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A Summer In Tuscany by Pau Padrós, en Flickr Hey guys, just in case you're interested, this is a little modular MOC I finished a couple weeks ago. There's a whole album about it on Flickr. About its design, there's not much to say. Assembly Square's setup (48x32), only tuned up for a Tuscan/Emilia Romagnan little square (Firenze, Lucca, Piasenza, Modena, Ravenna etc.). I do think it's nice, hope you like it! It's actually the second modular I do that features yellow prominently, but here I believe it's used in a more balanced manner. Besides, I've tried to capture some of the summery details that are often hard to convey in Lego, for instance, the tree peeking behind the garden wall or a huge load of wisteria running up the side of the yellow building!? A link to all the photographs: https://www.flickr.com/photos/138575523@N07/

It was a good day for me for CL finds yesterday: 41037 Stephanie’s Beach House, NISB, $25 10211 Grand Emporium, Used, $100, Complete, no instructions. I was planning to sell this one but decided to keep it because I am impressed with this set. It is my first modular set and I really like the window washer, the skylight, the sign on top of the building and the chandelier! Since I am planning to build a city scene it will be an excellent start…

Right. The OT borrowed a lot from other films and stories. But Lucas turned it into something new. And there was some stupid stuff even in Empire (the mynock cave). TLJ was just so bad. I would've even forgave the lame characterization of Luke Skywalker if the rest of the movie was great. Yes, the throne room scene was well done and I was even ok with killing off Snook (though it was handled poorly). But the rest of the film was just bad. The lame jokes, Luke tossing his lightsaber after the build-up in TFA, Canto Bight, twitch faced Benicio Del Toro (nobody even talks about him since his character was so irrelevant), Rose Tico, purple haired chick, Leia doing nothing after turning into Mary Poppins, Poe's regression as a character, Finn's complete waste as character (a step back from TFA), Rey being a nobody and acting like a nobody with force powers, recycled Hoth battle, slow motion space chase, running out of fuel (shouldn't be relied on as plot crutch in a Star Wars movie), BB8 driving an AT thing, Phasma showing up again and doing nothing again, Just for Men Phantom Luke handing off the gold dice to Leia (if he's basically a hologram that cannot be hit by a laser then how can he physically touch or hold something??? Is the Star Wars Universe one giant hologram then? Interesting to think about)..... and on. With all that said, I did like the cinematography.

I would have been less disappointed if “Rogue One” wouldn’t have been so good.

Mathew is dead on. Why does this movie kids suck? 1) the entire Crank Yankers opening scene. 2) Flying Supergirl Leia aka Mary Poppins. She couldn’t even rescue Ackbar. 3) Ackbar deserved a better death. Heck, even cartoon Kanan died with more honor and sacrifice. 4) RJ and KK must have never watched an OT SW movie because they didn’t know how Luke should behave in this film. That wasn’t Luke. 5) the entire Maz cameo was an utter embarrassment. She was in the middle of a video game-like fight but found time to FaceTime. The she flies off using a jet pack . Give me a break 6) the entire Luke Hologram plot was dumb. This movie was so close to being perfect. That is what gets me. So close but they confused Star Wars with Space Balls and Battlestar Galactica.

Just be like me and pretend this movie doesn’t exist. The Last Jedi reminded me of sand. I hate sand.

do not forget to block the buyer

did this happen this afternoon in your neck of the woods ?

Everything but the base / stand done. Pretty cool set

And refund the $2.

I think opinions on here are very often clearly skewed based on personal situation. I have amassed about £1200 (current retail) worth of sets for medium term keep including F40, S5, DB, YS, etc. This has taken four months. They stand me in absolutely nothing - essentially free - because of sets like 70917. These sort of flips are perfect for me. Mine has sold at £85 cash, with a two minute local ad being the only work involved. The same margin with other ‘turkeys’ like police stations, ski lifts, bb8’s, heavy assault walkers, etc. If anybody can make £15 easier for a few minutes work then I take my hat off to you. I appreciate everybody has different agendas and there are different types of investing going on. Whilst I read the comments of others with interest and value opinions of those with far greater experience than me, for here and now my personal plan / hobby continues to work without stress, in my own time, and in a way I am more than happy with.

Someone just submitted an offer, while also mentioning that they are a single parent - Apparently, there must be some single parent discount that I didn't know about.

Since societal norms are changing drastically by the week, they need to stay flexible to avoid offending any unknown entities, while also being ready to show their full support for whatever the latest agenda might happen to be.

If that's true what Trevorrow is saying then it's pretty damning to Disney. When you watch the early press release stuff with Mark Hamill, it's clear he was un-happy with what they did with Luke in TLJ. He's done a 180 on things most likely because Disney is scrambling to write him back into the final film. To tie things together I think that's why he's being featured heavily in the home release marketing. He's the main reason people were excited about TLJ and it was a complete failure to treat his character with so little respect. Disney had one thing to do right with TLJ and that was to give fans a fitting send off for Luke Skywalker. Disney effed up so bad that not only did they not give fans the Luke Skywalker movie that they wanted but they totally neglected the new characters that we're supposed to care about. Except for Rose Tico. She was a failure on so many levels. TLJ bombed hard in China because Disney cynically thought just by including an "Asian" character in the movie that it would equal box office receipts. Heads should be rolling but since the film made just enough money worldwide it will take Solo bombing to see Kennedy fired. Looking forward to that.

I think 76060 is on the gradual road to recovery.

Or just use a sticky note

The Luke presented on the Bluray cover is the one fans were hoping for. The doppleganger we get at the end of the movie isn't really Luke Skywalker. Mark Hamill looks more like an old Billy Mays than Luke. The point is that the cover is misleading because THAT Luke never wielded a lightsaber. He tosses it over his shoulder. Luke's character in the film would've been more interesting if they wrote him as an older version of Qui-Gon Jinn than the crusty, broken down old man we got.

If you offer the refund through the return and they accept and it will auto close the return.

Refunding $2 is cheaper than shipping the fig back. Easy choice for me

My suggestion would be not to mark the bags...

It’s no longer the Milano. It’s now the Melania

Was at the mall last night and walked into a Disney Store. I was bewildered when I saw two Star Was Millennium Falcon 75105 just sitting on the shelf with a sticker price of priced at $106.99 At the register, I asked if there was any more available and the cashier said, they have more how many do I need. Did I want to take all of them.... I said I'll take as many as I can afford, but if you have 50 + units, I can't afford that many I asked them if they can check their stock first. Cashier comes back and she was told that 4 more were available. I told the nice cashier OK, I will take all 4 plus the 2 units on the counter. When I was getting rung up. The 4 sets in the back were not 75105 as they claimed, but were First Order Star Destroyer 75190 for $169.95. LOL. Item was scanned and it was marked $106.99 each. So I walked out with the 2x 75105 @ 106.xx + a Buzz Lightyear 12" Talking Action Figure @ $20 plus had to buy an reusable ECO bag for 50 cents.

Found a second hand kids store. Felt like I was going back in time.

Woke up early today and went to an estate sale. A bit more then I wanted to pay for the lot $140 but if everything is there I will do fine.

My listings all mention my acceptance of Single Parent allowances, Veteran discount, Handicapped parking, WIC cards/Social Security discounts as well as Medicare plan B. Yours don't?!?

Wife needed a new vacuum cleaner .... so I got her the top model Kenwood Elite model, on sale from $600 for $410, plus $35 off $300 coupon, plus 5.5% discounted Giftcards .... plus $85 back in points thanks to a few promos that applied. Which meant I got to buy myself a 70618 Destiny's Bounty for $55 after using those points, a $15 off $70 coupon, another 5.3% off GC and a bit of points I saved up over the last few days ..... 66% off. For personal build (but that means I now have 2 70618's for resale from the $79 WM clearance ...)

Went to visit some friends in New Orleans, couldn't resist checking out some local secondhand/thrift stores...

Are you a chauffeur?

Look at how much effort the intern put into the trade fair display.

It's official ! Nexo Knights is FINISHED ! https://brickset.com/article/33959/the-end-of-nexo-knights Winter 2018 sets are the last Nexo sets. There won't be any follow up sets. No Summer 2018 sets anymore.

Amazon hasn’t helped certainly, but it’s PE all the way down for TRU. And they’re not the only ones. https://wolfstreet.com/2018/01/22/the-private-equity-firms-at-the-core-of-brick-mortar-retail-bankruptcies/ Toys ‘R’ Us shows how this was done: PE firms KKR, Vornado Realty Trust, and Bain Capital Partners acquired the publicly traded shares of Toys ‘R’ Us in an LBO in 2005. In 2004, Toys R Us had $2.2 billion in cash and short-term investments. By Q1 2017, this had collapsed to just $301 million. Over the same period, long-term debt surged from $2.3 billion to $5.2 billion. In other words, “cash minus debt” was -$112 million in 2004. By 2017, it had ballooned to -$4.9 billion. While the PE firms were busy extracting cash, the company, cash-strapped and focused on cost-cutting, failed to create an online presence that could compete with Amazon and others, didn’t successfully make the transition to electronic devices, video games, and apps, and let its physical stores deteriorate. It should have spent the last decade investing heavily in its future. Instead, it was forced to borrow large amounts of money just to enrich its PE-firm owners.

I could totally imagine a medieval monster hunter type theme. Old school Castlevania atmosphere, paladins, dark knights, powerful wizards, clerics and adventurers hunting vampires, werewolves, gorgons and other beasts. One thing was sure for LEGO in recent years: people dig monsters, and a theme like this could be more relatable to people than nexotrash.

A vanilla Castle theme was tried a couple years ago and met with nigh moderate approval altogether. I would imagine something about the concept and general feel behind Nexo Knights and Ninjago have been received well enough to continue forward. Genre mixing has and continues being popular in all forms. Why be stuck under the confines of a strict rule set (aka reality) when a realm of unlimited potential can be born from one's imaginative mind's eye. If anything that is the LEGO Company's core concept and perhaps what attributes to such themes ongoing popularity. Also the level of technology helps these themes to be more relatable with the targeted audience of the present day world.

The only thing blocking a normal castle theme, or space theme for that matter, is Lego.

This same mindset has taken over my other hobby (Pinball). The market has been FLOODED by waves of new money in the last ten years who only buy new games (which people rarely did before) with the mindset that "they don't lose their value" or "they appreciate!" because there were some key examples where titles that were underproduced or overlooked... started selling for 2-3x their original prices (sound familiar at all????). Now understand, this is a hobby where the price of entry for this speculation was 4000-8000 dollars (and still climbing.. thanks to this flood of buyers). It's the same thing here... people saw the past examples (that happened out of purity in the market) and tried to get in on the game speculating. It's unsustainable. The model worked because previously those sets/games were difficult to find in that condition... but when you have armies of people buying up inventory and sitting on it. That intersection of demand and lack of supply no longer exists. When it gets to levels like we have now... all you are doing is moving the market from the primary retail market to the secondary market. In pinball, it meant producers realized they could keep raising prices... because speculators had no price tolerance. The "gotta buy it now before it's NLA" attitude also made buyers desperate and again.. prices went up. Now the average selling price of new games is through the roof and the second hand market is completely skewed by people who believe "my games values don't go down" even when used. Listen, I totally appreiciate the idea that these toys have residual value and we can all find some comfort in the idea we can sell them on when we are done with them... but that should be about RECOVERY... not the idea "I'll play with it for a week, then sell it for a profit and repeat". That's an ideal that depends on timing and market conditions. Those market conditions are going to go away.