I just got the following notice in my email from LEGO:
SAFETY RECALL NOTICE
Dear LEGO Consumer
In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the LEGO Group is voluntarily recalling the 8879 Power Functions IR Speed Remote Control unit, which poses a thermal burn hazard to users when batteries inside overheat. The remote control unit was sold separately as item #8879 or was included in K8882 Power Functions Kit or the K10194 Emerald Night Collection.
We are writing to you because our records indicate that you purchased one of these items.LEGO Systems has found that some of the remote control units (the kind that was included in your set) are not performing correctly. If your remote is one of the affected you would have noticed that it becomes hot to the touch in the first 5 to 10 minutes of initial operation. If you did not experience this situation when you first loaded batteries into the remote then your remote is not affected. If your remote is affected, we ask that you return it to us in exchange for a new remote control unit. Simply call 1-800-718-1858 between the hours of Monday-Friday 8am-10pm ET and Saturday-Sunday 10pm-6pm ET (if outside the US/Canada dial +1-860-763-3211) and we will give you instructions on how to return the unit and also answer any questions that you might have.
Thank you for your time and attention to this, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We wish your family many more happy and creative hours of building fun with LEGO brand products.
Hillel Cooperman gave an “Ignite” presentation on the adult LEGO community recently. You can see it here on Youtube:
I found this through a post on Facebook by Felix Greco (I don’t think I can link to that because of the way Facebook works). The comments were not entirely positive, mostly around the way he talks about the adult LEGO fans, implying that they are so nerdy that they don’t date. It does sound to me like Hillel is not entirely comfortable with his AFOLishness. If he hadn’t had a kid and a wife who was enthusaistic about Harry Potter LEGO, do you think he would’ve rediscovered LEGO? Somehow I doubt it. However, most of the presentation was pretty positive. I do think he needs to take more pride in LEGO as a hobby and not denigrate his fellow AFOLs. But all in all, it’s a pretty good overview of the LEGO scene, told in an engaging and lively manner.
When I heard that LEGO was opening a store in Frisco, TX I asked my friend Sylvia who lives there if she could stop by the grand opening and try to score one of these bucking bronco sets. They were given out to the first 300 customers at the new store. But Sylvia is not one to do things halfway – she was third in line to get into the store, and first to check out. That’s right, this is the first ever bucking bronco given out at that store! Check the timestamp on the receipt…
Portland’s KATU Channel 2 recently featured Steve Barile (organizer of BrickFest) on a TV interview. Aside from the fact that they kept using the term “Legos” they did a really good job of showing the AFOL (Adult Fan of LEGO) hobby in a respectful, positive way. It’s nice and long, too, with plenty of great shots of Steve’s LEGO collection and models. Steve seemed very relaxed and comfortable in front of the camera, which is a great feat in itself. Go Steve!
One of my pictures has been used by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on their Web site to illustrate a radio story about the relative merits of buying versus renting a home. You can see it on the ABC News homepage as a small thumbnail on the right hand side, and if you click the “Best of abc.net.au” link it takes you to a “best of” page where that story is featured with a larger version of the image at the top of the page. Here’s the photo they used (from their Web server):
My photos are published with a Creative Commons attribution license, so I’m not mad that they used the photo, but they (as far as I can tell) failed to credit the photo which I think is in pretty poor taste. (If you like the models, I have posted the LDraw instructions online.) Here’s the original photo, linked to its page on Flickr:
You can really see the blurriness created when they cropped it and re-saved the JPEG (probably with a high level of compression). Thanks to Stephen Calder, aka aussiechef67 for pointing it out via a comment on Flickr.
Bricks by the Bay now has an event on Facebook. Please RSVP there if you’re a Facebook user, and join our Facebook group. (If you want to be my Facebook friend, visit my public profile.)
We created a group a while ago, but I had to wait until May 1st to create the event since Facebook doesn’t have a “year” field for events – 12 months is the limit. In other words, the convention is less than a year away!
Bricks by the Bay is also on Twitter, so follow us there. We also have mailing list for announcements as well as people helping with planning at our site, bricksbythebay.com.
Last night at BrickFest, the new 10194 Emerald Night train set was officially announced. For the announcement, they played this video on the big screen…
I shot video of the rest of the announcement and will try to get that edited soon!
I had a hare-brained idea the other night, to create a Flickr group for antigravity-based vehicles. You know, Jetsons cars, Blade Runner spinners, Star Wars speeders, stuff like that. I’ve really enjoyed the LugNuts group that Lino runs, but wanted something like that with a more science-fiction bent. So I created the LEGO Antigravity group, and pimped it on the LugNuts and Sci-LUG forums. I added a few of my own aircars to it and invited a few other MOCs that seemed on-topic to join. Check it out!
From Jetsons to Star Wars to Blade Runner, antigravity has always been a fixture in science fiction. This group is for LEGO models of vehicles that levitate, hover, or otherwise defy gravity. Any scale, from nanoscale up to life size, is welcome, but probably most will be minifig scale.
One of the most well-documented LEGO builders out there is “Sariel,” a Polish LEGO builder specializing in Technic models: construction equipment, trucks, military equipment, etc. They feature a lot of moving parts, often with motorized and/or pneumatic power. He takes excellent quality photos and even has Youtube videos of his models.
Until now, I mostly saw his models on the Klocki blog (pron. “klosskey”) that started in Poland (and written in Polish) but has expanded to an international audience and is also available in English and Portuguese. Sariel was often featured on Klocki along with other great builders from LUGPol, the Polish LEGO user group, and Comunidade 0937, the Portuguese group (hint: look at “0937″ upside-down), as well as other great builders from around the globe.
But now, Sariel has his own blog Sariel.pl: Sariel’s LEGO Technic creations where he will feature his work in great detail. Even if you don’t build Technic, it’s still inspiring. And of course I trust that Klocki will continue to feature his work as well.
Yesterday, a crew from KTVU channel 2 television came to see the Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group exhibit. Watch this Video on KTVU.com about our exhibit at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto. Russell (the club president) and I weren’t there, but Loren did a great job explaining the exhibit for the camera. I’m sure that must have been nerve-wracking but I think he’s got a great voice for that kind of thing so I’m glad he was willing and available to do it.
I heard that it was going to be on the TV today, but I haven’t heard any details about exactly when. Probably on the news or something. But the way that video clip was put together doesn’t really feel like a news segment to me, so maybe not.
I’m not there right now because I’m home sick with a cold, but hopefully I can be there next weekend – which is our final weekend, by the way! So come on out and see it while there’s still time!
