Auctioneer Haul

Another great day as I went to the bi-weekly open auction near my home...

... and there was one lot I had my eyes on.

A set of two boxes, one containing all kinds of stuff, and one containing mostly Lego bricks.

In the end, I took home both of them, including fees paying 21 euro.  Inspection and sorting revealed no less then 13 ThunderCats action figures, 2 Turtles and a vehicle, a Micromaster, some other toys, and an ice cream box full of actual Lego bricks.

This was another great find...

Oh, and I bought the painting at the beginning for my man-cave as well, for no other reason then that I just liked it...

Inspirational Lego 13

Welcome to another episode of all those cool Lego builds you can find out there, and this week, it`s a bit of everything.

One of the weeks, I`ll probably be doing another special on this or that, but for now, let`s just get on with it.

We`re starting off with this totally awesome Ford Mustang.  It`s a real dream car of mine, and the build is just as great as the real machine if you ask me.

Vikings are some of the oldest whalers in the world, but sometimes, some unexpected things happened while chopping down their catch...

Minas Tirith is one of the missing settings unfortunatly for the Lego Lord of the Rings line, which really could have used one extra wave to tie up some knots.  But this microscale build is pretty impressive!

This one is great fun, the invention of the wheel, academy wise...

... and then in the future, some academists uncovered the proof dragons did exist!

Talking microscales, this small village overlooked by it`s lords castle is pretty well done as well

Not to mention these lovely little winterscenes.

Microscale is a well known technique, as we can see here with the Sulaco during the filming of Aliens by James Cameron.

A bit bigger to end this weeks tour with, how about these little Elves to celebrate the launch of the new line?

That`s it for this time, see you back in TWO weeks, as the next week, I`ll be lying on my lame assed buttocks in the south of France

Cross Ange - review

The first anime series I`ve finished from the `winter season`, Cross Ange is something with a bit of a special twist.

In that it focusses on mecha`s, dragons and... lesbian love triangles!

Okay, that definitly is an odd mix.  Heck, even the first two was already something different.  In a world where all humans can use magic, and the few non-able, all female ones are send in isolation, a secret is harboured.

These girls, called `Norma`, are the only line of defence against a war with Dragons.

The series is lighthearted, full of humour as fallen princess Angelise, revealed to be a Norma on her 16th birthday, has to find her way between the other girls and women of Arzenal and what her new life is all about. 

And it has a LOT of fan service (which, in case of Rosalie, I don`t mind hehe).

And then everything changes as mysterious para-mail mechas like the titular suit, the Vilkiss, appear, and Ange is thrown into an alternate earth.  Here she learns the truth about multiple realities and how it is all manipulated by someone called Embryo.

The series, while retaining it`s scantily clad leads, turns to a darker tale from here onwards, as the Norma and the Dragon people have to bind together to defeat the evil manipulations of Embryo and try to free Aura, the ancient Dragon mother and source of mana in the world.

It`s not a bad series per se, and the premises of Mecha vs Dragon was pretty cool, I actually enjoyed the first part of the series, with it`s humour, girly squabbling and such more then when in later stages it tried to be more serious.

It won`t be remembered as a genre classic, it`ll be scorned for it`s many, many fan service moments... and it is just plain entertainment, 25 episodes of not to serious, average story anime, good for a sit back and relax...

This week`s Haul

A few great items have been added to the collections this weekend, as the mailman came in, but also that most enjoyable of flea market like events... the kid that cleans out his room.

Yeah yeah, the little kid that transfers to the big kid as he lost intrest... it`s the world upside down.

The first item that fell in my mailbox was this near mint condition G1 Targetmaster, Sureshot.  Having costed me 35.00 euros, I`m still in doubt wether to keep or trade him tbh...

Digging firther at Vincents, where I got the small StarCom vessels I showed friday, brought up this little thingie for trades: the Mudfighter GI joe plane, with all it`s missiles (but no pilot though).  This should be exchangable at some fair left or right.

Now, it`s time for a sad moment.  Harry`s Boekenbak, a nearby used bookstore I visited for well over 2 decennia, is closing in two days time as he is going to enjoy his well earned retirement.

I went there with the smurf saturday, to see if there was anything to be found still.  He found 4 strip albums of `Samson en Gert`, while I managed to pick up 6 books still, the 13th warrior is in Dutch but the other ones are in english.  The final 10 euro note was then given to Harry, take care!

So of to the clean out.  The smurf gave me this polybag, as he had 2 copies of it.  I gave him a Harry Potter card game for his `sports obsession` he is currently going through, and which I had found at the local used items store past wednesday.

And this odd fella, he had received it from a clean out from my aunt, lost intrest, put it away, and now wants to dump it.  It`ll end on some flea market table in june in all probability...

Ironically, he is more of a purist then me.  he wanted to toss away this fake KO Lego, I saved it`s fate, some small parts in it (the flame, the hat, the map) are useable in a moc somewhere...

He also had this Bionicle figure still lying in a corner somewhere.  I took it apart for the parts, handing him back the connector rods as they are used as wizard wands in other lines, and kept the specific Bionicle parts, they will come in handy sometime somewhere.

Finally, he got another series 12 polybag, but already had this wizard fella.  So we exchanged them, and he`ll be getting the Swashbuckler instead for his collection then.

A bit of everything, and a decent way to start closing ` stock up round 1` for March.  One more trip to undertake on tuesday, but after that, I`ll be trading around some items hopefully for things I can use myself...

F1 2015 GP of Malaysia

FORZA FERRARI!!!!


And all the rest is, as they say, history.

The squadra is back on the highest placing, so put a german in the car and the results follow.  The Ferrari team did show good pace in the pre-season tests, they where best of the rest in the opener though at more then 30 seconds...

And then Mercedes showed it`s first crack this weekend.  Some attributed it to the rain, but Vettel had qualified in between Hamilton, on pole, and Rosberg on 3rd.  While his team mate Raikonnen was stuck in 11th.

But then it was race day, and Vettel not only managed to keep his second place during the start, he kept the pace of Hamilton.

When Ericsson slid his car off track in round 5, the safety car was deployed and Ferrari opted, on the contrary to Mercedes, not to pit, putting Vettel in the lead.

Something he only lost again after pitting... but then the red car was actually a lot faster then the silver arrows, first overtaking Rosberg and then going by Hamilton again, and he would drive on straight to the lead.

And Raikonnen?  He got a puncture just past the pit entrance in lap 2 so he needed to limp all the way back to the pits, got a fresh tyre set... and steamed on to 4th.  Ferrari really have done their homework it seems, taking the place of Williams from last year as the number one challenger for Mercedes.

Further down, Verstappen finished 7th, and as such became (and due to the new rules, forever will be) the youngest point scorer in Formula 1, coming in in front of his team mate Sainz after a duel of both `sons off` with their mother team... which they beat fair and square.  Points where Lotus by not their doing is falling by so far this season, as Crashdonado had to retire again, and points where McLaren, even with the returned Alonso, can only dream for by far.  Or hope for a good Monaco GP like Marussia last year...

And in the back, on spot 15, the one Manor that got to the grid, steamed in, only 3 laps down for Merhi...

The result:

1. Vettel - Ferrari
2. Hamilton - Mercedes
3. Rosberg - Mercedes

4. Raikonnen - Ferrari
5. Bottas - Williams Mercedes
6. Massa - Williams Mercedes
7. Verstappen - Toro Rosso Renault
8. Sainz - Toro Rosso Renault
9. Kvyat - Red Bull Renault
10. Ricciardo - Red Bull Renault

11. Grosjean - Lotus Mercedes
12. Nasr - Sauber Ferrari
13. Perez - Force India Mercedes
14. Hulkenberg - Force India Mercedes
15. Merhi - Manor Ferrari

Driver of the Race

I`m in a doubt here, because on the one hand there is Vettel bringing victory back to Ferrari, but on the other you have Raikonnen who started 11th, dropped to 18th with the puncture at over half a lap, and returned to come in 4th... so without that, it could even had been a 1-2...

So I`m not making a choice here, and elect them both, as well as thus getting the Team of the Race in one go... with this cool future concept of an F1 car they proposed...

Shadow Play

Time to come out of a short Lego hiatus as I was doing a gazillion other things that needed to be done, and start MOC`cing again.

Over on Eurobricks in our Guilds of Historica book 2, we are now in the Civil War section for Kaliphim, the desert lands in the south.  And they tackled it in a nifty and cool way, by using a sort of interactive map like in the days of Warhammer global campaigns and such.

Except of course that instead of fighting battles, you create Lego builds.  It`s a logical system, just a bit hard to explain in short...

So it is time for me to jump on the bandwagon, and send in my first build for supporting the side I choose, the Desert King.   This is basically a pharaoh that tries to regain power, so we have access to mummies and mummies are cool, period.  The other factions are the High Council, which is basically the current ruling caste, and their challengers, the Ulandus.

My entry is for WarZone 7, the second battle of Queenscross, in which the Desert King and the High Council face off.  I went for one of the smaller tombs that will be lining the outside of the city walls, and which might lead under the defenses.  Who knows exactly what is down there, as some of them are ages old...

"Are you sure we have to be here? I mean, this is the umpteenth tomb we are checking, and almost every day now.  Surely, none of them will be leading under the wall by now, or we would have seen the enemy emerge by now." Riborko wailed.

The city guards had been saddled up with this boring and menial task.  Day in day out, night in night out, they had to check the small tombs littering the plains around the city.  The tactical commanders feared that some of them might still hold hidden passages, that could either lead into the city, or bring the enemy right before the gates without them ever having seen them coming, nor having time to respond...

And then their was that tale a traveller brought them, that the yellow skins of the Eternal Flame shrine might have allied themselves with the Desert King* in an effort to sack the city for unbeknownst reasons.

"Seriously Burtock, you can have a serious fit.  It is our job to do this patrol, and yes I know we won`t see any...thing... ALERT THE WATCH!"

That alcove had been closed during the previous round of checks.  Now, a foul odor emerged, as ranks of mummies started chuffling out.  The guardsmen prepared themselves, their torches should hold back the mummies in their dry rags, and they could make a slow retreat to alert the city watch and raise the alarm before the enemy was all over them.

The last thing they saw, was a flicker of movement near the ceiling...

So that is my first build for this challenge, as well as my like first one ever with a removable roof to have a better look inside, I hope you like it!

* This is a reference to the chinese shrine I build somewhere last year.

New StarCom models for the collection

Another trip to Vinnie, another set of vessels for the collection...

They both where already `under negotiation` the first time, but he parted with them in the end.  I`ll give him my CW Powerglide as a gift and a token of appreciation for these, so he will be one step closer to his completed Superion.

The F1400 Starwolf and it`s Shadow Empire counterpart, the Parasite, are the two mainstay one man fighters of the series.

The Starwolf folds up to cargo pod size, to be carried for example in the back of a StarMax or on top using his magnalock.  It then folds open the nose and wings using power deploy.

The Parasite can sit on the wings of a Shadowbat, while the power deploy opens it`s guns, extends it`s engines and folds open his wingtips.

They are just so awesome, and another big step towards the fully completed range!