Earlier this year, the Washington National Cathedral announced plans to build a replica of the cathedral in LEGO in order to raise funds for the repair of the cathedral due to damage from the 2011 earthquake. I bought some bricks online early on, which went into construction of the Bethlehem Chapel, but I wanted to … Continue reading Building the LEGO National Cathedral
Tag: Lego
With 2017 drawing to a close and 2018 about to begin, I decided to take a look back at 2016 and spotlight the best (or most significant) blog post of each month. John Hurt, a Reminisence – Sir John Hurt died, aged 77, of pancreatic cancer. I can’t say that what I wrote was profound, … Continue reading On the Year That Was, 2017
Last year, to coincide with Star Trek‘s fiftieth anniversary, Mattel released a line of Star Trek Mega Bloks sets. A few years previous, Hasbro had a line of LEGO-compatible Star Trek KRE-O sets, based on the Chris Pine/Zach Quinto films, and I thought those were well done, even if I did rebuild the miniature Enterprise … Continue reading Adventures in Off-Brand LEGO: Star Trek’s The Guardian of Forever
Yesterday evening, after attending the Maryland Renaissance Festival, I found something I knew immediately I had to have — The Peanuts Movie: Olaf's Biplane construction set from Lite Brix. Lite Brix is a LEGO-compatible building block made by Cra-Z-Art, a New Jersey company. To tie in with The Peanuts Movie, they produced a number of … Continue reading Adventures in Off-Brand LEGO: Olaf’s Biplane
Six weeks ago, when I went to the Mid-Maryland Celtic Festival in Mt. Airy, Maryland, I made a stop at Dollar General on my way home. I had bought a Celtic art print at the festival, I needed a frame for it, and Dollar General seemed like a good (and inexpensive) place to get a … Continue reading Adventures in Off-Brand LEGO: Fortress Tower
With 2016 drawing to a close and 2017 about to begin, I decided to take a look back at 2016 and spotlight the best (or most significant) blog post of each month. Some months — July, quite notably — were more difficult that others; there were a few months, like March and August, where I … Continue reading On the Year that Was
As the company has done for a number of years, a Christmas tree was put up in the lobby and, a few days after Thanksgiving, Angel Tree stockings were hung. I had decided long ago to participate in the Angel Tree program this year and, when I was passing by the lobby area on other … Continue reading An Angel Tree Package for the Office
On occasion, I’ve bought non-LEGO building sets. Hasbro’s line, KRE-O, has produced some interesting — and very nice — Transformers and Star Trek sets that I’ve enjoyed building. Character Options’ Doctor Who sets were very nice and felt very LEGO-like. MegaBloks has made World of WarCraft and Halo sets that, while conceptually nice, weren’t fun … Continue reading Adventures in Off-Brand LEGO: Castle Clash
In my closet there’s an ammunition crate, painted red. It’s where I keep my LEGO bricks. There are LEGO bricks in that crate that are older than some of my coworkers. No, I’m not kidding. There are some LEGO boat pieces (that float on water) that I know date from the late 1970s, and I … Continue reading The Itch to Build
Last summer, to tie in with Star Trek Into Darkness, Hasbro released several Star Trek-themed KRE-O sets. KRE-O is Hasbro’s LEGO-compatible building set series, and they’ve released Transformers, Battleship, and zombie-themed sets in addition to Star Trek. I’ve built some of the Transformers sets, and I’ve liked them. The bricks may be a little slicker … Continue reading Adventures in Off-Brand LEGO: The Mini KRE-O Enterprise
Yesterday I went to Big Lots. It wasn’t the reason I went out — I needed to go to Kohl’s to buy a new pair of shoes for work, as the pair of shoes I had was utterly blown out — and since Big Lots is in the same area as Kohl’s I made a … Continue reading Adventures in Off-Brand LEGO: Stargate SG-1 Deathglider Attack
A few days ago on All Things Considered, NPR’s Planet Money wanted to know, “Why are Legos (sic) so expensive?” The segment compared LEGO to MegaBloks. While Mega’s products are less expensive, their annual global sales are only about 10 percent of LEGO’s. The segment pointed to several factors — better manufacturing techniques for LEGO, … Continue reading On the Cost of LEGO and New Worlds to Explore