGO.com.
Where does he get all those wonderful toys?
Many years ago Mike Psiaki came onto the online LEGO scene and was impressed by El Caracho‘s Batmobile. Now he’s built his own for a new generation of builders to be impressed by.
Pink bubbles on a Vic Viper
Bisonfuehrer‘s Vic Viper for the Missing Man display at BrickWorld 2010 has pink bubbles that remind me of a bubble eye goldfish. It’s one of the most innovative space creations I’ve seen in a while; the use of the onion dome certainly tops the chart for creativity.
Lionheart Villa welcomes you.
A year in the making, Marcos Bessa‘s Lionheart Villa is clearly a labor of love and really interesting building techniques. The siding, the curtains in the windows…everything comes together and makes this an absolutely gorgeous creation.
As Marcos points out, he’ll be returning to it later this summer to complete the interior. I can’t wait to see what he’ll do for it!
AFOL parody, a comic about Mark Kelso
I occasionally love a good comic, especially if it involves someone I know. Do you think you know Mark Kelso beyond his brick monstrosities? Check out this comic by Jeff F. on MOCpages and you might learn more about the legend, more than you need to that is. If you care about the building techniques in the setup, visit Brickshelf for easy viewing of all the pictures.
