Bricks and Boards

Grab your boards. The city or the the sea? Your pick.

Here are 2 upcoming LEGO Activity Books with Minifigures to add to you purchase list. Releasing on May 2012.

LEGO CITY: Big City Life

LEGO City minifigures attempt to make it to school on time, perform skateboarding tricks and even serve pizza to a werewolf. This title lets you build your very own LEGO City minifigure, read the stories and complete the puzzles.

ISBN: 9781409314103

LEGO CITY: Harbour Activity Book

Lets you join the LEGO City minifigures for some fishy adventures down at the harbour. This book helps you build your very own LEGO City minifigure, read the stories and complete the puzzles.

ISBN: 9781409314110

Golden Bricks

" One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. "


From LEGO.com:

Warner Bros. Consumer Products and The LEGO Group announced today a partnership that awards the world’s leading construction toy brand exclusive rights to develop build-and-play construction sets based on THE LORD OF THE RINGS™ trilogy and the two films based on THE HOBBIT™. The multi-year licensing agreement grants access to the library of characters, settings, and stories for THE LORD OF THE RINGS property, as well as films The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

LEGO® THE LORD OF THE RINGS construction sets are slated for a rolling global launch beginning in June 2012 in the United States, with LEGO THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY scheduled for later in the year.

.., and my resolve to stick to basic bricks faces a new, and tremendous, challenge.

Swat This Bug.

Here is a another menacing LEGO MOC made by Peer Kreuger (the same guy who made that really cool Metal Grudge). Looking like a mean robotic insect, it is actually an all-terrain camera quadpod with adjustable limbs. It also has a facility for having the camera face upwards or downwards.

Not made of basic bricks but I would take it.

Book It!

That image of the LEGO Ideas Book that I stumbled upon actually came with images of 2 other upcoming LEGO books from DK Publishing- Brickmaster City and Brickmaster Ninjago. I did not put up the images of those 2 since they were marked "confidential", and I did not want to go against The Lego Group's policy on confidential images.

A couple of days ago I found what might be the final product images, different from the confidential images. Here they are:

The books, which will both have 2 minifigures included, aside from the bricks, will come out on July. SRP is $29.99. I am definitely picking up the City. Am not into Ninjas.

Forget Paris

So, it looks like I really do not have any intention of going to Paris any time soon as I totally forgot that the wifey mentioned it last week. Haha. But, Malaysia is definitely in my travel plans for the next couple of years. I have never been to Malaysia, despite its proximity to Singapore (which a favorite of ours), Little P. too. Big P have been there, I know, but that was ages ago.

Aside from the Legoland which is on schedule to open on 2012. I need some more Malaysia "stuff" to justify to the wifey that a trip is in order. Bags, would definitely be an attraction to her. Of course, there must be something for the little one, but the Legoland already has that covered. (Wink, wink) Pipe in with your recommendations, I would greatly appreciate that. Themeparks are shooins, we love themeparks. Museums, not so much.

Located across Universal Studios Singapore, with just a waterway in between, Legoland Malaysia will offer 40 rides to go along with shows and displays. The display, of course, will feature famous structures in Asia, and require around 30 million bricks to build. Legoland Malayasia will only be the 6th of its kind in the whole world, and will be the 1st in Asia.

(Don't you just love their ties?)

Photos from AFP via The Straits Times.

Get A Brick, We'll Travel

We have never been to Paris, and, even though the wifey would love it, it has never been in my list of places to visit. Serious or otherwise, we have never had any discussions about going there. The closest I have been to the Eiffel Tower, aside from a 3-inch souvenir someone gave the wifey, is at a large-scale display in Hong Kong a couple of Christmases ago. It was quite a surprise coming home to a LEGO "Paris Tower" made by Little P. Colorful, the litlle thing is, just the way I like it. Plus, it doubles as a spaceship, according to my 6-year old who just go introduced to LEGO last December. (Most architects will never think of that!)

(Photo from Tour-Eiffel.com)

LEGO come out with an Eiffel Tower (10181) set in 2007. Built to 1:300 scale and stands 42.5 inches high, the realistic tower retailed for $199.99. Of course, today it goes for 5 times the original price.

I Will Blog For Bricks

It is now official, Guinness World Records recently confirmed that DK Publishing - The LEGO Group have broken the world records for the largest image made with interlocking bricks. The mosaic, which is that of a Star Wars poster to celebrate the LEGO Brickmaster book, required 384,000 Lego bricks and 1500 baseplates, took 3 days to complete (23-25 October, 2010) and measured 97.5 square meters.

That is a lot of money to burn. Good thing this was backed by TLG. Me? I am, for the last couple of months, thinking (dreaming) of ways to raise money for my own mosaic project. I made some calculations, and based on S@H prices I need around 10,000 pesos to create a simple mosaic on a 48x48 baseplate.

While you're contemplating on how much to donate to my mosaic fund, head over to DK Canada for videos and more pictures. Maybe those will inspire you to shell out some dough. I promise, I will not employ children to work on my mosaics.

Respect The Classics, Man!

They are out. Here are some really fresh pictures of upcoming LEGO Cars sets courtesy of FBTB and Kris Kelvin of Eurobricks .

8200 Radiator Springs Lightning McQueen
May 2011. US$6.99.

8486 Mack's Team Truck
May 2011. US$39.99.

8487 Flo's V8 Cafe
May 2011. US$59.99.

I love Cars, but only collect Fillmore, and I am quite disappointed with the Fillmore in the above set. It does not look like a Volkswagen Kombi!! Where is your respect for the classics, LEGO?!

Our Heart

I found out today that the wifey will not be here on Valentine's Day, again. So, here is a quick LEGO build for her.

Yup, I do not have any money to get her anything else.

From Sand To Concrete

We went out to get Little P's prize from Build City the other day. It ended up being a big Racers set. Not really fit for a little girl. She opened it, looked at the sealed baggies and decided to sell it to her mom for funds to get a City Corner.

(Taken with the LEGO Camera.)

Little P is quite right, you cannot play Sylvanians with Racers.