It all started with wooden toys like this duck:
The LEGO Company is celebrating its 75th birthday today. You can read a very cool LEGO timeline on LEGO.com.
Here’s to another 75 years of wonderful memories. We can’t wait to find out what’s next!
EDIT: This is what I get for jumping right to the new post page after getting home, without checking the main page first. Well, at least you get a picture of a wooden duck. :-D
“I feel an immense sense of pleasure and pride when I meet children and adults who enjoy our products. Throughout its 75-year history the LEGO Group has been through difficult and good times – fortunately much more good than difficult! This has been possible only because we have been blessed with – and still have – an incredibly committed team of employees. They have helped to keep alive the fundamental principles on which my grandfather set up the company. So I’m confident that we can look forward to the next 75 years.” – Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen
Check out the LEGO press release here.
And to celebrate:
(More pics of the younger me with LEGO here)
Leg Godt!
These time-lapse videos of LEGO events are always cool, especially with hilarious Benny Hill music:
That’s the setup for the annual Malkara School model railroad exhibit in Canberra, Australia — an event that Peter Edwards participates in.
An interesting side note: The trains are run by MINDSTORMS. How cool is that?
After several years of active involvement in the online LEGO fan community, I finally took the plunge and went to my first convention last October. NWBrickCon right here in Seattle was an absolute blast. If you’re thinking about testing the waters yourself, I highly recommend NWBrickCon. And contrary to my fears, no, LEGO fans are not all freaks. :-D
(3-D NWBrickCon logo by Adam Hally.)
The mysterious, gigantic minifig on a beach in The Netherlands has left TBB readers all abuzz. Builder Will M. has recreated this intriguing scene, in microscale no less!
Giant Lego man found in Dutch sea
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A giant, smiling Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort on Tuesday.Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-metre (8-foot) tall model with a yellow head and blue torso.
“We saw something bobbing about in the sea and we decided to take it out of the water,” said a stall worker. “It was a life-sized Lego toy.”
A woman nearby added: “I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England.”
The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall.
Excellent work, Will! You had me laughing so hard I could barely blog this.
Here’s the caption from the BBC News Web site:
A huge Lego toy has mysteriously appeared on Zandvoort beach in Holland. Nobody knows where it comes from.
Any of our readers from The Netherlands know something about this?
(Thanks to readers Sharon and Cynthia for the link!)
Recent events have put the issue of image hosting in the spotlight. There are a lot of choices out there, from popular sites like Brickshelf and MOCpages to newer sites like MOCShow and BrickImage, and even commercial, non-LEGO sites like Flickr. All of these sites provide an invaluable service to the LEGO fan community – a place to host your images.
The LEGO Ambassadors would like to ask fans for your input on what you would want from your image-hosting site. Questions include:
I want to be very clear about this: Asking everyone for feedback isn’t intended to start another debate here on The Brothers Brick about which existing site is better (though I suppose comparisons are inevitable). As fellow LEGO fans, those of us who are Ambassadors are simply asking you for your thoughts and ideas about the viewing and showcasing of your LEGO creations.
Unlike many of the other ideas and opinions I hear from you, I won’t be forwarding these ideas to The LEGO Group, who have publicly and clearly stated that they will not own nor run such a service. However, your comments will be available on this post for others in the community to view, and hopefully use, in building and improving image hosting Web sites.
Andrew Becraft
LEGO Ambassador
EDIT: *bump*
BrickJournal editor Joe Meno has announced that the Web site for the magazine has been officially launched. Here’s what Joe has to say:
I’m happy to announce that the BrickJournal website has been launched:
Issue 8 is online and available for viewing. Issue 7 is also uploaded but is only available to web subscribers. I am uploading other issues and hope to have all archived by the end of August.
Issues will be uploaded quarterly to coincide with releases. What the website will offer is an interactive approach to reading the magazine, with links to related subjects and also web-exclusive materials, such as video. This will become an archive for the magazine and related materials as time goes on, and with the event calendar tied in, this will become something of a timeline for the community.
Subscribers will be able to access all the archived content for use. Public visitors will only be able to view the current issue and what is designated as public, such as instructions and news. With a news page, BrickJournal will be able to report faster on events and also be able to include more content, such as photos that were submitted, but not used in the magazine, for future issues. For a limited time a subscription to the webpage will be $20/year.
Future plans for the website include establishing an image bank for BrickJournal photography (thank you Didier), a page for sellers, and a couple of other surprises! Plans are also underway for a print version of the magazine!
Many thanks to Joel Bush, Brian Flannery, and Brian Sykora of Near-Time, the webservice I am working with on this ongoing project.
Comments and feedback are welcome!
Head on over to the site and check it out! I’ll be sure to pass on any comments you have to Joe if you leave any on this post.
Joystiq has broken the news that the rumored LEGO Indiana Jones video game has been confirmed. Watch the trailer right here on The Brothers Brick:
Thanks to reader David for the tip! (And check out the Official Web site.)
Yesterday was the second birthday of this blog, but I was too busy reading the adventures of a certain young wizard to post anything. ;-)
Let the long-winded and self-satisfied post begin! (Read last year’s anniversary post here or with original comments on the old blog.)
The big changes to this blog since last year:
Here are some possibly interesting statistics about all of you, our faithful readers:
Finally, taking my queue from Technorati founder David Sifry‘s “State of the Blogosphere” posts, here’s a quick summary of how things have changed in the LEGO blog world since last year:
Head on over to LUGNET to read Kevin Loch’s explanation for what’s been happening with Brickshelf.com over the last six days.
A new message has graced the top of Brickshelf.com:
Notice: Brickshelf will not be shutting down!
We will be offering “featured” accounts for $5/month shortly.
We have received hundreds of supportive emails in the past few days including many who said they would like to contribute financially but did not know how. This has had us rethink the practicality of charging for enhanced features.We plan to do this without reducing current functionality for free users. Thank you for your enormous show of support.
IMPORTANT: do NOT try to download the entire site, it causes major problems, slows things down for normal users and you will be permanently blocked. We will make older folders public again after we see the crawlers go away.