Lego Haul - 12/4/17

I finally broke down and spend some of my Lego store credit on various bricks to continue construction on several of my buildings.  I ended up using $20 to get these pieces, and I'll tell you how they are going to be used now.

 

The Lego haul from 12/4/17

• The blue 2x6 and 2x8 plates will build up the last layers of my hospital's walls.
• The green 1x4 and 1x6 plates will fill in the gaps in the plates surrounding my Trevi Fountaion, which will be the centerpiece of my Plaza.
• Most of the white plates and both of the 2x4 pink bricks are for display fixtures in the Bakery
• All of the brick yellow plates are for the roof to the Pony Farm office
• The two 1x4, two 2x10, and the 1x1x1 corner bricks are finishing the Police Station walls
• The 6x8 dark grey stone plates build up the walkway for the top level of the Watch Tower.  So are the 8 1x1x1 black corner plates, as they will be used to secure the staircases between levels.
• The 1x3 and 1x6 bricks are for the display shower in the Plumber Shop.
• The brown 2x4 brick is for the Cargo Terminal.

I think that covers everything.  I should upload a second picture of this image with labels on everything.  Then change my bulleted list to a numbered one.  I think I will...  When I get a chance to do so.

Lego Haul - 9/10/17

I finally got a chance to go to the Lego store at the Mall of America last Saturday.  I originally wanted to get a large cup of bricks, some minifigures, and maybe a set or two.  Then my wife found the seasonal Halloween set.  I'm around ready to check out, making one last trip around the shelves and we saw some Lego Dimensions sets on sale.  So I grab one...  but my wife egged me on.  "Get another one, they're half off!!"  Such an enabler (but that's why I love her).

The Lego Haul for 9/10/17

It's been a while since I made such a large purchase at the Lego store.  But it felt good to do so.  There's a lot to cover here, so let's get to work.

Contents of my large Lego Cup

My large cup consisted of 2x4 bricks and nothing else.  15 white, 4 brown, 12 light blue, and about 100 pink.  The brown ones were for an additional layer to my police station.  The light blue are for redesigning the Princess Play Castle, and the pink and white ones for the Bakery I'm working on.

I haven't been seeing anything else good on the Pick-A-Brick wall at various Lego stores lately, so I think it's time to do an online order for bricks.  I've got my list ready to go, so I'll probably be ready to submit it in a week or so.

Contents of the 40260 LEGO Halloween Haunt

 40260 LEGO Halloween Haunt fully assembled with the gate closed (left) and open (right)

My wife loves Halloween mostly for the fun decorative items one can set up around the house.  Lego's are a great way to do that.  This year's set, the 40260 LEGO Halloween Haunt, is a great addition to my existing Lego sets.  I think I have enough for an outdoor Halloween haunted house-type thing.  I'll have to dig out the rest of my collection here in the coming weeks to help her get everything set up.

Contents of 60150 Pizza Van

60150 Pizza Van full assembled

Lego came out with yet another restaurant/food service type thing, and although I'm firmly in the belief that I have plenty of those kinds of sets and buildings, I had to get the 60150 Pizza Van.  Why?  BECAUSE THEY HAVE PIECES FOR INDIVIDUAL SLICES OF PIZZA.  Seriously, how can I be expected to say no to that?

I've got the Restaurant, a corner deli, separate pizza place, a grocery store, a coffee shop, a couple of hot dog carts...  There are plenty of places to eat in town.  I guess one more can't hurt.

But this is the end of it!!...  Maybe...

Three-pack of minifgures

I grabbed a three-pack of minifigures to get someone to run the Bakery, and maybe a couple of medical professionals as well.  So I grabbed a three-pack with some various accessories that could be used by others in town.

There is just one problem...  The dude at the register didn't ring them up...  Whoops.

I plan to, upon my next visit to the MOA Lego store, inform someone at my next checkout and square away my bill.

Lego's sales are down right now.  They don't need me walking out with merchandise that I didn't pay for.

Contents of 71248 Mission: Impossible Level Pack (left) and 71266 LEGO City Fun Pack (right)

71266 LEGO City Fun Pack (the first two two on the left) and 71248 Mission: Impossible Level Pack (last three on the right) fully assembled

Lego has recently started the next round of Dimensions game content updates and new sets to coincide with that.  This makes existing sets available on the cheap.  There's quite a bit of content my wife and I haven't unlocked yet.  Mainly because I rarely play it without her.  It's an activity for US to enjoy.  Especially when she unleashes on all the shit to break in the levels.  She's pretty good at figuring out some of the puzzles before I can as well.

She STRONGLY suggested getting some more sets, so I grabbed 71248 Mission: Impossible Level Pack and 71266 LEGO City Fun Pack.  It allowed us to unlock a few more levels in the game, and with the characters' abilities (like Ethan Hunt's x-ray vision), we can unlocked even more content.  Yay!!

 30428 Green Ninja Mech Dragon contents (left) and fully assembled (right)

Given the volume of stuff I purchased (regardless of how much I paid for it...), I got a free promotional 30428 Green Ninja Mech Dragon from the upcoming Lego Ninjago movie.  I don't plan on seeing it, as the Ninjago cartoon series or product line has never really appealed to me.  I'm just too old for it.  But a green dragon gives me an idea...

Uh oh, I'm thinking of building another restaurant.  Whelp. 

Everything fully assembled, surrounding the Bakery

Checking my list of the additional sets I want to buy...  Yeah, I'm going to keep have to keep going back there again and again and again...

Lego Haul - 8/28/17

I finally finished the summer semester at school, so I could sit down and relax for a bit, recover some personal, internal mental strength, and get back to my normal, chipper self...  Right?  Wrong.  My in-laws were in town for the week, which meant running around town and doing everything possible in the limited time we had together.  It's over now, but it really took it's toll on me.

We did make it out to the Lego store at the MOA on Monday, and it was bad.  The shelves looked fairly depleted.  Way more than they should have been.  It had to be an end of the month thing.  Getting rid of the relatively older inventory and making room for the new stuff that was coming out on the 1st of September.

The Lego haul from 8/28/17

I made the best of it and got a small cup of Lego's.  I got about 35 white 2x4 bricks to add another level to the walls at the Police Station.  I also got a few pink 2x4 bricks for the Bakery I'm planning, giving me enough to build at least one wall.  I think I have enough for the rest of the outside wall, but I'd have to finish unpacking all the boxes from my recent move.

Contents of the small Lego cup from 8/28/17

The medium azur 4x6 plates will go towards building a more secure floor for the Princess Play Castle.  The ice cream cones are going to be used for ice cream (duh) at various locales.  The dark stone grey 1x2/2x4 angle plates gave me an idea for a large display sign.  Where and what it says, I don't know.  It'll come to me.  The other bricks will have purposes as well, what they are, I just don't know yet.

I guess I should back to work building things from Lego's...

Police Station

If there's one thing I have more than enough of in my Lego town, it's police forces.  I've got plenty of people in uniform ready to enforce the law and protect the citizens from the crime.

Lego Police Station

I've a big enough police station to house them in.  I think this was the first building I designed with a larger 48x48 baseplate.  There were several rooms I had to add.  An office for the chief, interrogation, a jail cell, and a lab.

Clockwise from top left: the chief's office, the mobile lab, the jail cell, and interrogation

When I was designing and building my police station, I built it around these elements.  First, I needed a larger entrance for officers to bring in criminals or evidence.  A normal door (4 studs wide, minus the frame) would not have worked, so I went with something wider (and unencumbered).  Then I needed an opening for the mobile lab to drive in and out of the station.  Lastly, I used an 8x16 green brick as a platform for the desk where people can check in to speak to an officer.  The officers themselves don't have anything fancy for desks...  But they really don't need anything more than a chair and surface to work on.

Check-in counter (left) and the officers' desks (right)

I actually have too many police officers.  In addition to the nine who sit in the station, I have eight more on patrol.  I think it's a 40-to-1 ratio, citizens to officers, or something like that.   To help you put that into perspective, that'd be like a city with a million people having more than 24,000 officers.

Police patrol officers, ready to go on the beat.

And it's not just people, I've got too much equipment.  For example, I've got 4 police helicopters.  What the heck am I or anyone else going to do with them?  I need to take them all apart and build a single, larger whirlybird.  To make things eve more difficult, I've got a police jet.  Why does any police force need a jet?  It's ridiculous.

Four (4!!) police helicopters and a jet

I've got a good number of items for the force to use, though I still need a place to store them all.  I'll divvy them up someday, but I've got plenty of time to figure that out.

All the rest of the police equipment housed at the station.

Lego Haul - 3/10/15

This past weekend, I went on BrickLink, a great site for the secondary market of Lego bricks and sets.  I could write a whole post on why it's so awesome (and I will).  It has a much bigger selection of pieces than Lego's Pick-A-Brick wall for lower prices (if you don't mind used bricks).

I'm at a point where I'm going to make better progress on my buildings going to resellers than I will buying directly from Lego.  I bought from two vendors, Brick Art and 1 2 Many Bricks.  Between the two, I spent $27 on nearly $35 worth of pieces, some of which I can't get from Lego at this time.

The first order was mostly blue 2x6 and 2x8 plates for my Hospital.  The little black clips are for holding tools at the Research Lab, the blue door frames are for the portable toilets at the Construction Site, the stairs and 1x8 Technic brick will be in the Laser Tag Arena, the gray set of bars will complete the jail cell in the Police Station, the brown plates are bases for tiki torches at the Islanders performance area, and the white plate is for a whiteboard (location to be determined).

Bricks ordered from Brick Art

The second order was the better of my two scores, IMO.  I got 16 8x8 dark stone grey plates, which cost $1.10 each from Lego, only ran me 41 cents each used.  Half of them are for my Watch Tower, while the other half are for the Marina Office.  The other dark stone grey plates and the black stairs are also for completing the Watch Tower.  The Blue 2x6 plates are for the Hospital, the black plate is for a television at the bar in the Restaurant, the black fences are for the Laser Tag Arena, and the two white pedestals are for tables on sale at the Hardware Store and Greenhouse.

Bricks ordered from 1 2 Many Bricks

If I had bought these bricks, they would have cost me $28.50 PLUS shipping.  The BrickLink orders were less than $27 for everything, including the shipping.  It's like I got free pieces out of the deal.  The black fences, the stairs, the white pedestals, the blue door frames...  It was all a bonus.

You can wait for things to happen, or you can MAKE them happen.  I could have waited a lifetime to buy these parts from Lego.  I don't have that kind of time.  I need to finish up my Lego city now.