Leaderboard

I wanted to create a new thread in order to give progress on my site updates. I want explain a bit on what happened and what I am doing. What happened with the site? Honestly nothing really exciting or dramatic, overall in the end, I did not want to support the host I was with for the past four years after not really offering too much help with managed servers. They would spend 30 seconds looking, say they can ping the server so its up and then just say, "hey not my problem". I was on aging hardware, paying the same amount of money, so I took the opportunity to move to a new host with better/faster hardware and a staff that does help to support you when run into an issue that you can't handle on your own. I have been doing this a long time and pretty good monitoring and handling 99% of what comes my way, but there are issues that you need the next level up to help figure out what to do. I wasn't getting anything like that, but paying for it. Not anymore. What my goal is... I know more than anyone that the site needed some TLC. It's been a while since I have done any drastic updates, the site looked tired and I know the site can be so much better than what it's current state was. LEGO investing has changed since Ed and I launched the site and it's time to remove the dead content and bring more of what people are looking for. Below is the short term list of items planned for updating. I have been working on the nightly, just like the early days and enjoying seeing parts of it coming to life. Fix the login. This has been messed up and quirky for a while. This has been resolved and working well. It's a simple thing overall, but nice that it actually works how it's supposed to Overall price guide site design update. The site was tired and disjointed. I hated it and pained me to look at it. Time to start over. Brickfolio update. All the Brickfolio data is safe. I have close to three million rows of data for Brickfolio entries. Time to bring this thing to 2020. I will probably create another thread at some point to solicit some feedback on some new requests for the brickfolio Fix the data syncing with Brickset. A lot of people used this feature, but it's time to make it work the way it should. Later I will work on the content portions. The news and blogs. I have some good ideas for this, but want to get the price guide and brickfolio to you sooner than later. What I am asking for if possible... If you can, please stop asking where the brickfolio is. Again, the data is safe and I am working as fast as I can to bring it all back to you. It won't be a few days, but more like a few weeks, but it will be worth it. I setup my dev environment to push releases quick and easy. I want to create a true changelog so that you can follow updates to see what was done/fixed/new/removed, you know like what real software companies do. I really do appreciate your patience with this. It wasn't planned, but if there was going to be a time to do it, it was going to be now.

Just a brief update to let you in on what I have been up to. I have some of the main price guide pages laid out and starting to wire everything together to make those pages functional. I am using a new design so it takes time to lay it out and make sense. I am not trying for total perfection since I am trying to get the site out to every one as soon as possible and will push updates over time to add more and fix things. Next up will be the Brickfolio so that I can get the site active for you all to have access to your data again. Today I am actually working on updating the Amazon code. I received call from Amazon on Friday asking me to please upgrade and convert my code to their new API. I really appreciate that they did that. I have known about it and they sent quite a few emails, but the fact that they reached out was very cool. I need to get this done or they will shut down any of the code that helps the daily deals feed (whether you love or hate it).

Here is my Battle of Hoth scene that incorporates sets 8129 (AT-AT Walker), 75049 (Snowspeeder), 75014 (Battle of Hoth), 75138 (Hoth Attack) and a laser cannon from set 75259 (Snowspeeder – 20th Anniversary Edition) on three white base plates. The background pictures were my son’s idea and are much better idea than the plain white background I originally had. The reflection off the glass doors makes it difficult to get a really good overall picture, hence the close-up shots. Being at home all the time does have its advantages after I get done teleworking, more family time and more building opportunities. Since this is technically not a MOC since I did not modify any of the sets, I am posting it here.

Everyone needs to extend some grace and patience with the teachers. They were not trained for this moment. Many of them are not technically inclined like most of us nerds on this forum. Most have kids so they are dealing with the same adjustment that we all are. Some have spouses that may have lost their job or are in fear of losing it soon. Some might be single moms with kids and no way safe way to even get groceries right now. Some might be older and have no clue what a video conference is. Most have never considered a day where they would have to teach an entire class remotely. Also keep in mind that kids have different circumstances at home which makes it difficult to prepare a curriculum that is accessible to everyone. Heck, some kids just rely on school for a couple meals a day. Most teachers are anxious and stressed like all of us. I think they are doing a hell of a job given the circumstances. My son's teacher is older and doing her best. She responds to messages and remains flexible. I'm not expecting them to be super heroes in this moment. Plus, it's only a couple months so I'm not too worried about it in the grand scheme of things. Health and well being is most important right now. The kids are learning a lot more than what's in the text book right now anyways. This is a historic moment. They will learn the most from how their parents handle this situation. (Sorry for the rant. My wife used to teach and she knows a lot of teachers that feel helpless. They are doing their best and wish they could do more.)

The Great Fishing Boat March 2020

"The World Health Organization has announced that dogs cannot contract Covid-19. Dogs previously held in quarantine can now be released. To be clear, WHO let the dogs out."

I’m locking the thread today. It’s Sunday. Let’s rest, let’s build. Let’s spend time with family. And most importantly, knock off the insults to one another. Brickpicker is literally the only online forum I participate in (leave comments). Because I genuinely enjoy talking LEGO with yuh guys. But the last 48 hours especially has turned into a mud-slinging fest and I’m not thrilled with it. It’s not my board, but the incel talk, never been kissed, and other insults need to stop. Y’all are killing the vibe.

Let’s take a small break from this thread. Go build a Lego set and hug a family member or pet.

Decided to rebuild one of my all-time favorites to boost my morale. What a beauty! I love the classic advanced models, though I am not fortunate enough to have many of them. I am thankful that I have this one, it is a fantastic display piece and one of my favorite sets.

We have been going through our Facebook Marketplace find from last month and sorting all of the pieces into each individual set. Now we are finally to the stage of getting to do some building! First up: 10019 UCS Rebel Bloackade Runner, which was missing 0 pieces. We are a little over halfway finished. I did have to order a replacement sticker sheet, which is en route.

On a semi-related note - I want to thank all of the moderators & participants at Brickpicker. There are very few places online these days where commenting on ANYTHING doesn't devolve into name calling & general ass-holery, and this is one of them. Kudos to this community.

Not even close to how neat most of your modular buildings are, but my daughter and I built this out of multiple daily bugles that kept falling apart and are really proud of it

My daughter and I did a little building today.

While we have been stuck in our homes, I decided to build the Town Hall that I Bricklink'd last year. Took me longer to build than I thought it would have...and by the end of the build, even the minifigs were in self-quarantine mode!

I'm busting toywiz https://www.walmart.com/ip/LEGO-Creator-Winter-Village-Post-Office-10222/15405866

I finally pulled the trigger on a real nice used Benny's Spaceship with some extras on eBay and built it today. I've always wanted it, but was still in my dark ages when the original Lego Movie came out. Very fun build.

Billed as an epic battle between good and evil...Unsurprisingly ended in a 0-0 tie:)

A little reward for all the hard work this week ....

my wife is 7mo pregnant. We Self quarantined ourselves for 21 days minimum this past Sat. Not going to wait around and let people with alterior motives tell you what to do. You alone need to be your own biggest health advocate. here is some great info that may help some of you less ‘science’ oriented people understand the possible severity if we ignore this. Feeling confused as to why Coronavirus is a bigger deal than Seasonal flu? Here it is in a nutshell. I hope this helps. Feel free to share this to others who don’t understand... It has to do with RNA sequencing.... I.e. genetics. Seasonal flu is an “all human virus”. The DNA/RNA chains that make up the virus are recognized by the human immune system. This means that your body has some immunity to it before it comes around each year... you get immunity two ways...through exposure to a virus, or by getting a flu shot. Novel viruses, come from animals.... the WHO tracks novel viruses in animals, (sometimes for years watching for mutations). Usually these viruses only transfer from animal to animal (pigs in the case of H1N1) (birds in the case of the Spanish flu). But once, one of these animal viruses mutates, and starts to transfer from animals to humans(zoonotic)... then it’s a problem, Why? Because we have no natural or acquired immunity.. the RNA sequencing of the genes inside the virus isn’t human, and the human immune system doesn’t recognize it so, we can’t fight it off. Now.... sometimes, the mutation only allows transfer from animal to human, for years it’s only transmission is from an infected animal to a human before it finally mutates so that it can now transfer human to human... once that happens..we have a new contagion phase. And depending on the fashion of this new mutation, thats what decides how contagious, or how deadly it’s gonna be.. H1N1 was deadly....but it did not mutate in a way that was as deadly as the Spanish flu. It’s RNA was slower to mutate and it attacked its host differently, too. Fast forward. Now, here comes this Coronavirus... it existed in animals only, for nobody knows how long...but one day, at an animal market, in Wuhan China, in December 2019, it mutated and made the jump from animal to people. At first, only animals could give it to a person... But here is the scary part.... in just TWO WEEKS it mutated again and gained the ability to jump from human to human. Scientists call this quick ability, “slippery” This Coronavirus, not being in any form a “human” virus (whereas we would all have some natural or acquired immunity). Took off like a rocket. And this was because, Humans have no known immunity...doctors have no known medicines for it. And it just so happens that this particular mutated animal virus, changed itself in such a way the way that it causes great damage to human lungs.. That’s why Coronavirus is different from seasonal flu, or H1N1 or any other type of influenza.... this one is slippery. And it’s a lung eater...And, it’s already mutated AGAIN, so that we now have two strains to deal with, strain s, and strain L....which makes it twice as hard to develop a vaccine. We really have no tools in our shed, with this. History has shown that fast and immediate closings of public places has helped in the past pandemics. Philadelphia and Baltimore were reluctant to close events in 1918 and they were the hardest hit in the US during the Spanish Flu. Factoid: Henry VIII stayed in his room and allowed no one near him, till the Black Plague passed...(honestly...I understand him so much better now). Just like us, he had no tools in his shed, except social isolation... And let me end by saying....right now it’s hitting older folks harder... but this genome is so slippery...if it mutates again (and it will). Who is to say, what it will do next. Be smart folks... #flattenthecurve. Stay home folks.

What I read just said the parks in California, but I am sure that Florida parks wouldn't be far behind. Orlando was official about an hour ago Now it is more newsworthy what is actually open and not cancelled. Brickpicker is suspending Brickfolios until the end of March...

I finally bought it! This was my first and only "big" LEGO set as a child. Everything else was scrounged from a Happy Meal or hustled off some neighborhood kid for pennies on the dollar. My dad would only buy me Joe's, because they were the real American heroes. That flip lid means so much to me. I remember hanging out in the stores and that little plastic window gave me a glimpse into another world. LEGO made the best box art too. It actually represented what was in the box and provided the same excitement. Do you remember the Nintendo box art? Some of the best until you actually played the game. Man, what a let down lol! I'm interested to see others recent childhood purchases and learn your story behind it.

I found this gem a while ago, and finally had the pleasure of building it last week-end with my 9 y.o. The whole time, he (Yes, the one that is enamored with every new Ninjago set released) kept remarking "This is so cool!" I'm always amazed when building older sets both how short and terse the instructions are compared to modern sets, and how creative the designers were with a limited color palette and mostly simple brick shapes. As a kid, this set was the first I built that used Technic bricks. They work very nicely here, to model a support-beam industrial look. Back when this set was new, it and the Galaxy Explorer formed the core of Lego Space Command for my brother and me. Good times.

$200 on Offer Up.

Stuck at home with the kids. Wandered down into the lego store and said why not. Never built a falcon before.

This IS my social media and as such I hope we stay on track, remain refreshingly civil, share info and converse without judgement or name calling. BRICKPICKER is sooo much more than it appears on the surface to the members that have navigated several historical moments together. Lets remain the oasis we all require for mature thinking and sanity in these uncertain and stressful times. Look after family and friends and enjoy some hobbies new and old.

My opinion is that hoarding boys briefs for investment purposes crosses a line that I personally don't want to cross.

Just a little something to lighten the mood. Truth.

Indy collaboration between me & my middle son. We've been doing weekly "Lego Masters Challenges" since they've been off from school, and this week's challenge was to recreate a scene from a movie. They've really been into it.

Honestly, I feel like it's a lose-lose situation. Right now, we're doing the "hindsight 20/20" where we see how we should have handled it, but if we took these measures a month ago, people would be screaming even more how much of an overreaction we're making, especially when it was zero-to-few confirmed cases in US at the time. Half the country will always be upset with choices made, one way or the other.

Steering this back to what I tried before.... I was able to secure about 4000 masks from a fulfillment vendor to donate to a local hospital chain. That will give them about an additional 1-2 days of supply. Not a lot but every day matters until we can get our production levels increased. Considering we are all experts in arbitrage/unusual sourcing methods anyone else got any sources?

This was a fun one. I'm always amazed by the building techniques that are in use today. Some rubber pads on the bottom of the rotating base would be nice as it sometimes spins around with the car on a smooth surface.

Not judging , but I can barely deal with one of those in my house especially in these times !!

Some y'all need to relax about things that aren't in your control. Here is a meme to cheer everyone up.

Mods, Can we please move a lot of the politics and memes to a new thread? Say Moronavirus or like that. We clearly have a group within this thread that don't believe in the coronavirus, let rhem.move to that thread..this will.keep a lot of the politics our of it. This will filter the garbage, early on in the thread it was productive. We can agree to disagree but cut all the bs out of the thread.

https://www.newelementary.com/2020/03/lego-ideas-review-21322-pirates-barracuda.html Available from 1 April 2020. It contains 2,545 pieces and the price point is US$199.99/ CA$259.99/ €199.99/ £179.99/ 1599DKK. Special surprise, it turns into:

If we can for one moment disregard logic for actual scientific fact, social distancing is viral containment 101, one of the first steps necessary to slow/stop the spreading/incident rate. This has been known for centuries. Interesting to see how many people are more concerned about the economy than the spread. If there was a calm, calculated approach to such a crisis, then panic/recession talk would be more limited than they are now. This has basically been a global practice run for any virus with a real threat. If we were to be grading that effort, it would be a solid, capitalized, F. Big time failure when nations are putting the ecomony/politics ahead of Human health. A lot of people seem to have the attitude since they are not the demographic affected, then why care? There is a big difference between being prepared and acting calm in the face of adversity. Also, no one can say that the next virus wont prefer kids or old people, but humans that are relatively healthy between 25-60. Classic NIMBY thinking that leads to the chaos we see. As a nation, we should have responded immediately without care for what the reaction may do to investors sentiments. That is just the scientist in me. rant over.

76042 Helicarrier re-build finished this morning. I reverse bagged this one so the build was very smooth. I've always loved this set, and since it took me a while to find one at a good price that adds a bit of extra satisfaction each time I build it. This is one of the sets that they did a great job with, the proportions and details are very close to the shots in the movies in my opinion, and the interior bridge addition it excellent. Once I modified the minifigure stand to include all of the original Avengers, that was the final touch, although one of the front turret extensions looks to have fallen off during transport from my building area 🙃 On the cons, I wish they would have scrapped the turbine spinning feature and added more interior, perhaps a Hulk lab, bunk rooms, and hallways. And secondly, the upper/second level bridge needs work. That large translucent piece just doesn't look good with all the other small details. But overall an amazing set for me!

We finished the UCS Blockade Runner on Sunday. Man...what a beast of a set. Beautiful. Up next to build from the lot: UCS Death Star II, which was missing 4 pieces. @Huskers1236 I went with Vinyl aftermarket after seeing the shape the original stickers were in (as you can see in the pics) and reading online. They aren’t here yet, and it will be my first experience with aftermarket stickers.

My buddy held a Lego build a castle challenge over the weekend through our FB family. We were encouraged to use whatever Lego we had "around" the house. Those without kids like me were encouraged to join as well. With most of my loose Lego in storage I decided to bust open a water damaged 10237 ToO. I made sure to say it was a set and not custom. Took me about 15 hrs I'd say. I liked the build and it looks awesome. Now to break it down I guess.

what I do or do not post has nothing to do with the fact that you seem to have an unreasonable urge to share every dumb thing you find. good message boards get turned into garbage when people like you run amok. maybe be a little selective.

If you - any person - have a 3000$ mortgage then you have a really high income and logic stipulates you would have some money saved in the bank . As far as the first part goes , if left unchecked the virus can affect up to 80% of the population to which humans have no immunity against . Even at 1% mortality that’s a lot of humans dead . Is it a bit over the top ? Maybe . Is it worth the effort to save lives ? Absolutely !

I am practicing social media distancing during this virus: staying as far away from social media as I can.

Something to reflect on.

Instead of locking the thread again, which seems inevitable, can we instead consider banning turds like this that can't seem to stop themselves from posting bad political takes and trying to start fights? Please? I mean seriously, you have any number of social media sites you can go to if you wan't to waste time arguing. There are others that will happily engage with you and you can solve all of the country's problems by owning them online.

Good on you for having boundaries and respecting them. I got rid of all of my social media accounts at the end of 2019. Deleted everything - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, etc. it is a very refreshing way to live life, setting and keeping boundaries for online, whatever they may be.