PLOG 62: Lego Ninjago Arcade Pods Review

My PLOG continues during this time of pandemic and protests...

I'm a little late to the party, but the Lego Ninjago Arcade Pods (Set Numbers: 71714, 71715, and 71716) are really interesting. They are also HUGE compared to the Lego minifig, but that's ok; I still think they could be used in a modular arcade build or something and it make sense. One of my cats is guest-starring in this review because he likes to be in the middle of things.

As you can see here on the backs of the boxes, not only does each set come with 2 minifigs for the same character, but they also come with some unique items and a bunch of copies of the same weapons.

I think it's hilarious that we go from guitar to dynamite to a baseball bat. These guys seem to have very different personalities. I'm going to start wit Jay, the blue ninja. He's the one with the guitar.

Each of the sets has a "Digi" version and an "Avatar" version of the Ninjago character. After giving Jay a chance to rock out, I opened up the box for Kai - the red ninja. I was saddened to see the twisted, wonky sticker sheet fall out when I opened the box. It's so sad to me that The Lego Group still does this with the packaging sometimes. They know how to secure sticker sheets and they do it in the really expensive sets.

I realized, while following the instructions, that it was going to be pretty much the exact same build for all 3 arcade pods; they were just swapping out the colors. I'm fine with that. I like consistency. Below you will see I gave Kai the little glowing daggers to hold because I didn't want him holding an open flame and some dynamite. The arcade pods are nice for storing those extra pieces though.

Up next was superstar Lloyd with the gold mohawk and baseball bat. What a punk! Thankfully, his sticker sheet was just fine.

The 3 ninjas look good together. I mostly wanted the sets for the arcade pods (to go into a modular build) and the hair pieces. Lloyd had an extra face mask so I gave it to Kai. They can use good practices during the pandemic. The extra 3 ninja minifigs create a great 3D screen appearance for the arcade pods.

Strangely, each set came with a row of extra stickers at the bottom of the sticker sheet. I don't know what to do with them. I suppose they could help decorate my MOC modular arcade that I want to build.

My overall thoughts?

THE GOOD:

*Each pack has 2 minifigs.

*Each pod has plenty of storage space.

*The stickers really bring the sets to life.

*The hair pieces and items are great.

THE BAD

*The arcade pods are really too big for minifig scale.

*There was no indication of what to do with the extra stickers.

*I wish the weapons were a solid color instead of the weird glow color.

*I wish Jay's guitar had some printed details on it.

I highly recommend these sets. They are fun and colorful.

That's it for today. Be safe out there (and I'll be safe at home)!

PLOG 61: REAL RISKS!

My PLOG continues during this time of pandemic and protests...

Let's get real here. Listening to the news has become very frustrating. The US Congress has been debating the next stimulus bill (for a long time). It's insane. We're not just talking politics as normal. We are in an emergency, pandemic situation. People need relief yesterday. It's life and death for a lot of people; it's time for the government to take action and help people.

The politicians need to remember that they are supposed to be serving the people. The government should only exist to further the needs of the people. Instead, we are continuing to see clashes with protesters.

The situations we are facing seem to just worsen, which reminds me of the coutuniunig unknowns about starting the school year.  Some states are starting all classes online. Other have left that decision up to the local districts, like in Texas. In Texas we have some counties where the health commissioner is even stepping in and forcing in-person school to be delayed. But you know what's weird? People either don't seem to understand/know about the fact that teachers are still expected to show up in person - or people just don't care.

Studies have been done. Kids and teens get the virus. They spread the virus. Air conditioning systems spread the virus. Whether students are there or not, the virus will spread. What in the world are we doing? And because the details have been revealed so late, it's too late for teachers to be freely released from our contracts. Now if we decide to not show up for work in protest of the situation, or out of concern for our health, we will lose our certifications and potentially our retirement pensions.

I feel like it's all really obvious and yet we still have about (I'm guessing here) 30-40% of the population in denial of how medical science and virus infections work.

I can only spend so many days escaping into books, The Sims 3, Minecraft, and Lego. My summer vacation days are running out.

Wish me luck.

Be safe out there (and I'll be safe at home).

PLOG 60: Lego Bookshop 10270 Review

My PLOG continues during this time of pandemic and protests...

Today I want to share my building experience putting together Lego set 10270 the Creator series Bookshop (part of the modular series of buildings that come out once per year); this set came out at New Year's, but it took me a while to decide to pull the trigger and spend the money to order it. Since I got the set on backorder during the pandemic, you may notice that it has a white sticker with the piece count (2504 pieces) and such; I believe that means it was shipped from Europe to make up for the lack of production in North America.

Yesterday I spent many hours putting together this set. I found it to be a fun, simple build; it just takes a long time to put these buildings together. I also really liked the minifigs that came with the set. The back of the box shows how the set looks with the recent modular diner and gas station. I like the sunset on the box, though I hope it doesn't symbolize that "the sun is setting" on this series. I am hopeful to get plenty more modulars in the future.

As you can see below, someone from the Lego team has a dark sense of humor, putting the human head in the iguana terrarium. That's not how it's supposed to be. The iguana is really neat though, coming in a special color to match the bed.

These large sets have a lot of bags, but as usual, Lego numbers them into sets. There were about 2-3 bags of each number. When I build, I tend to open up the bags of the current number and dump them into a plastic shoe box container. I then sort out the larger pieces.

Below you will see a great, fun facial expression on the boy in the set. It's too bad they are still doing the yellow skin tones. I wish all sets were actual flesh colors. I do love the banana shirt with the plaid vest. The scarf is a nice touch too, but always makes me wonder why they blur the Lego reality with some accessories like that being 3d add-ons and others just being printed onto the pattern of the torso.

The "Moby Brick" book is a lot of fun. Nice brick humor.

I like this lady's hair and that the set also has the cool bluebird to sit in the tree.

In the following picture, you can see my plastic shoe box setup with how I build.

The "elderly couple" in the set are cute together. Clearly the woman colors her hair. LOL. As usual, I wish their torsos didn't have the yellow print at the top for their open collars; that makes it just about impossible for me to use the torsos with my flesh-colored Lego heads and hands.

In general, I like the buildings for this set. I'm not a fan of the actual birch tree though. It looks like something from the Lego Elves series. The bright yellow and orange leaves are just too bright in my opinion and clash with the realistic look of the street. You may also notice that it's strange that the blue window frames on the house are not the same color as the building; that's odd.

The backs of the buildings look mostly fine, but I would not have chosen green as a color to go with the bookshop. In fact, on the inside of that building I wondered if the designers were making a statement that the type of person who would own a bookshop must not be good at decorating or picking colors that went together; the green carpet on the stairs and such are just hideous and not something you would see in someone's home or place of business.

The modular series has been going on for over a decade and there are certain consistent elements that this set blatantly defies. Instead of each floor being a 1-piece removable element, they made it more like a dollhouse facade building with halves coming apart. It's weird. It's different. But I'm okay with it. It just goes to show that they are emphasizing more childlike play features, like with the bright colors, instead of just marketing the set for adult collectors like before.

Other than the ugly birch tree, my biggest complaint is that the designers left ugly sides viewable on the teal-turquoise blue building. That's more like an amateur MOC build than a professional Lego set. I expect the actual Lego sets to do a better job of hiding those elements. The huge black and grey elements really stand out, as do the off-color green pieces.

The people are great, if you want yellow-flesh Lego minifigs.

For my overall review:

THE GOOD: 

*It's great to have a split modular set like the Pet Shop.

*Nice minifigs and accessories.

*Nice animals with the bluebird and iguana.

*Interesting, detailed interiors for the buildings.

THE BAD:

*The birch tree.

*The weird off-color green pieces for what obviously should have been the teal-turquoise color but Lego didn't have them available at the time.

*The messy look of the sides of the home building.

*The home won't be an easy set to add floors to if people buy multiple copies of the set (and that's an expectation with these modular buildings).

*The home is too short for the modular series and has no bathrooms or kitchens.

*The bookshop has ugly color combinations and decorations inside.

How likely am I to recommend it? HIGHLY. Whether you collect the modular building series or not, this is a fun set. It is expensive, but it's one of those sets that I would regret not having bought if I passed on it.

That's it for today. Be safe out there (and I'll be safe at home)!

PLOG 59: 140,000

My PLOG continues during this time of pandemic and protests...

Well, it's after midnight so I turned the news back on and I was saddened to realize that today we will pass the 140,000 total death count for the US. It's a horrible day.

I saw some more bad news for Texas. In addition to what CNN is reporting with the record number of infections, deaths, and hospitalizations (seen below) - schools have been allowed to push back the school start date for students; despite the change from TEA, many school districts are still insisting teachers report to work around August 3 to August 6.

 I'm clinging to hope for some kind of intervention to save the kiddos and the staff; parents have been given the choice to either send their kids in person or have online school. I hope they all pick online school. It's not just unsafe, it's less safe than it was in the past when we shut down. Going back now will certainly mean death for some people. Those will be preventable deaths.

Apparently the Portland officials are allowing law enforcement officers (of some kind) in unmarked vans to take away protesters for questioning and/or arrest. In the US, this is certainly shocking. The speculation online is that these officials who are not identifying their agency are actually private security and not actual police or military forces. But where are the protestors being taken and what is happening to them?

What's that next to the TV? Another box arrived in the mail. I've got some sorting to do.

Be safe out there (and I'll be safe at home)!

PLOG 58: Lego Avengers Tower Battle

My PLOG continues during this time of pandemic and protests...

I'll probably be back to discussing the news and politics tomorrow, but for today let's enjoy some more Lego sets! I had the Thanos Mech sitting around waiting to be built. My Avengers Tower Battle set arrived in the mail from the free 12 in 1 build set.

The free 12 in 1 set is nice and colorful, but I doubt I'll ever put it together. I'll either distribute the parts into my collection or eventually resell it. I'm just not excited about it like I am the sets I bought. Let's start with the Thanos Mech, since it will be simple and quick to build. I bought the set, like most people did I'm sure, for the Thanos minifig. The mech is nice too though...

Overall, I ended up liking the build more than I thought I would because, once it's put together, it can be fun to position the giant arms, hands, and fingers. The Thanos Mech uses transparent round 1x1 tiles to represent the Infinity Stones, instead of the little pieces from the previous sets. In face, some of those stone pieces are in the Avengers Tower Battle set (the blue and the purple ones).

My review:

THE GOOD:

*The Ironman figures, Black Widow, and Red Skull are great.

*The Avengers Tower can easily be added onto to fit into a modular city display.

*The stickers included a joke that Hawkeye was "on hold" since he isn't in the set.

*They provided 2 different TV screens: one for the news and one for the video game.

*They included the nice video game controller piece.

*There are a lot of play/exploding functions added into the tower building.

THE BAD:

*Who really wants generic AIM Agents?

*The sticker sheet for the tower is all transparent stickers, which means you have to be more careful not to get your fingerprints stained on them and to not mess up applying it with a blur effect.

*The story is weird because the AIM Agents are rescuing Red Skull.

I hope you enjoyed the review today and/or found it helpful.

That's it for today. Be safe out there (and I'll be safe at home)!

PLOG 57: Brick Me Up Scottie!

My PLOG continues during this time of pandemic and protests...

I've got the news on in the background while I have fun discussing Lego and off brand Lego products. Today I wanted to share out about mu positive experience with "Brick Me Up Scottie" via a successful online order.

https://www.brickmeupscottie.com

In case you don't know, "Brick Me Up Scottie" is a YouTube personality in Hong Kong with a store that sells off-brand Lego products. He provides reviews, tells stories, and is quite funny and entertaining with his presentation.

I decided to buy from his store to help support what he does and because I trusted him as an international seller; I have read stories online about some international sellers being scams and not providing the product. His wife helps with the business, so when I placed the order she emailed me with the total with shipping and everything and I sent my payment in. There was a shipping delay, out of their control, because the package was sent back to them the first time they shipped it out.

As an apology for the delay, Scottie gave me a personalized note with 2 free minifigures (who just happen to look like Lego versions of my parents) and a free keychain. Thank you Scottie! I give you bonus point for the branded box that they were shipped in.

What did I order? I went for 2 modular facade buildings from the company Enlighten: the "Sunshine Hotel" and "City Hall." Both products look like original creations from the company and not rip offs of Lego designs or MOCs that I have seen online. Both buildings came with a car and minifigures.

First, let's look at the Sunshine Hotel and the victory-mobile (and the strange gray brick separator that came with it); NOTE: this set was 18 studs wide, not 16 like I expected:

Here's the Enlighten City Hall (and the somewhat normal-looking dark blue brick separator they sent with the set); NOTE: this set was 22 studs wide:

Here's my combined review for the products:

The GOOD:

*I actually like the Enlighten brand instructions books more than Lego brand because they gray out the stuff you've already put together to make it obvious what the new pieces are going onto the set.

*There are some pieces Lego doesn't even make, like the royal woman' dress and the roses.

*They have nice-looking building facades that easily blend in with the Lego modular buildings; I could see me adding my own pieces to them and making them part of my modular city.

*I love the April O'Neil reference from TMNT that is the news reporter at City Hall!

*These sets take place in some sort of Steampunk reality, as seen with the wheels on the cars and the gears on the gold horse statue.

The BAD:

*Strangely the news reporter is the only figure with flesh-colored skin; the rest of them are all the traditional yellow flesh figures.

*The people don't look Steampunk enough for the theme going on here.

*The Sunshine Hotel's sign for "Today's Special" misspelled "Special" as "Speical."

*I was missing one piece from the City Hall set, but it was a plate so it wasn't a big deal (easily replaced with my Lego collection).

*Some of the white-colored bricks were off-color; some of the window glass was all scratched and dirty (like used Lego, instead of new)

*The worst thing of all was that my hands really hurt after putting these together; the pieces don't go together as smoothly/easily as Lego brand bricks. My fingers needed some lotion and a day to rest.

I hope you enjoyed today's post and that you are not furious over my inability to be a Lego brand purist; there's just too much great stuff out there and Lego isn't providing enough of what I want (modular buildings and sets easily converted to modular buildings). 

That's it for today. Be safe out there and I'll be safe at home!