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Just a brief update to let you in on what I have been up to. I have some of the main price guide pages laid out and starting to wire everything together to make those pages functional. I am using a new design so it takes time to lay it out and make sense. I am not trying for total perfection since I am trying to get the site out to every one as soon as possible and will push updates over time to add more and fix things. Next up will be the Brickfolio so that I can get the site active for you all to have access to your data again. Today I am actually working on updating the Amazon code. I received call from Amazon on Friday asking me to please upgrade and convert my code to their new API. I really appreciate that they did that. I have known about it and they sent quite a few emails, but the fact that they reached out was very cool. I need to get this done or they will shut down any of the code that helps the daily deals feed (whether you love or hate it).

Steering this back to what I tried before.... I was able to secure about 4000 masks from a fulfillment vendor to donate to a local hospital chain. That will give them about an additional 1-2 days of supply. Not a lot but every day matters until we can get our production levels increased. Considering we are all experts in arbitrage/unusual sourcing methods anyone else got any sources?

I don't know about Ed's opinion, but perhaps this thread would be more productive and conducive if we reverted away from the political attacks and discussion and talked about how we (realistically) as both an online community and members of our respective physical communities, could come together and help the people who's lives have already been disrupted by this. for example one of my favorite charities to contribute to (and by far the most productive with a $ I've seen) is www.ripmedicaldebt.org With thousands of people facing unexpected medical bills due to this situation perhaps this might interest some of you to contribute. Any other helpful thoughts on how to face this as a unified nation/community?

Billed as an epic battle between good and evil...Unsurprisingly ended in a 0-0 tie:)

Staples.com coupon 30231 gives $15 off $60. An 8-pack Duck HP260 tape is $19.37 Business Price (from $24.99). Also BOGO30% on HP Ink.

I’m going to put aside that you’re breaking my rule about calling politicians names for a moment If you are going to comment on how the political system works in the United States, then you really need to educate yourself on it, or otherwise stop posting. You clearly do not understand why what you are saying we need to do does not work like that here.

easter promos are live on shop-at-home

6F53F775-C39C-4198-81F5-DF7ECEE0C79F.MP4

Built Republic Attack Cruiser 8039 out of a bulk lot I bought recently. Not sure if I like building out of bulk, it’s a lot of work but, it’s rewarding when done. I’m sure if I did the math it pays less than my reseller job but, it’s a great way to kill time.

I take no offense. I am a fan of the United States of America. Whether it is Trump or Obama or Bush or Clinton, the president of the USA has a tough job and I will try to support them. I don't always agree with prior presidents or Trump's policies, but Trump needs some support right now. He is trying to be positive. How can I fault him for that? Blaming him for testing and other government shortfalls is a waste of time. He is a tool at times, but the media relentlessly attacks him and tries to make him look bad. Obama handled some issues wrong and the media left it alone. Difference is, he had a charm and swagger that gave people confidence. Trump is all over the place at times and rambles on, but one cannot argue the economy wasn't humming before this happened. Nobody saw this coming. Even NY Governor Cuomo turned down the chance in 2016 to buy thousands of ventilators. I am not blaming him for that. This thread will not turn into a political one. We all have enough issues to deal with and people need to just get along and support one another.

The art of greebling by Ralf Langer

Did they cut the ability to preorder the 3 SW helmet busts right when this wen live?... how irritating lol I swear you could still preorder them as of Friday, and I checked last night when the Easter goodies went live and they cannot be preordered anymore. Would've been a solid preorder + double VIP

I would SO love to eat crow on this. I can't tell you how much I would like to be wrong. And I suppose we will see. But, If the big cities go into hard core "stay at home mode" and very few die, then will it have been a " laughably overhyped, overblown and panic inducing shitshow" or just the right solution?

The impeachment caused me to ignore the mainstream media. There was only so much political circus one could take in an election year

Started the BIG hogwarts castle with the family during lockdown this weekend.

This was a fun one. I'm always amazed by the building techniques that are in use today. Some rubber pads on the bottom of the rotating base would be nice as it sometimes spins around with the car on a smooth surface.

The Great Fishing Boat March 2020

I wanted to create a new thread in order to give progress on my site updates. I want explain a bit on what happened and what I am doing. What happened with the site? Honestly nothing really exciting or dramatic, overall in the end, I did not want to support the host I was with for the past four years after not really offering too much help with managed servers. They would spend 30 seconds looking, say they can ping the server so its up and then just say, "hey not my problem". I was on aging hardware, paying the same amount of money, so I took the opportunity to move to a new host with better/faster hardware and a staff that does help to support you when run into an issue that you can't handle on your own. I have been doing this a long time and pretty good monitoring and handling 99% of what comes my way, but there are issues that you need the next level up to help figure out what to do. I wasn't getting anything like that, but paying for it. Not anymore. What my goal is... I know more than anyone that the site needed some TLC. It's been a while since I have done any drastic updates, the site looked tired and I know the site can be so much better than what it's current state was. LEGO investing has changed since Ed and I launched the site and it's time to remove the dead content and bring more of what people are looking for. Below is the short term list of items planned for updating. I have been working on the nightly, just like the early days and enjoying seeing parts of it coming to life. Fix the login. This has been messed up and quirky for a while. This has been resolved and working well. It's a simple thing overall, but nice that it actually works how it's supposed to Overall price guide site design update. The site was tired and disjointed. I hated it and pained me to look at it. Time to start over. Brickfolio update. All the Brickfolio data is safe. I have close to three million rows of data for Brickfolio entries. Time to bring this thing to 2020. I will probably create another thread at some point to solicit some feedback on some new requests for the brickfolio Fix the data syncing with Brickset. A lot of people used this feature, but it's time to make it work the way it should. Later I will work on the content portions. The news and blogs. I have some good ideas for this, but want to get the price guide and brickfolio to you sooner than later. What I am asking for if possible... If you can, please stop asking where the brickfolio is. Again, the data is safe and I am working as fast as I can to bring it all back to you. It won't be a few days, but more like a few weeks, but it will be worth it. I setup my dev environment to push releases quick and easy. I want to create a true changelog so that you can follow updates to see what was done/fixed/new/removed, you know like what real software companies do. I really do appreciate your patience with this. It wasn't planned, but if there was going to be a time to do it, it was going to be now.

If Clinton, George W., and Obama could all run again, Trump and Biden would still be the oldest two in the race.

Yes, he is not eloquent for sure. I guess we are screwed as a nation because Joe Biden can't put a sentence together either, so our choice in November will be two mumbling and bumbling old men. Maybe we need to elect presidents in the 50s and early 60s. All the news media is biased one way or another. You just have to assume the truth is somewhere between FOX and CNN/MSNBC.

Oh great...a whole series about social inequality. As if being clubbed over the head with that topic for a couple hours wasn't enough.

eBay.com 5% bucks for the selected. And I should have waited 2 hours before ordering

A genius waiting for his great meal! by Rokan Cheung

Mario Kart 64 Skyline by BenBuildsLego

"...we received our first bit of major Mandalorian news in months: Rosario Dawson is set to play the live-action version of Ahsoka Tano..." https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/mandalorian-season-two-season-two-172200947.html

I really have no idea, but the whole factory thing seems a little conspiracy theory'ish. I also have no idea about the video above, but I have no doubt that people in China will avoid being out in large numbers for quite a while.

and Corrinas (no no, she is named after that song, not the virus)

On the other hand, this would also show China as benevolent benefactor who helps its worst enemy in a time of needs. China has better writers than Hollywood. Pretty sure they can spin this situation to their benefit

Time for Jamaica or one of those Micronesia countries to sweep all of those 2020 Olympics medals

Please stop posting, you give me a headache.

I can not help myself but it seems like US gov stil "does not get it".. ! .. with your population, general healtcare dispositions, a total TROLL as a head of the state.. .. you are all freaked out of Italy scenario but that is where you are heading if your gov does not take truly drastic measures, such as: a) total federal quarantine b) only medicine and groceries purchases allowed (+ preferably only by a SINGLE dedicated family member) c) postal offices and tank stations operational d) totally STRICT penalties for anyone who does not wear some mouth/nose protection in the public e) .. since you have such a large population perhaps even a curfew such as after 9 pm NO PUBLIC apperance whatsover we took most of these precautions and our average daily exposure rate after cca 22 days is only in general around 5 % percent (1000 positive in 22 days} with an outlook to release the strict rules in about 10-14 days.

Not all some where ready...

I don’t buy the argument that impeachment caused us to not pay attention to the virus. If that were true we’d be one of the few nations left unprepared. Each country was blindsided by this pandemic. I’m not sure anyone is wholly to blame for the virus, however, the panic may have something more to do with a political strategy of sowing distrust in government and the media so people no longer trust information as credible in a vital and critically important time.

I did not mean to insult you personally - but in general .. well the "spoiled Germans" .. more or less what you said.

I understood your post. As someone with a Master’s degree in medical biology, I’d like to think that I am not ignorant. And, I am very proud to call myself a New Yorker. Judging from your grammar, I doubt that your’s meets my credentials. You are judging my eligibility for relief based on my mortgage. You assume that I am making six figures I suppose. I can assure you that I am not. And no, I am not making money from LEGO, because I am not actively selling my collection. You know what they say about people who make ASSumptions don’t you?? Getting back to the New Yorker jab, we will recover from this as we have from any other disaster, so I shrug off your incendiary remarks.

Hey guys, if you need an alternative to Amazon FBA we can probably help you out during these months. Feel free to DM privately.

China's factories are ramping back up...Notice the increase the last week.

Success of South Korea was a lot of testing. I see here in LAS many ppl not take precautions and still going for a hikes with kids and fam members, strip closed but many ppl around in shops...

Just a heads up in France and Italy Amazon is now only taking FBA orders for essential items (baby, health, beauty, groceries, industrial, pet). Buyers can still purchase items in other categories from 3P not using FBA. It may be wise to plan ahead if this is also rolled out for the USA over the next few weeks and you have alot of Lego or other items not in essential categories in FBA. We are selling 99% FBA in the essential categories in the USA and open orders are through the roof so the USA fulfillment network is obviously already under quite a bit of strain.

Some news from the Netherlands. Most people are getting pretty scared here, but many are also not taking it too seriously. My family mostly stays indoors and keeps distance from people, except my sister and her husband who are both working at a hospital in the big city. We had a zoom call with the whole family today and what they told us is pretty scary. In the Netherlands we will likely within 2 weeks have a huge spike in Intensive Care (IC) cases that will overflow the system. This has many side effects that are the reason the situation is so dire: - Mortalility rate of severe cases is really high and they are on IC for 2-4 weeks. This is much longer than people are usually in IC - Other people that need IC will not be able to when it is full. -Many people will be able not receive necessary treatment which on a population scale will lead to additional deaths - Life extension treatments for older people and people with terminal illnesses are already shutting down. This whole crisis reminds me of something I saw happening at a beach in Portugal years back. On this beach there is a pier that extends into the sea with a beach next to it. I could stand on top of this pier and see most of the beach from top-down. The tide was coming in, but people were still sitting very close to the water and did not move away. Some people, mostly mothers, were already moving their blankets and stuff further down the beach, but others remained at their spot. (this was not a busy beach, so easy to get a new spot). The water was getting closer and closer, but people did not budge. You could see people getting slightly wet that still kept lying at their spot, until suddenly, a big wave came in and all the people close to the water got drenched and had to scrape to save their stuff. This happened every day (I was planning my beach walks around specific times for this. Does this make me a bad person? ) This showed to me that even things that are super easy to predict, the tide for example :), are still hard to grasp for many people. In short, we're going to learn a hard lesson here and hopefully be more like the people that prepare before it happens. Stay safe all! Build some sets (I build palace cinema yesterday) and see you on the other end! We all knew this could happen some day, so let's hope we can get through it in an okay shape. Avoid direct contact with the elderly and distance from people in general. SHARING IS NOT CARING

I miss Lego discussions

Started this last night and finished this evening. Very nice set. Hardly any studs showing. It's almost like they left a few studs to say its still Lego. Didn't have a problem fitting the guy in mine however.

This came on the radio while I was in the shower this morning and I damn near destroyed the place 'enjoying' one of my favorite childhood bands.

Sonic Mania - Green Hill Zone March 2020

Tour 2025 by Ralf Langer

I received my ISS + Hidden Side Drag Racer and patch from LEGO Shop at Home. I was shocked to find it on my front step wide open. All the contents were inside and in excellent shape. Upon further inspection, the box was not properly taped shut. IT seems the only thing that kept the contents was the three air pillows. I don't know if I should be thankful or ticked. How hard is it to tape a box shut?! *sigh*