Star Wars Display at Toys R Us

Stopped into the local Toys R Us in Warwick, Rhode Island and who was waiting for me in the main toy isle?

Captain Rex! This thing is crazy impressive up close.

I am not sure how long he will be on display, the stand did not look very permanent so swing by while it is still there. There were lots of grown men and kids taking photos which reminds me that I need to take Lucas to see it...

Building at a Preschool Level!

I think that it is safe to say that I am officially building at a preschool level! YES!

I built these Star Wars inspired ships with my 5 year old son the other night, I pulled out the box of white bricks and we built some small ships together. It was nice.


This last one was an attempt to build a Star Destroyer with a mere five bricks!

Happy Lego Mothers Day

I went looking for images to make a nice Mothers Day card for my wife but found little in the way of pre-made images so what is a cheap husband to do? Make his own!

Yes, that is supposed to be a MiniFigure - maybe I should not have drawn it with a Sharpie from scratch. Next time I will use a pencil to do some layouts, lol.
My wife got the card, a Lego heart and a bottle of bubble gum vodka. Because I care enough to give the very best!

Lego Magazine Day!

What an interesting day when THREE Lego magazines arrive at the house! The mailman brought me the newest issues of Lego Club Magazine, Lego Club Jr and Brickmaster Magazine all of which are the May-June issues.


Lego Club Magazine has twenty pages of goodness including a bonus eight page Lego Universe mini comic glued to the first page. Features include a cover and sneak peak at new Prince of Persia sets, the new Lego Minifigures, Star Wars and Toy Story 3 comics and... well that is about it. There is the usual custom creations and contests but the issue is a really quick read.

Lego Club Jr has sixteen pages and features Toy Story 3 on the cover and in a puzzle, an Atlantis comic, two pages of cool kids creations along with four pages of building instructions for a farmer & cow combo and a tractor. That is correct, there are instructions for builds in the "kids" magazine and none in the main magazine which surprises me.


Last we have the pay subscription Brickmaster Magazine which is billed as for "advanced builders" and carries a thirty dollar a year price. That also gets you a creator set with each issue and this months is an 89 piece alligator. As for the magazine itself, the first twenty pages are the same as the regular club magazine (including the cover although they did change the sky color) then they add on a Lego Universe poster, a nifty Star Wars imagine sceen, and eight pages of builds incuding a build that make use of the Alligator set which is a great idea.


I am not too keen on the duplication between magazines and when I subscribed I thought there would be more AFOL content but it still seems aimed at twelve year old which, depending on what you are looking for, may or may not be a bad thing. Is it worth the thirty dollars? The sets make it a break even proposition but I really feel that they are missing a chance to do something great with the magazine.

Brickatino Goal and Mission

Good morning, good evening and good afternoon!

Welcome to the newest Lego related blog on the Internet and one that will hopefully be of interest to more then just myself! Why another Lego blog? Here is a little history about myself and what I am hoping to accomplish with this blog.

This last Christmas my brother-in-law gave my four year old son Lucas a number of assembled Star Wars Lego sets as a gift which was really cool and surprising. I was very, very impressed with the gift as I had little interaction with Lego and the ships looked and felt very cool and different from the Star Wars action figures and ships we usually bought. As it turned out my brother-in-law did not have time to finish all of the models and after some slight nudging I took it upon myself to assemble Yodas hut from the Star Wars X-Wing set 4502 for my son.



So I took the pieces, the instructions and a cup of coffee and sat down at the computer desk to assemble the set. At this point it must be stressed that I had never assembled a Lego set before. That's right, I managed to live on this planet for 36 years without ever putting together a Lego set and I really had no interest in doing so but I started the task for my son. It took me about thirty minutes to assemble this rather small set and when I finished I sat back and looked at the small minifig Yoda standing in his hut with a strange sense of satisfaction and amazement. All those little pieces made this? I was hooked.

Flash forward five months to today and I have assembled about seven sets for my son to enjoy including more Star Wars, Toy Story, Indiana Jones and more. I subscribed to the Lego Magazine and subscribed my son to Lego Jr magazine. I discovered BrickJournal magazine which is a constant source of envy and jealousy for a new AFOL. Oh, I found out what AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) stood for. And now I am starting to plan my first MOC (My Own Creation) but I am still at a six year old Lego skill level.

Most AFOLs break their lives into three parts: their childhood with Lego, the dark years when they are "too old" for Lego and usually give away their collection, and then the point they return and embrace the Lego culture. I never really had the first two so this may be a different look at an adults descent into the steamy underbelly of the Lego culture. Oh, that sounded good! In reality I hope to document my experiences in the hopes that other adults who may not have had the childhood exposure to Lego or who consider Lego to be strictly for kids to discover a creative and enjoyable world right inside their rec rooms.

We are going to explore Lego web sites, read Lego themed books, build sets together, create MOCs of varying quality, and generally have a great time with all things Lego. In the future I would like to visit a Lego convention and eventually go visit the Lego amusement park in Florida when it opens and meet as many Lego fans as I can. And I hope that Lego fans of all shapes, sizes and experience enjoy the ride with me.