ShaydDeGrai

I've had a Darth Vader keychain in active use for about the past quarter century. I picked it up when they first came out and decades of cohabitating with metal keys in pockets and backpacks have taken their toll. The printing is almost entirely gone, all the crisp edges have been rounded. Both legs have broken off (from the hip hinge, not a separation of the leg assembly itself) and one hand is missing. My wife got me a replacement Vader about a decade ago but as I was considering replacing the old one, it dawned on me; no legs, only one hand, pretty scratched up and barely recognizable, I couldn't have mod'ed a more authentic Skywalker / Darth Vader if I tried, so I stuck with the original.

As a former engineering professor sitting in a very cluttered office/Lego room I can see plenty of opportunities for design projects ranging from simple product improvements to robotics and automation to better software depending on what sort of things a student would like to focus on. These include: Storage: I use trays, bins, boxes, baggies, parts cabinets and pick-brick-wall cups and there's never enough. Moreover access is a problem, I can only have so many things open on my work table at one time so I'm constantly shuffling. A (very) long time ago I took a class in printing (as in movable lead type loaded into a shoe printing not send the pdf to the laserjet printing) and I remember how we'd have a call sheet that told us we needed 17 'e's and 12 's's etc. and we'd just go to the font cabinet and fill up a tray in one go with exactly the parts we needed then sit down assemble the shoe. I've always thought it would be nice to have my collection so organized with convenient storage systems that I could do that with Lego rather than spending more time rummaging and swapping parts trays than actually building. Sorting: There must be several Megs worth of posts on this site alone about sorting; by color; by shape; by function; by family; It is an endless (and often thankless) task. Wouldn't it be nice to have a machine where you could just take a scoop of random parts, set a few preferences on a control panel and have the parts all sorted exactly the way you feel would be most useful for you and your building style? Just doing a fraction of the job would be a help (I had one student once who used Mindstorms to build a machine to sort Technic pins, perfecting that design took an entire semester). Cataloging: There comes a time in every collectors life when s/he doesn't remember what he or she owns anymore, or worse, is absolutely certain that s/he has some of Part X in color Y but can figure out where, in a sea of bins, trays, baggies, old MOCs and models, the damned things are. Decades ago I thought Brickset was an answer to this problem, but years of experience has taught me that, while it helps, it's no silver bullet. It would be great if I had local cataloging software that interfaced with my theoretical sorting machine, scanned barcodes on kits and instruction books and could update inventories based on parts usage in Stud.IO and other MOC design software. Display: There is never enough display space and the space I have is rarely used efficiently. Bookcases are readily available but the shelfs are often not adjustable enough (sometimes it would be nice to have half depth shelves, stepped tiers or sloped mounting surfaces rather than flat shelving. Shelves are often designed for the weight of books and are (distractingly) overkill for delicate Lego models. The opaque nature of most bookcases with solid shelves makes lighting the interior of the "box" an issue, defeating the point of displaying the model in the first place. And, in the case of my office (and I'm sure others may have this problem as well) if the Lego room is in a converted attic space the knee walls might not be tall enough to accommodate a 6-7 foot tall (~2 meter) bookcase. Something more modular and stackable would be much more versatile. Dust: I have to believe that when Phillip Pullman wrote His Dark Materials series, he was thinking of trying to keep his Lego collection clean when he came up with the concept of Dust. I'm pretty sure the three laws of thermodynamics declare that where there are Legos, there will be dust. From an engineering project standpoint this makes it a target rich environment for inventing mitigators. How do I reduce the amount of dust that gets to my display models? How do I clean the dust off my models? How do I reduce the amount of dust in my Lego workspace? How do I retouch my physical MOC photos to eliminate dust artifacts? How do I retouch my virtual MOC rendering to add dust and make the model appear more real? Photography: Building a better light box and the world will beat a path to your door. Mine is always too small with too few lighting options to do justice to large models with lots of small details. I need something with multiple, positionable light sources (both directional and ambient). Adjustable brightness and warmth, color gels. A featureless backdrop that scales for larges models. And the whole thing needs to collapse into a compact storage bin when not in use as I can't afford to commit a couple hundred cubic feet of space to a dedicated photography studio; I'd like to be able to (easily) set it up, tear it down or even take it outside on a sunny day.

I guess I'm just a Lego-purist at heart, I'm told that the quality of clone brands have improved a lot in recent years but I'd still rather have a genuine Lego part (even a customized one) than mixing in third party stuff. (Old biases die hard)

I'm pretty sure my journey started somewhere around here A Samsonite - Lego stocking stuffer Kit 363 with all of 38 pieces. From there I seem to recall getting a number of other Samsonite offerings through some sort of mail in promotion with Kraft Valveeta "cheese". It feels like that was half a century ago, oh wait... damn I'm old.

Sand red issues aside, have you considered milling a masonry pattern into 2x2 corner (2357) piece? Or adjacent faces of a 1x1 (3005) ? I could use a good end cap/corner exposed solution in about half a dozen different colors (tan, light bley, dark bley, sand green, dark red, etc) and the base stock are readily available.

The term "sponsored" can hide a multitude of sins, anything from early access to a set, to cash in exchange for reading scripted ad copy written by someone else. Personally, I couldn't care less if a company provided a free copy of something for review versus the reviewer spending their own money to go out and buy something. This strikes me as on par with press screenings of a movie (I'd worked a few of those decades ago), a studio rents a theatre, invites a bunch of reviewers in to see a movie, possibly handing out some promotional materials at the same time and it costs the reviewers nothing but their time. Moreover, the quality of the review doesn't impact who gets invited to the next screening. If TLG sent me a kit to review for free, I'd give it an honest review (within my own sets of priorities and biases) without worrying about whether saying something critical would blackball me from future "free" kits, and I'd publicly thank Lego for making the review copy available to me. I think nearly all the reviewers I follow are in that same boat. Is there a quid pro quo going on there? Well, yes and no, if I only have so much time to do reviews then by sending me a particular (free) kit, the company is sort of steering the narrative, say, getting me to "ooh" and "aah" over a free copy of the Botanical Gardens rather than gripe about how much the X Men Mansion cost me (personally) and pointing out that exterior lacks detail and looks a little "meh". Of course any review is advertising, and for the amount of effort that goes into making a review that people actually want to pay attention to, a lot of reviewers don't bother posting reviews for kits they don't (generally) like, so if a company can get reviewers to put sets in front of eyeballs, it's usually a good thing for the company's bottom line. I do think a reviewer should disclose if they got the item being reviewed for free or paid for it themselves, but getting a free copy isn't inherently disqualifying in my mind. Getting paid by a third party to create content that attracts views (either via explicit product placement or via injected ads) is also fair game so long as the cash isn't coming from the company whose product is being reviewed. Content creators invest their time and effort into making videos and blogs (making money for their host platforms) and deserve a piece of that action. In the early days of the web, I belonged to a Science Fiction forum that used to award cash prizes every week for the top ten most read posts; I used to make a couple hundred bucks a month just sharing my opinions on various topics. The people running the website never gave me editorial direction (they didn't even complain when I mocked some of their advertisers) my posts were generating traffic which was generating revenue for them, and they were just sharing the wealth because they knew that without users volunteering content, they'd have nothing. Getting compensated by a company for saying positive things about that company's products, however, is an entirely different kettle of fish. At that point you're only pretending to be a reviewer, you're a marketer. Marketers pretending to be reviewers are usually so disingenuous that they aren't fooling anybody; they don't even have to tell you that they're being paid. The moment they start glossing over obvious issues or give glowing reviews for a set no one else is bothering to even mention, it becomes obvious to anyone with a genuine passion for the hobby that they aren't on the level. It's just a matter of time before you realize that they aren't worth your time.

My family has a cleaning person who comes by about once every two weeks to help reset the household to a tolerable state of chaos (between pets, a young child and two parents with full time jobs, it can be hard to keep entropy in check without bringing in reinforcements periodically). The cleaning person knows that my home office / Lego room is a "no clean" zone. I deal with that space myself and she is not to enter. However, sometimes I display my MOCs in other areas of the house or in some cases even let my daughter play with them (with supervision - my daughter can do as she pleases with her collection but knows ask me before playing with my creations (just as I ask her permission before touching her MOCs)). SO I was very surprised when one of my MOCs disappeared from its display space in the living room. I was even more surprised to find about half of it mixed in with my daughter's parts bin. I questioned my daughter and she had no explanation; the MOC had disappeared on the day the cleaning person had been there so I asked her as well, she also claimed ignorance. So I checked the nanny cam footage to see if it had happened to catch anything and I find that the cleaning person's assistant had jostled the table. The MOC (a monster truck - mostly System, not Technic ) had rolled off the table and been reduced to its technic frame and a few bigger chunks (the parts I found in my daughter's bin) and several hundred smaller fragments. The cleaner then put the recognizable parts in my daughter's toy bin while the assistant swept up the loose pieces and threw them in the trash (probably over hundred dollars worth of parts). My gut reaction when I discovered this was to charge them for the parts and then fire them for lying about it, but my wife tells me I'm overreacting. Accidents happen (our marriage survived the utter destruction of the Death Star II and a smashed star destroyer (which was barely held together with magnetic train couplings in the first place) which she, herself had tried to blame on the cat). She says good help is hard to find and I should just let it go. I, however, can't help but think that yes, accidents do happen, but "good" help takes responsibilities for their actions, and doesn't try to frame a little girl for their own carelessness. I'm a bit torn, should I let to go? Should I confront the cleaner with the fact that I know what happened and that she lied? Should I risk my wife's wrath and be in the market for another cleaner (in fairness, other than this incident, she's very good at her job compared to others we've had; her assistant is more ... meh), Maybe I'm just older than dirt and getting crankier by the year, but it really bugs me that they tried to both cover up the accident and make it look like my daughter was to blame (the MOC was clearly not the work of a preschooler, so if you're going to sweep half the MOC into the trash, why salvage the other half and mix it in with my daughter's parts then claim complete ignorance of the whole affair? ) I'm sure I can't be the first person to get upset by a smashed model/MOC and a poorly executed cover-up. Would anyone care to share their experience?

This engine is absolutely beautiful; the attention to detail is very impressive work. Well done indeed.

I'm a Lego purist. I have a small collection of modern clone bricks that have snuck in with inherited collections from others (dark age salvage, attic clear-outs, etc), but I never deliberately buy them (or use them). When I pick up a cache of random bricks of questionable provenance, the first thing I do is filter out all the non-Lego.

The possibility of buying retired sets was tempting and a few of the other "selling points" sounded like they might have potential to be worthwhile, but there was nothing there that I'd be willing to pay for on a recurring basis (and given the amount I already spend on LEGO, that's saying something). A lot of the ideas were either things that we already get for free from third parties (inventory management (e.g brickset), alternate builds, "expert" tips, MOC showcases, etc.) and other things were features that, in the interests of a decent brand loyalty program, they should just be/once did/occasionally are doing as part of the free VIP program (early access, GWP, free shipping, etc.). Even where they cited potentially interesting bonuses (ordering retired sets, free gift with purchase with every purchase) recent experience with their notion of "VIP Rewards" makes me think the teaser would be more interesting than the actual implementation. I doubt they'd open up their entire back catalog, more likely, they'd offer a handful of highly popular kits from the recent past (that most die-hard fans already own) based on stats gathered by the service about where most subscribers interests lie. As for a "gift with every purchase" they never said it would be a free lego set with every purchase, just "a gift" I don't need/want posters, trading cards, mini-comic books, sticker sheets, discount coupons to LegoLand, wrapping paper, digital cheat codes or any of the other "clutter bling" TLG has sent me over the years as "gifts." Maybe I'm being cynical here, but I'm still jaded by their "upgrade" to the old VIP program and seriously question that this proposal would be any better. The proposed services also seem to want to cater to families with young kids (or maybe the survey engine just biased my questions because I told them I have one) but most of what they are offering for the younger audience is digital content (effectively, a slightly more interactive but ephemeral take on the old lego magazines they used to give out free subscriptions to in years past). After nearly two years of school closures, remote learning, zoom sessions, and situations where an iPad was the only available nanny when mom and dad have to be on a call, the _absolute last_ thing I want to do is have another reason to put my daughter (or myself for that matter) in front of a screen. If you cross everything off the list that is connected with digital content delivery (quizzes, videos, tutorials, building instructions, etc.) there isn't much of a program left. So, at least for me, as an AFOL, I wouldn't subscribe because I see little value in the offering and what is there, I fear they would implement poorly. As a former educator and current parent of a child who loves LEGO, I wouldn't subscribe because it's too biased in favor of digital content rather than physical building and in-person socialization. And FWIW, that's exactly what I told them on their survey.

I've been staring at computer screens professionally for over four decades now. Nothing sucks the joy out of an activity like needlessly putting a computer in the middle of it for me at this point (I don't even check in here as often as I used to...) Lego is my way of GETTING AWAY FROM computers. I'm physical bricks all the way. I also want printed instructions not digital ones and I've stopped buying Technic sets that require smart phone apps to control them. I'd rather have the limited options of a simple pullback motor than corrupt my lego experience with the presence of a phone or tablet in the mix. (The Hidden Side kits were at least interesting even if you ignored the app, but Control+ is a big step down from PowerFunctions as far as I'm concerned). I've used digital design software (and written some for that matter) and was a designer of an IDE for MindStorms programming, so I have a pretty good idea of what I'm "missing" by shunning the digital side of the hobby, but if you add it up, I've spent many unpleasant years of my life dealing with computers and they just aren't _fun_ anymore. Give me a bucket of physical bricks any day.

I've been at this long enough that I still recall how excited I was when they introduced things like tan and sand green. For the first decade of my Lego playing experience, I could count the number of colors in my collection in on my fingers with digits lefts over. Earth Blue and Dark (Brick) Red were fantastic additions in my mind. Finally, I could start drawing from a color palette that made me feel like an artist rather than an adult playing with kids toys (don't get me wrong, the classic red, blue, white, yellow, black, clear with green pre-fab trees were great, but the expanded, less in-your-face-Beyer-primary-color selection just opened up a new world where I didn't need to stretch my imagination to a land where bricks and coverts were the same shade of red and dessert sands could be mistaken for cheap mustard stains. I look at my daughter's collection (mostly drawn from Friends, Trolls and assorted Disney sets) and realize she has more color variety in her parts than I do, even though, by shear volume, I easily have her beat by over a million parts. On the downside, though, we really can't build anything of any real scale with a monochrome color palette in most of those wonderful colors. They are great for accents but many of them fall flat on the basic-brick-variety and volume scales. A Classic bin of exclusively contemporary colors in classic form factors (1x2's, 2x4's, etc) would help with this. The palette is broad enough now you could even give bins particular color themes "spring pastels", "special dark", "color explosion", etc. on the more AFOL side of things, I remember being enamored with the 21050 Lego Architecture Studio ( well, the concept and the parts, not so much the price). I wish they had taken the basic concept and turned it onto an "Adult Creator" bin under the guise of "architecture"; lower the price, sell the book separately (as, while I liked the book I don't need - or want to pay for - six copies of it) and just bundle up a large number of very useful parts in limited color options. The original 21050 was basically a box of white, just do the exact same thing for Tan, Light Bley, Dark Bley, Dark Red, Sand Green, Pale Yellow, Nugart, etc. (each color variety sold separately) as core "architecture" colors (say 1000 parts in commonly used, very versatile form factors) padded out with another couple hundred plates and tiles in accent colors (clear, trans-light blue, black, white, brown, green - the usual sort of things one might use for windows, water vegetation, etc). I think it would have been a nice way to buy a "buildable set" worth of a particular color without having it come off as a box of "random" parts. This might not be an effective way to market bulk buys of _every_ color in their (now extensive) palette (sorry fans of pink and pearlescent gold) but I could see it working for fans of Architecture and Modular Building style MOCs for some of the more "mainstream" colors.

I'm pretty much in the same boat here. I've been amassing parts for the better half of a century now. My BrickSet registry is always incomplete (I'm terrible about updating it) and I rarely bother registering duplicate copies there, but after decades of pick-a-brick cups, buying parts by the k-box, bulk bricklink buys, assimilating other's collections after they/their kids have lost interest in the hobby, and just generally scooping up targets of opportunity, I have no idea how much I have these days, let alone what the individual parts are. I've spent enough of my life just sorting parts, I think cataloging them all would push me over the edge (how many cheese wedges are there in a kilogram again??) plus, now I have a little one at home who routinely supplements her collection with parts "borrowed" from my own so even if I tried tracking everything, the complications caused by my beloved source of domestic entropy means any given part might well now be part of the furniture in her dolls' house or inside the vacuum cleaner, and not associated with any other Lego at all. I'm pretty organized about the stuff I use on a regular basis for MOCing, but I don't really "track" my consumption (other than thinking thinks like, "hmm, running low on white 1x4 tiles, better pick up a couple hundred to fill up this slot in the tray before I actually need them..." and add them to the "watch list" for my next trip to a pick-a-brick wall or brick-link surfing trip. As for the more esoteric stuff, I gave up keeping track of that a long time ago. I've got a pretty good memory so I'm usually pretty good at recalling the basic, "don't I have some of those?" sorts of questions, but the further removed any given part is from something I use in bulk in a color I favor, the more likely it is that I'll just order a new one off the web if I need one rather than spend a week trying to find it in my shoeboxes of one-offs and odd-balls.

Did you _have_ to point that out. I remember watching the original at a Drive-In Theatre... Oh, and I'm pretty tired of building X-wings at this point, same for snow speeders and AT-ATs. Been there, built that, stepped on a brick barefoot... (Maybe I should put that on a T-Shirt)

I'm not going to get too worked up about this at this point. I have baseplates that date back to the days when they were rectangular and had some of the studs painted white to show where the first tier of bricks was supposed to attach. Baseplates have been around for a long time and even if TLG stopped making them tomorrow, between existing stock and clone offerings, they're not going to become as rare as monorail track overnight. That said, I think it's entirely possible that TLG is just going to bring them in-house and continue to offer a "new" part with the existing form factor. They certainly have the resources to get into the thermoforming business if they chose to. This might also be their chance to do more with their soy plastics. If they are looking to "improve their numbers" from a ratio of ABS to "greener" plastics standpoint, baseplates would be a good way to up the amount of material used on the green side of the scale. Existing baseplates are already a bit flexible, so that's not an issue; there are no bottom connections so precision molding and design for clutch strength can focus entirely on the array of studs. The DOTS line has already flirted with alternate manufacturing techniques for stud arrays with their rubber wrist bands; it's not hard to imagine that someone at the TLG is at least considering a different way to make a baseplate out of a different material while keeping the same basic form-factor and functional tolerances (clutch strength, stiffness, durability, etc.) If they go with traditional plates (at full plate thickness), I could see a lot of Modular collectors getting very irate. (Imagine the shift to 8-wide for Speed Champions backlash on steroids...) Aside from the backwards incongruity (which, to be honest, wouldn't phase _ME_ much, I live in a neighborhood where the sidewalks are all different level and the roads are speckled with pothole patches so a slightly higher curb on my next modular would just be art imitating life), I concur with other here that they'd likely have to use four 16x16 plates and piece them together. The smaller plate solution could introduce weakness when moving models around (or constrain design to compensate for those seams. Given the occasional warping I've seen on some larger plates, I'm skeptical of TLG attempting to introduce a 32x32 ABS plate as a baseplate alternative. It feels like a large, but thin, form-factor compared to their typical injection molds and might even require different timing and/or post-processing to ensure that it cools flat without warping or cracking. And once it's in the field I'd worry about its brittleness and the risk of torquing or twisting the surface. Two plates thick with appropriate webbing and flanges on the underside, I could see; one plate thick with full anti-stud connectors across the entire bottom sounds problematic to me. Assembling a base out of smaller sections is probably the better idea. But as has been said before, this could be nothing more than a ploy to move production of an identical baseplate in-house. We just have to wait and see.

A quick review of UNESCO heritage sites shows that there is no shortage of subject matter with cultural, historical and architectural significance that they _could_ explore (and plenty of "modern wonders" that haven't made the list yet). They do constrain themselves a bit in that many of the best/most interesting architectural subjects are also places of religious significant as well, so that knocks a lot of churches, cathedrals, temples, mosques and shrines off the list (pity, really, as some of these examples are stunning works of art in their own right whether you share the convictions of the original designers/builders or not), but with roughly six thousand of years of human civilization to draw from, I think there's still plenty of room for fresh models. I can understand why you would ask the question though. While I like many of the "revisits" they've done of late better than the originals, it does tend to make the theme seem a bit tired. Personally, I'm kinda over the whole skyline sub-theme. The first couple forays were interesting (if redundant, subject matter wise); increasing, it feels like just an excuse to overcharge for a bunch of 1x1 and 1x2 plates rather than a "real" Architecture kit. While I'd _prefer_ something fresh, I can't say I'd object to a Space Needle revisit on par with the scale of the Empire State Building or Statue of Liberty models. Say something 35-40 cm (14-16 inches) tall? That would have potential to be interesting without breaking the bank piece-wise and still fit on a shelf.

An old friend from college was working for a media company that was going to do a promotion at San Diago Comic Con one year and when they were debating how many freebies to produce, he naively suggested that since they know how many tickets had been sold that they should make enough for everyone and give one to everybody that stopped by their booth or attended their talk. The marketing guys openly mocked him and told him in no uncertain terms that no one gets free press on social media by making everyone happy, if you want "buzz" you need conflict - make people fight over you and both the winners and the losers will value you because they are so caught up in being either a winner or a loser that they won't notice you're the reason they are fighting in the first place. I can't say one way or the other if anyone at TLG subscribes to this mentality, but the Ulysses "reward" rollout certainly felt like the on-line equivalent of a major corporation (that could have made enough for everyone) throwing a handful of Comic Con Exclusives out into the mosh pit of Hall H to let the masses fight it out in the name of stirring up social media.

For those who care (or just want to continue ranting about the Ulysses Space Probe Debacle ) I resurrected the "New VIP System" thread over in the GENERAL DISCUSSION section. Perhaps we could redirect complaints/ commiserations/ suggestions regarding the poor handling of this reward kit rollout to over there and let this thread get back to the more specific focus of the space shuttle kit itself. Personally, I'm very interested in both discussions, I just think we've gotten a bit off topic here and (in the unlikely event that someone from TLG is browsing the forums) I think we should make our opinions about the Ulysses "reward" and the VIP system itself easier to find. Speaking of getting back on topic, I liked the Discovery Space Shuttle so much I've decided to pick up another one. It's an enjoyable (and occasionally clever) build; nice display model, slid enough to be swooshable; articulated enough to hold my 5 year olds' interest; and a good parts pack to boot. Definitely a winner in my book.

Not to go waking the dead (thread-wise) but after this week's "VIP Rewards" Ulysses space probe fiasco I thought I'd bump this guy to give all the people complaining about the VIP system over in the Discovery Space shuttle thread a specific place to rant that was more on topic. I'll throw the first stones: Treating your customers like a pond-ful of ducks encouraging them to fight over a crust of bread does not make people feel like VIPs and TLG ruffled more than a few tail feathers with both the over-hyped time-specific rollout of a high demand set (apparently produced in very small quantities) and a website that crashed/locked out immediately as the promotion went live. They then added insult to injury when customer service released a statement whitewashing the whole stunt by saying that the handling of the promotion "wasn't quite right." There are OH SO MANY ways a total idiot could have done better just based on past VIP Reward debacles. They could have done a pre-promotion over the course of a couple weeks to gauge interest in the kit. Then, produced enough kits to cover the orders (and then some) and simply mailed them out this summer (no redemption code or accompanying purchase required). It may not be as "exclusive" or make those few people who actually got a code feel like "winners," but tat least it doesn't make the rest of your customer base feel like losers and good things are worth waiting for. They could have made this kit a VIP-only, set-specific GWP (like the batmobile pairing or the chariot and Coliseum sets). Yes, this makes things more "elitist" in that only VIPs in a position to spend $200 on a new kit stands a chance of getting the "free gift" but at least it sets an honest expectation, unlike hyping the kit as (virtually) free to all only to have the promotion in the browser go from disabled to sold out in the same refresh cycle and show up on eBay asking hundreds of dollars within hours of the offer "going live" They could have raffled them off. Give people a week or two to buy (with VIP points) as many tickets as they want (but any account VIP can only win once) Then close the entry period and draw the lucky 5,000 (or whatever) winners. Personally I'm not in favor of this scheme, I think customer loyalty points are an _earned_ currency and TLG should "reward" customers outright for their business not be in the business of giving customer a random chance at being rewarded for their loyalty, but whatever, a lottery, even if I don't personally like the concept, would still have been a more fair scheme for doling out such an exclusinve and high demand "reward." And for the record, I'm not posting this as "sour-grapes" over not getting the kit. I've seen this scenario play out too many times since the whole "New VIP" system went live to even expect that I stood a chance of landing one of those Ulysses probes. This fiasco played out in a thoroughly predictable fashion and has only served to reinforce my profoundly low opinion of what has become of the VIP system. The old system wasn't perfect, but it worked a lot better than the current one.

If it didn't take so long to package and distribute the sets, they could really throw a wrench into scalpers' plans by doing a VIP pre-order scheme where the offer goes live for a week or so EVERYONE who tries (and has the points) gets a coupon code for the set and then TLG produces enough sets to satisfy all the issued coupons (and then some) and ships them out at a later date. Sure, it ruins the whole immediate gratification thing (for those lucky few who actually get a set under the current system) and makes the kits less "exclusive" but it takes the whole "overloaded server" and connection roulette tech issues off the table and feels more like a company making a true "offer" to a customer rather than pitting customers against one another battling for a prize. Besides, if you _know_ 250,000 loyal customers want a set given set (because they spent their points to get it) you'd earn a lot more good will if you actually produced enough to keep everyone happy rather that a paltry 5000 (or whatever) to make 2% of your customers really happy while disappointing/angering everyone else.

Well I got exactly what I expected. Site goes down just as offer is about to go live, by the time it comes back up, kit is sold out. Such a failure on so many levels. As a bonus tie-in to the space shuttle rollout they should have just bundled this to actual space shuttle purchases (and produced more kits). As a VIP bonus, this is worse than a SDCC exclusive. It doesn't make customers feel "very important" at all it makes one feel like a hungry duck in a pond fighting with dozens of other ducks over a few crumbs of stale bread while some kid with an entire loaf laughs at us plucking each other tail feathers out from the shore. It's a bad business model that offends and disappoints far more loyal customers than it "rewards." I can't really say I'm disappointed though, I've long since passed the point where I'd even hope this scenario would play out any differently than their past fiascos. Seriously, the only thing the revamped VIP system has done as far as I'm concerned is to increase the amount of money I spend at Amazon and Target.

It's probably because so many of these subjects have been visited and revisited it's hard to come up with a short name without confusing a new set with an old one. Just be thankful we haven't gotten to the point of: Star Wars - Darth Vader's TIE FIghter: From Episode IV right after Han and Chewy show up over the trench Snowspeeder: The pretty good but smaller than UCS edition Imperial Star Destroyer: The one for people who already have a coffee table and want something a little smaller AT-AT: The one that started off as a Mindstorm's elephant but ended up as a Star Wars kit instead X-Wing Fighter: This is how we haze new designers on the SW team, everyone has to make an X-Wing before they get to work on new stuff. Meet Bjorn... Architecture - The Empire State Building : Freud told us to build it in a dream The Eiffel Tower : France told us we haven't done it justice yet The Burj Khalifa : Dubai heard about the new Empire State Building kit and called to remind us that their tower is bigger... City - High Speed Passenger Train : We had a load of helicopter noses left over from last year that management wanted us to use up... Police Chase: There's been at least one Lego police car on store shelves for 50 years, why stop now?

On a slight tangent, years ago I was working for a government think tank and we'd spec'ed out a subsystem that needed to fit in a very tight spot in an existing airframe. I can't go into details but basically we needed a company to build a device to do X and it had to fit in a well defined space, only consume so much power and only give off so much heat. Several of our preferred vendors looked at our RFP (request for proposals) and told us it couldn't be done - or doing it would be so expensive it wouldn't be profitable - one vendor, however, said "Sure, no problem" and won the contract. Eighteen months of sloppy oversight go by and it comes time for the vendor to test the prototype in the field, so we show up with the airframe (and it's empty slot for the module), and the contractor shows up with a moving van on the tarmac asking us where our forklift is so they can offload the device. After a few minutes of confused stares and occasional blinks of disbelief we ask why he needs a forklift. The vendor reminded us that there was no weight requirement in the spec, only size limits. To this we countered that even if the device were a solid block of plutonium it could only weigh in at a few kilos. At which point the vender told us we were crazy and opened the truck to reveal a pallet full of equipment that wouldn't fit in the cockpit if you dumped it in the pilot's seat let alone the open slot in the nosecone. With a multi-million dollar contract on the line, naturally this resulted in an unprofessional shouting match where everyone whipped out copies of the spec and the contract to "prove" their point of view. In a matter of moments everyone was on the same page which clearly stated the available space was "8mm x 21mm x 57mm". The head of the contractor's team, a vice-president with the firm, poked at the book and proudly announced "See, 8 metric meters by 21 metric meters by 57 metric meters! We're fully compliant with room to spare!" At which point we had to explain to him that "mm" stood for "millimeter" not "metric meter" and that the plane itself wasn't even 57 meters long (and how could an entire division of Fortune 500 defense contractor not notice that over the course of a year and half's effort?) . So much for the US education system... In any case, I'm nearly done with my Discovery shuttle and am quite happy with it. My only complaint has been dealing with the foil stickers on the underside of the bay doors (tedious, awkward to align/correct if crooked) I considered omitting them (as I often do with stickers) but everything else was turning out so nicely that my completion-ist tendencies took over. I can definitely see myself picking up additional copies of this set both to expand my "fleet" and as parts packs.

I think this is very true, and I very much appreciate that the revenues generated by CMF sales and other mini-fig collectables has subsidized my brick habit over the decades. Then again, I remember when they first started printing smily faces on the yellow heads; I took to putting their heads on backwards so hair and headgear would cover up the printing because my imagination preferred starting from a blank slate rather than everyone smiling all the time - as if Legoland had become a manic Village of the Damned. Maybe I was just a weird kid...

I won't even pretend to have a clue as to what it must have been like (or still is for that matter) to walk in your shoes. I've had friends over the years share stories regarding the lack of representation and role models, but obviously, it's one thing to hear about it, it's quite another to live it. I'm about as SWASP-y as they come so I can offer sympathy and cringe at the lack of enlightenment so often exhibited by my fellow SWASPs but I fear I'll always have an outsider's perspective. Growing up, my world was divided along lines of class, creed and ethnicity moreso than race or gender identity (probably because where I lived wasn't particularly diverse in those latter demographics so people had to find other arbitrary distinctions to draw lines in the sand between "us" and "them"). But being one of "them" more often than not, I'm not unfamiliar with knowing that there's an "in crowd" and what it feels like to not be part of it. That said, I'm really of two minds when it comes to the issue of "representation" in Lego. On the one hand, I can see kids finding it easier to relate to a figure that looks like, acts like or represents something in themselves. My daughter, who has curly hair, latches onto dolls and minifigures, Duplo figures, etc. relating best to the ones with curly hair (regardless of skin tone or hair color). There's simply a natural gravitation to finding that "something" which she relates to and takes personally that draws her into a world where _she_ controls the narrative. On the other hand, we, as a species, are diverse enough such that the simple act of including one demographic calls attention to the fact that we've yet to include another. And, so long as _we_ try to dictate the narrative, we'll always be at risk of omission/exclusion, perhaps consciously, more likely through shear ignorance. My first "mini-figures" were "slabbies" (no arms, rigid legs, yellow heads with no face printing). In their own way, i thought there was something utopian about them, maybe it was just the fact that I'd recently read Ursula K. Leguin's The Lathe of Heaven where, in an effort to end racism, the dreamers' power turned the entire human race gray. Nobody in real life had bright yellow skin, and to little kid me, maybe that was the point. It was an abstraction telling me not to make assumptions based on surface details. My yellow slabbies couldn't literally represent me, or my friend Paresh from India, or Yung from China; they represented what my friends and I had _in common_ with each other. Maybe under the skin we were all faceless yellow slabs and it was our actions and our values that defined us. It's not the worst interpretation one could embrace, Lego wasn't really representing US, but we were presenting ourselves in Lego form. I didn't like it when they added the arms and posable legs. When they came out with fleshies, I preferred my yellows and thought they were over-constraining the narrative. Mini-dolls (complete with backstories) took it to a whole new level (and that level did not allow for a lesbian, a homeless vet and a priest to walk into a bar together - Heartlake City isn't ready to entertain any of the above). Maybe I'm just old and cranky, but it seems to me that the more they try to make mini-fig/mini-dolls reflect a realistic society, the more apparent and polly-anna-ish their sins of omission become. I know it's a kids' toy and should embrace a safe, G-rated world where kids can learn and grow, but sometimes it feels like they are trying a little too hard to have their cake and eat it too. Or maybe I just miss my generic yellow slabbies...