Happy Halloween!

 

Alright I’m at work right now typing on my phone but I wanted to get a post out before it’s too late! Here’s me as Cobb Vanth. That’s it. That’s the tweet! Have fun!

Ps the first guy is not me the first guy is Timothy Olyphant. The second guy is me. 

 

"Hey Marshal, this town ain't big enough for the both of us!"

"You're absolutely right Gar Saxon. Mandalopolis is waaaay too crowded. Let's build another level!"

"Good idea! You're the best! I heart you!!"

Filoni and Favreau, I am absolutely available to join your writers room, I can make up dialogue like that all day long!

So, I got the Mandalorian Starfighter (set 75316, not to be confused with The Mandalorian's N1 Starfighter, totally different things) primarily for the sweet minifigs. Got it sealed in box but secondhand for half price so I couldn't pass up that deal. Built the ship and it's fine, has cool moving wings and all that, but it doesn't sit in the depths of my heart they way TIE fighters and X-Wings and Imperial Shuttles do. 

So I thought I would dismantle it and use all the plates to build a second level, a boring square one since that's all I know how to do, but when I took the wings off and put them side by side I noticed how they look a lot like a Mandalorian helmet. I mean, obviously, right? So then I thought I would just tie them together (with bricks, not string), do a quick technic stand and voila. The overcrowding problem in Mandalopolis is solved! 

I also was able to put the various pieces of the Armorer's Mandalorian Forge (75319) just underneath for a sort of cave effect. Sweet! Put a micro fighter and some Minifigs on top and Boba's your uncle!

"Good job, Marshal! But where are we going to put the N1 now?"

"Oh sh..."

 Happy 10/22/2022. It also happens to be the 20th anniversary of Pooing in the Woods! I changed the header name a while back just so it looks a bit more professional as more and more of my writing gets out there in the world. But we know the truth right.

Yesterday the girls and I were out in the garage, I wanted Naia to help me with a part of my Halloween costume, so I asked her to spray paint a thing. I was pretty sure I had some spray paint somewhere, some red stuff I "accidentally" took home from the mine a while back. I found it, and it still worked! This was amazing since it's been in my garage over ...many winters now.

"How many winters, Dad?"

"Well, let's see. I remember using it for some reason I don't recall out in the yard before we had grass, so I dunno. 14 years?" (Editor- more like 16!)

This blew their mind, but for me it's just, yeah I had this in my garage for a while.

That's a little how having this blog turn 20 feels. It's just sort of been there, I don't use it much. 

But it's nice to know it's there when I need it!

Happy 20th Homie Bear!

 

Two things turn twenty in this year of 2022- Attack of the Clones, and this blog. Neither has aged very well, it can be admitted, but both are still around, so. Though this blog very nearly died in the Attack of the Social Media. There's a years-long gap in posts a while back. But I'm striking back! Revenge of the ... you get the point.

Most Star Wars fans will agree that the best thing to come from Attack of the Clones is the meme of Anakin and Padme where she's like, "You did the <insert whatever> in the <normal> way, right?", but the second best thing is the Republic Gunship which I have just learned is actually called the LAAT- low altitude assault transport. But no one ever calls it that, same as the AT-AT.

Lego just released the Ultimate Collector's Edition of the Gunship, and it is gorgeous. Stunning. You can imagine the price- heck you don't have to imagine, I will tell you- it costs $400 US, and even more in Canadian dollars. Even the less ultimate editions, retired now, are expensive and hard to find. But of course, Rebrickable has your back. 

There are tons of designs on there, but I found this one on Instagram and loved the size- midi-scale which is a touch smaller than mini figure scale, but the designer, Ron McPhatty, made it just big enough to accommodate some Clones. A fantastic build, full of little details and great work-arounds. Those doors slide open! There's a hidden little speeder incorporated into the hold! 

This was the second big build we did- Pallas was involved in this one right from the start. It took us a while, a lot of the dark red parts are hard to find even on BrickLink stores, so we also made use of the newly opened Edmonton Brickyard bulk bins, but we eventually found the pieces we needed and the time to build it. Of course we used some alternate bricks here and there but overall it looks great.

 Can you stand all these Lego posts? Can't help it, it's what I'm really into these days. Really pleased with this stand I built for my Imperial Shuttle (75094) which I have had for years now but has had to sit, somewhat uninspiringly, in park mode. With the wings up. It looks so much cooler wings-down! 

The stand is a pretty accurate build of barneius' stand on Rebrickable, I just recoloured it to match the Tydirium colours. And also since all of our black pieces have been scooped up for a build Pallas is doing this weekend! So it's a bit patchworky here and there but overall it works fine. Who knew white SNOT pieces were so hard to find!

Michelle has occasionally made comments about how our home decor is a little more Lego-y than she strictly remembers agreeing to . . . so the shuttle might fly back down to its hangar but for now, it enjoys pride of place on our mantle!

 

Microcosms have always fascinated me. Little worlds. I think our own universe, the cosmos, is probably just a microcosm of some other more bigger universe, as in the first Men In Black movie, that little necklace that the dog had. Was it a dog? That movie came out 25 years ago so I don't remember it very well. I know it was 25 years ago though because that is also when I was hitch-hiking across Canada having the time of my life, exploring the microcosm of Canada. Which isn't very micro.

What is micro are Microfighters! Love these little guys, I think they fit the Lego esthetic so well with the design of the minifigures which, after all, were always meant to be cute. The little Y-Wing shown above, the yellow one, came in a book about Lego Star Wars, and I always loved the design. So I built another one out of spare parts. I was going to make it red to be like the Resistance Y-Wing micro fighter (75263) but turns out I don't have that much red parts. I have a ton of grey though! So I built a Mandalorian version. Even stole the nacelles off of the Razor Crest microfighter (75321) which, honestly, kind of missed the mark of that cuteness that I like so much. They plugged right in! Since Din Djarin already has a bunch of ships, and fragments of ships (lol) I thought would give this one to a random Mandalorian mini figure. Pretty cool.

In other news, The Librarian Kickstarter was wildly successful and is going to come to an end next week. Thanks for your support! Completely by coincidence, another anthology featuring one of my stories will launch on Kickstarter next week. One of these days I should do my own Kickstarter since I already am getting kicked so much! Seriously, I would like to Kickstart The Ursus Verses Volume 2. One day. This upcoming anthology is from The Dragon's Roost Press and is called LOLcraft. An anthology of humorous  Cthulhuesque stories. Mine is really fun, I can't lie. It's about the cosmos. Well, cosmic horror! There's kind of a microcosm in it! Several, really. Sort of. Honestly, you just have to read it. Microcosmic horror? Hmmm....

 

I sometimes think space and time are unified in the same way matter and energy are, and that there is a finite supply of both. So as the universe expands- space gets bigger- time gets smaller. Or less of it. There's probably a formula for that but in a less cosmic sense, all I know is I have very finite space to display my Lego collection, and not nearly enough time to build more Lego.

Thus I have developed a somewhat unexpected passion for stands. The Convor is a bit of a space hog for the size of the model. Lots of surface area. It was made to soar, dammit! So I went back to Rebrickable and found this stand, by Fantasts. I was able to build a decently similar thing with parts I had on hand. The nice thing is you don't need to be exact, just need some good greebling. A combination stand and little minifigure diorama! Love it!

 

Years ago I read a book called Accelerando, by Charles Stross. Mind still reeling from it lol. There was a lot in there, but one of the things I often think about was how, in that universe, any raw material like asteroids or, say, the Moon, was a terrible waste until it was converted into processing power. I'm ok with the Moon just being the Moon but my gigantic horde of loose Lego bricks definitely seems like unrealized potential.

Luckily I have discovered Rebrickable! The best way to convert loose Lego into Awesome.

Spoiler- I also discovered BrickLink stores, the best way to acquire even more Lego so that my pile doesn't really actually seem to shrink at all...

So there's this guy that I follow on InstaGram, ScruffyBrickHerder, who is an accomplished Lego builder, and he makes what he calls 'Uglies'- mashups of Star Wars ships. They're pretty cool, the design language of Star Wars being very amenable to this sort of thing. When he posted this TIE ugly, I fell in love. So pretty! He calls it the TIE Convor, after a bird creature seen in Clone Wars, Rebels and so forth. Simultaneously cute and cool. Right up my alley- I had to build one for myself! And he was thoughtful and kind enough to post free instructions on Rebrickable. In my innocence I just started building, from step 1. Oh sweet summer child. I know better now. But this was as far as I got with the parts I had on hand before getting stuck:

Which, not a bad start, but I didn't want to just discard it as I had so often in the past doing similar things. That's where BrickLink came in. Turns out there's a guy just across the freeway from me, so I bought the parts I needed and was back in action. The best part, though, was that my daughter Pallas asked me what I was up to, and I showed her and pretty soon she was right in there, digging for parts and just being a great Lego building partner. In fact, it's become a thing for us now. More on that later! Here's another view of the finished model for now. I stole the cockpit window from Yoda's Starfighter (75168) and I feel bad but he wasn't using it so. Cheers!