Monthly Archives: June 2013

Three for Kate

Although it is not something that TBB cares to publicize, there is a dark-side to blogging here. The experience is something akin to winning the lottery; as soon as your name gets put up on the marquee of the big blog, it seems like everyone wants a piece of you. Whether it is old drunken cronies who call in the small hours of the morning, demanding the spotlight for their pointy starfighters or some aftermarket weapons huckster with bags of freebies or something even more sinister. Sometimes, even the sanctuary of home and hearth is not safe from those who seek to curry favor and seek influence over the important choices we brother’s brick make on a daily basis. In this particular case, my 5 year old took a look at what I was blogging and said “Dad, there is a problem with your website…there aren’t any mermaids.” In the face of such overwhelming pressure, I folded like a cheap suit.

First up is Nathaniel (The Architect) and his simply titled Mermaid.

Chris Adams (Lucifer Adams) joins the undersea shenanigans with his Too Lazy To Swim.

And finally, so that I might restore peace to the Goldman household and get that little micro-manager off my back, Cecilie’s (cecilhf) Little Mermaid.

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“Everything’s shiny, Cap’n. Not to fret.”

Diamond Dave Shaddix and his co-conspirator Stephen Lanyi recently finsihed a 40″ x 30″ mosaic of maybe the best-loved starship engineer in the galaxy this side of Scotty. Also, unlike Jimmy Doohan, she’s not missing a finger. I’m talking of course about Firefly’s Kaylee Frye, played by actress Jewel Staite and now immortalized in ABS. Shiny Dave, very Shiny.

Odyssey

If you’re headed to Dallas for the Brick Siesta LEGO convention next month, keep your beady-eyes peeled for this sci-fi marvel called the UNES Odyssey 21 by Kyle Collard (lazerblade). In a universe of boilerplate, this ship is a breed apart with its unconventional design and delicate looking textures. To me it looks like some kind of deconstructed German flag. Your results may vary.

The design for the Odyssey was inspired by another builder that should be familiar to constant readers of the weekend-shift, LEGOLIZE IT MAN. Forget fancy new product launches or collectible minifigs…for me, there is nothing better in this hobby than when two or more builders combine their talents on a build or an idea. Enjoy your Friday night slice of collaboration.

Friday Night Fights (Round 8)

Welcome back fight fans, to Sin City Nevada for another teeth-rattling edition of Friday Night Fights! Tonight’s bout has the Vegas odds-makers confounded and the betting public in a fury. Let’s go to the tale of the tape:

Fighting out of the red corner…from The Vertical City…Ryuhei Kawai (kwi-chang) and his “LHB-022_V.E.S.P.A_“.

And fighting out of the blue corner…from the mean-streets where pimpin’ ain’t easy…Jade Wisniewski (Taz-Maniac) and his “Trigger Happy“.

The Fight-team would also like to thank Jack Daniels, the official adult beverage of FNF. Enjoy some Jack with your favorite LEGO Ice-cube men, but always drink responsibly. Thanks to Karl Westworth for his contribution to tonight’s broadcast.

As usual, constant reader, you are tasked with deciding the outcome of this pugilistic endeavor by way of comment. On the last edition of Friday Night Fights, crusty veteran Brian Kescenovitz scored an early round knockout against his overmatched opponent, the judges called it 11-2: easily the most lopsided fight in the brief history of FNF.

Jarek’s Z-10D “Hades” has nice curves

Jarek‘s sci-fi vehicles have some of the smoothest contours I’ve seen, and his latest starfighter is no exception. Take note of how well those wedge plates complement the flow of the cement mixer half cylinders.

Tiny LEGO RC Routemaster Bus

The Routemaster is almost certainly the most famous bus design in the world. And there have been many built out of LEGO, including this pair by our own Ralph. What makes this one by Gabor Horvarth special is that it manages to pack in full remote control in a very small (6 wide) package. Which I can tell you from my own less successful attempt is an incredible achievement

I first saw Gabor’s work on The LEGO Car blog.

8.5-foot USS Yorktown WW2 aircraft carrier by Marcello De Cicco

It is not as big as the USS Intrepid by Ed Diment or the USS Harry Truman by Malle Hawking, but you have got to admire this LEGO aircraft carrier, USS Yorktown, by Marcello De Cicco.

The model represents the second aircraft carrier named USS Yorktown. The first was sunk in 1942, during the Battle of Midway. One of the new Essex class carriers then under construction was named Yorktown in her honour and had a long and distinguished career that lasted until the Vietnam war. Like her sister ship, USS Intrepid, she has been preserved and now is part of a museum.

The model was built to a scale of 1/108. That is a rather small scale for building aircraft models and I am impressed by the level of detail that the builder has managed to achieve. Small is a relative term, however. With aircraft carriers being stupendously big things, this model is still a pretty whopping 8.5 ft. (or about 2.6 m) long. The photo quality does not really meet our usual standards, but I can imagine that something this big is not exactly easy to photograph and the ships in the background do not look shabby either.

Many thanks to Brick Tales for the heads up.

The Wave in Vejle

“The Wave in Vejle” is a building designed by Henning Larsen Architects in Vejle, Denmark. Joaquin Cantolla says that his LEGO version is a “free interpretation” of the real-life building, but the spirit of this award-winning architectural masterpiece comes through clearly in LEGO.

Thanks to reader Henrik Høxbroe for the tip!

Ironing Man

This little vignette by crises_crs made me laugh more than it probably should have. So I felt that I should share it so that you can laugh more than you probably should.

Baddum tsk!

BrickLink.com sold, will be getting security upgrade & facelift [News]

The long-term future of the online LEGO sales site BrickLink.com has been uncertain ever since its founder Daniel Jezek passed away two and a half years ago. Today, Daniel’s family announced that they have sold BrickLink.com to a company that promises to upgrade and maintain the site.

Here’s the full announcement from Eliska Jezkova, Daniel’s mother and until recently the CEO of BrickLink:

About a week ago I posted a special message to thank all of you for supporting us over the nearly three years since my son Dan died. I thank all those who sent personal messages to me about what BrickLink has meant to them. In my message, I mentioned some progress we made, and also the challenges we faced. Good news remaining is that, despite the challenges, business has been brisk and even impressive. When I took over the website in the name of my son, the representational visitor log (front page of BrickLink) was at about 50 million visitors. Today, it is at nearly 144 million visitors and counting. Nearly two-thirds of all those who visited BrickLink over the 13 years since its inception have arrived here in the short time we’ve run BrickLink.com. Also, we’ve partnered with security experts and have been able to make the website safer than it has ever been. I’m proud of these facts and I again thank all of you for your patience in sticking with us to this day.

But it’s a new era, and much needs to be done to bring BrickLink to a higher level and to become the site whose potential all of you see and we want to reach as well.

Thus, I am announcing that I am stepping down as CEO of BrickLink and have handed the website over to the committed and competent hands of a new owner, Jung-Ju “Jay” Kim, founder of Nexon, one of the world’s largest online game companies.

I completely endorse Jay to take the reins of BrickLink. He has the knowledge, resources and capabilities needed for the job. He has a passion, not just for all things LEGO, but also for BrickLink. Like most of you, he has been a member of the community for years. He has tremendous respect for what Dan accomplished while he was alive. He also has a compelling desire to carry forward Dan’s vision and his guiding principles that were laid down more than a decade ago. Jay and his team are ready to work toward “BrickLink 2.0”, as well as continuing hardware architecture and application upgrades.

It’s a bright future for BrickLink, and I intend to be a part of it along with the rest of the BrickLink Community. Larry and I will be staying on in an advisory-consulting role to the new owners. Eric Smith will be staying on as Admin to ensure a smooth, seamless transition with minimal interruption.

Part of that transition will include relocation of the BrickLink site to a different data center. Later today you will learn more about that server relocation and the migration schedule, which has been carefully designed to minimize downtime.

It’s been a great three years. I did my best and I am sorry that the hacking incidents waylaid us from doing more, earlier. I am proud of the amazing growth of BrickLink, thanks to all of you.

As hard as it was to give up our treasured BrickLink that Dan loved so much, I felt it was the right thing to do, not for me, but for the Community. And, as always, it is that worldwide community that matters to me most, just as it mattered to Dan. That is why I am passing the torch to new leadership. It is what Dan would have wanted me to do.

As I mentioned, I will remain on with BrickLink and will act as an ambassador and link to BrickLink’s lineal past. Please feel free to contact me any time at eliska@bricklink.com. I still want to hear from you.

Thank you and let’s all look forward to tomorrow.

Best regards,

Eliska Jezkova, former CEO of BrickLink.com

In addition, here’s the text of the message from Jung-Ju “Jay” Kim, founder of the online game company Nexon:

Dear BrickLink Community,

I am extremely pleased to be taking over the operations of BrickLink.com. I’ve been a LEGO fan for 40 years and an avid user of BrickLink.com for over a decade. My first plans are to upgrade the website, and do our best to make users happier and more prosperous, while staying true to the original vision of BrickLink.com founder, Daniel Jezek. We will work hard in order to ensure that BrickLink.com becomes stable, secure and as user-friendly as possible.

I want to sincerely thank the family of Daniel Jezek, especially his mother Eliska, as well as the BrickLink.com Community, for the opportunity to upgrade and operate such a beloved website as BrickLink.com. In order to expedite the process of renovating BrickLink.com, I and Bricklink Limited will be asking users to e-mail us with their ideas for the improved functionality of the site, as well as any current issues that need to be addressed in order to provide users with the best possible selling and buying experience. We’ll establish those lines of communication very soon.

Thank you for your continued patronage and support of BrickLink.com

Jung-Ju Kim, incoming owner of BrickLink.com

It remains to be seen what changes all of this will mean for those of us who use BrickLink regularly. Stay tuned to TBB for more details as we learn them.

The birds of New Zealand by Thomas Poulsom (with bonus badger)

One beautiful summer evening in December 2008, I walked down a dirt road in New Zealand and listened to a distinctive hooting in the distance — the nighttime call of the kiwi. Today, I work for a company based in Auckland and look forward to returning to New Zealand again soon.

Thomas Poulsom (DeTomaso77) has been posting antipodean birds for a while, but he’s just added two from New Zealand to his growing collection of living dinosaurs, starting with the iconic kiwi and the weird & wonderful kakapo (an adorably fat, flightless parrot).

Here’s “Kaimi the Kiwi”:

And “Karo the Kakapo”:

We’ve been supporters of Thomas’ LEGO CUUSOO project since the beginning, and I’m glad to see that it now has more than 6,200 supporters, though I’m inclined to agree with LEGO in their official comment that we’d like to see Thomas focus on one particular bird (my favorite is Bobby Robin).

But Thomas doesn’t just build LEGO birds. He recently posted a round and chubby badger named Roger to highlight the plight of this unique animal in Great Britain.

If you’re seeing Thomas’ animal models here for the first time, head on over to his photostream on Flickr for hundreds more LEGO animal photos.

Arrowhead

This seems to be the week of angular spaceships, as legodrome adds his own pointy starfighter to the mix. The engine cluster and underside bristling with missiles are excellent, beautifully presented in this collage view.