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rantings & ravings (october 2021)these are opinions, the only ones that matter (to me, mine), on both various stuffs and various things. more_bob_with_robot_arms more bob! (with robot arms)sunday, october 31st (halloween; girl scouts founders day)
i was at a local bartell and found more bob (minion) with robot arms! btw, i've yet to see any movie with these minions guys in them. but, i've managed to amass some minions sets. such as...
the only set i don't have is 75546 (minions in gru's lab). i bought 75551 to get the bob minifigure in the bruce lee homage jumpsuit. (i did sent the pieces to build bob's brick built lair to my mom, she already had a copy of the set... it's my mom after all.); 75549 to give bob better eyes; 75550 to get kevin and stuart minifigures in their bruce lee homage jumpsuits; 75547 to get a better eye and head for stuart; 40511 to get a black woman minifigure. this is what i sometimes do. i'm ridiculous, i know. i mean, i did buy 10 looney tune cmf packs in the hopes of finding a much-coveted literal cheese slope, so, at least i know who i am... i guess? things_i_bought_online_49 things i bought online #49saturday, october 30th (devil's night) yup, joann was one of the last places where i could find lego looney tunes collectable minifigures (as we afol call them). i was after speedy gonzalez. but, for the printed cheese wedges (or cheese slopes... as we afol call them). it's a pretty amazing piece. not sure i'm playing the odds game correctly as a brand-new box of these gives you a 1:12 chance at any one character, maybe even 1:6 or 0:12 for a particular character if what i've read is true. but, i buy these in multiples of five... save for when i don't.
in all, i spent $55.01 usd. shipping was free. wheee! trick_or_yeet trick or yeet!friday, october 29th So, I had this thought randomly today... Ye needs to wear an ET mask and just lunge at stuff for Halloween... he'd be... YeET. things_i_bought_online_48 things i bought online #48thursday, october 28th i have no need or use, yet, for a glow-in-the-dark m4. but, you know, fomo? (i guess?) i needed some armor for the cops in my lego city. as i've previously stated, "[the] police force is experiencing the opposite of being defunded.[1]" the "funta" cans are for that new lego project. and, as previously stated, "i found need for the new monkeys.[1]" come on, it's an ak with a banana clip painted like a banana. so meta. or do i say, "so facebook" now?
after shipping, but no tax (hehehe), i spent $49.29 usd. doot!
ancient_french_ballistic_weaponry ancient french ballistic weaponrytuesday, october 26th (intersex awareness day)
lego_back_at_target lego (back) at target?tuesday, october 26th (intersex awareness day)
i missed the chance to get one of these as a gift with purchase earlier in the year. but, amazingly, randomly, the downtown seattle target had one! also, amazingly, randomly, there were other sets on the shelf that i had not seen on the shelf there in months.
when i would mention this lack of stock to people, i'd get the usual "blah blah blah supply chain" commentary. no? if this was a supply chain issue, then why do the other regional target stores have inventory? and despite the lack of product at this particular target, new sets would be seen here and there, just they, and others, would soon disappear. the target site would list far more skus as being in stock than there would be on the shelf. a sku or two with off counts, expected. but tens of them? and typically, on the site, when the count is low enough, you'll get a message stating something like "only 2 left". this message would only be seen on some of these skus. at this particular target, i had already seen people just up and steal shit. we're talking, blatantly grabbing something and literally walking out. though, often, they'd be intercepted by a loss prevention team member that would attempt to dissuade the unwanted behavior through the power of words! i would never advocate the straight beating of shoplifters as that punishment hardly fits the crime. just feels like target (and other downtown seattle businesses) have just given up. it's okay though, i can withstand spending more for what i buy to help fund free shit for people... until i won't. and then others won't too. then the stores will close. and then where will people get their free shit? the only thing that makes sense is someone stealing lego sets. okay, so, who is stealing lego sets... and... why? i was told about a shop in pike place market that sold lego sets for cheap, something about them being the cheapest around. uh-huh, sure they are. i go check it out for myself. sure enough, the prices are low. like, underselling walmart on a rollback sale low, low. it felt... odd but surely not criminal. a guy there, i assume the owner, flat said something to the effect, "i've got the lowest prices anywhere". later, i'm linked to this article [Mark Steven] Brady told The Post he didn't like how police spread out the Lego sets they seized from his store for a photo op, like they'd made a big drug bust of some kind of "monster." He also said police weren't discriminating in the sets they showcased. who is selling brand-new lego sets for less than retail cost? even at 20% off msrp, and the prices i saw were lower, that would mean, they were bought for even less than that in order to sell them for a profit. and how much profit would make it worthwhile, 10%? maybe 20%? perhaps 30%? Once there, Brady allegedly told the detective he'd buy the Star Wars Lego set, but he grabbed the spider wire — an anti-theft lock ensnaring the Lego box — and said he didn't like it. The undercover detective apologized, saying he'd just "boosted" it from the Amazon 4-Star, the report states. Brady said he could cut it off. the larger the set, the more space it occupies, space that could be taken by something else that could sell. so, how much do your margins need to be in order to make it make sense to sell these "big" lego sets? now, how realistically would someone be selling a brand-new lego set for that allows you to have said margin to make a profit? which ones are stolen? which ones did you pay even half msrp on? those ones that you paid more than half msrp on, those might not be stolen. (lego employees can buy sets from lego for half of what the rest of us can buy them from lego for, other retailers sometimes do something similar.) and if it still has the fucking anti-fucking-theft device on it, it's almost certainly stolen. (mistakes do happen, but who doesn't take the thing back to the store to have them remove the device once discovered?) cautionary tale for sourcing goods to sell. that, and, don't fuck with jeff bezos. he owns amazon (founder, executive chairman, and largest shareholder). he also owns the washington post (via a holding company).
lego_store_haul lego store haulsunday, october 24th (national tight ends day)
not that i feel the need to justify a gawd damn thang, but.... pirate ship! pirates was one of my favorite themes as a kid. i had the set that this set is based on, 6285 (black seas barracuda). for a time, a long time ago, pieces of my sets were very comingled and very intermixed with the pieces of my brothers' sets. a sole brick separator (821) existed at one point (thanks mom), but, between my sibs and i, fingernails, teeth, screwdrivers, and razorblades were sometimes used in lieu of. and then the markers. and then... i digress. btw, there are two things that i don't like about this set (having not even built it yet). first, the lack of purposeful sail booms and spars pieces. second, and this should be obvious to any afol, no monkey! the lack of a monkey is why i never bought this when it came out. but... it was still on my wishlist despite this. (also, no red parrot.) buuut... there are palm trees and there's a piggy! i've considered adapting this to work with ninjago city. as much of a pain as that may seem like, building this set as a ship, and not a shipwreck, as the instructions go, has you building the shipwreck and then removing pieces and adding pieces to make the ship. as much as a problem as that is, it's a challenging lego problem (a good problem to have) as i'm not building this as a wreck first. though, before i can build anything, i need to make room on my build table and speaking of monkeys, i found need for the new monkeys. i'm thinking up a use for them... after seeing this. i had planned to get some but seeing that accelerated that planning. that mickey mouse spaceship set... ugh. i remember first seeing that and thinking, "who would want this?" now, i know very well that not everything is going to appeal to me or is even targeted at me. but... just... ugh. well, i now know someone who would want this, my niece. so, naturally, she gets it. my lego city's police force is experiencing the opposite of being defunded. do you not see the city behind the packaged lego on display? those are actual mechs on top of buildings. this is not the environment in which you defund the police force. this all made me think, what does my collection look like, on paper? here in seattle that is, as i've a bit more back in aurora. and speaking of that collection, on some return vacation trips, i did bring to seattle my polybags and all of my creator expert modular buildings and of my collectable minifigures (and dimensions packs). i use bricklink to keep track of what i've here in seattle. i don't count opened collectable minifigures (or dimension packs), only those unopened (which i'm including unikitty packs). my lego collection as inventoried on brickset, prior to this latest trip to the lego store:
brickset stats at the time i recorded the above:
so given the above, my collection accounts for 0.00175% of the collective set value and 0.00186% of the set piece count. boom_of_sales boom of salestuesday, october 19th
this is the 13th of these messages that i've received since december 10th of last year, sent to the e-mail address i advertise on this site. only three weeks ago did i ever mention selling anything, and, i do not do so from this site. You can advertise all over the world, or you can choose the countries and areas of your interest. wow, i love options! The greatest advertisement in the whole world, and you can watch the results ONLINE in real time, with our Exclusive Online Panel ! but this isn't the greatest advertisement in the whole world... this is just a tribute. what does that even mean? sounds like something a 90s rap hype man would say. "oh my god! yo, b! yooo b! this is the greatest... advertisement... in the whole, look, b, the whole word! click that shit!" You can choose the areas of your best interest to direct the email sending. did you use these advertising insights to direct this e-mail to me? 'cause... you know, umm... yeah, i am not your target audience. this all sounds like someone read a blog post from the late 90s about "how-to make money in cyberspace". e-mail advertising? hey, ever think about how awesome it would be to take the concept of robocalls and apply it to the internet!? well, you can, with e-mail advertising! no better way to tarnish your brand and create irreparable damage to your reputation than flooding (up to) millions of inboxes with unsolicited advertising. why would i take this seriously? same message, multiple senders from multiple domains. then i am encouraged to communicate via specific communication platforms (skype contact is given later in the message). not to mention, how good can your advertising insights be if you're targeting me, someone who gives no fucks about reaching out to people about anything beyond this site, forget e-mailing them. i'd be better served writing a bot to go spam forums and comment sections. if not for me purposely not even trying to filter my inbox ('cause of little gems like this), i'd likely never see this anyway, much like anyone else targeted by this proposed e-mail-based ad campaign. more like fail of sales, am i right? things_i_bought_online_47 things i bought online #47sunday, october 17th (international day for the eradication of poverty) i was tipped off to 75307 (lego star wars advent calendar 2021) being $29.99 usd at costco
in all, i paid $41.87 usd. and then i got $0.32 usd in target circle earnings and $0.42 usd in cash back for having used my rakuten credit card. had i ordered one from b & n, i'd have paid $44.03 usd (free shipping for members) or $39.62 usd in-store. so, i ended up splitting that difference nearly exactly in half, not too shabby. umm_i_need_these_for_a_lego_project umm... i need these for a lego projectsaturday, october 16th (world food day)
so... i'm working on a new lego project (that might actually come to fruition) that involves marvel and coca cola. so, i need these hydra henchmen... agents? whatever. at $9.99 usd, 76189 (captain america and hydra face-off) is not horribly priced for a minifigure and actually, you get two minifigures and a motorcycle. and some other parts. yup. lego_hydra_logo lego hydra logomonday, october 11th (general pulaski memorial day; international day of the girl; international newspaper carrier day; national coming out day)
i forget now what exactly led to this, but i had an idea to make the hydra logo in lego and yeah, this is the result. i couldn't locate the latest hydra style and branding guide so i just decided to wing it, sticking to the expected skull head and six tentacles. well, did use the lego hydra logo as a guide. the only real test necessary is that of recognition, did you know what it was without having to read, or, if you read, does what you see fit with what you read. i designed it in ldd. site_update_54 site update #54sunday, october 10th (world day against the death penalty; world mental health day; world porridge day) it's lengthy but rather insignificant. fixed some spelling and some formatting and, oh, all these other things too.... "millennium falcon" what was before...
is now...
removed the "feed the pig" link as it appears as though that campaign is over. projects what was before...
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added "bon chance" notes to descriptions for aim winamp status and skype winamp status. the former namesake application has been sunset while the latter namesake application no longer features a rich api (which is good from a security standpoint given the risks it afforded). removed aim sunset link as it's broken along with any other links to anything aim. removed link to notice of change in skype api. removed links to both "support for skype version 7 ended" and "faq about using third party applications with skype" as they now point to a general notice about unsupported features in skype. refined general verbiage around where i'm getting my ldd project pricing from: estimated parts costs from pick a brick are the costs at the time of posting and may not reflect current pricing. also refined verbiage around costs for ldd models. for example, instead of:
it's now clearer (hopefully):
i think there may be some confusion with some visitors in thinking that i'm selling something, which, i am not. i am not selling anything from this site, lego or otherwise. however, i am selling parody trump campaign stickers also added some verbiage for ldd models which had, at time of design, parts not available from pick a brick. downloads what was before...
is now...
me.html what was before...
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removed links to aim's, bbm's, and yahoo! messenger's sunset notices as they're broken. links.html what was before...
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removed urlquery.net as it's defunct and added urlscan.io in its place. the latter was based on the former and makes vast improvements on its model and adds so many more features. i make use of it professionally. also removed securityfocus.com since accenture is letting it languish ever since they bought it (via purchasing what was part of symantec from broadcom). added allbootdisks.com as it has manifests and images of windows boot disks/discs (and even ms-dos boot disks) which come in handy for building windows virtual machines. home.html what was before...
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added the site's 2020 ad revenue (if it can even be called that). spoiler alert, it was $0.04 usd! downloads what was before...
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easter egg sourced more "content". while i did fix an earlier mistake, i had not fixed the end result of that mistake. so, with a minor .htaccess tweak, it looks like search results have dropped off. the "content" is still published, just in a different way. .htaccess and speaking of .htaccess, i've removed the hpkp http response header. it's no longer in fashion and i'm not sure i even needed it other than to appease site scanners as it was a bad look... and you never know when or how browser developers are going to shit on long-standing acceptable practices because of (implied or assumed) security. and... it has been succeeded by hsts. (which i'm not using because, really, for this site, really?) also tweaked some rewrite conditions and rules. things_i_bought_online_46 things i bought online #46thursday, october 7th i did some online shopping, nearly all motivated in some way by lego. amazon i learned about some "tray thingies" that would greatly help assist in the sorting and organization of lego (or even other things). so, i ordered some of these tray thingies. while i only need one, maybe two, a four pack made the most sense from a price per unit perspective. and while i only need one, maybe two, i can give the others away as, i believe, they have utility far beyond assistance in sorting and organizing lego. i mean, the packaging insert/sticker/whatever implies use with hardware. but... given amazon's "challenges" with logistics, i figured i may as well make it worthwhile and order something else i needed. previously i had found occasion to acquire a care bear as a gift for someone, funshine bear. it's a whole thing... anyway, somehow, i was reminded about this. and then cnbc had to go and spend too much time talking about supply chain problems, specifically around care bears. luckily, what magically was said to be out of stock reappeared in stock. that is, refresh amazon.com in edge, out of stock. go to amazon.com in chrome, in stock. the expected delivery date makes it dubious as to whether or not it was in stock when i ordered or expected to be in stock. as i said, "challenges". one great thing about amazon, if you're a prime member and an order is delivered past the expected date of delivery, you can get the cost of shipping refunded! *eyeroll* brickmania i had seen that brickmania had released some usaf dress uni custom minifigs. so, i've ordered one to give to my dad as he used to be in the usaf. i was also looking for a brickarms rk-3 for a custom minifigure i was planning to buy from another aftermarket lego retailer. but, the rk-3 was only available in a weapons pack so i opted for that. clone army customs i have the big lego laat/i also... ucs is a lego star wars subtheme. if the seal isn't on the packaging or the title doesn't have "ultimate collector series", or something approximating such, it's not ucs. i don't care what "that poster" shows, what afols say, how many parts there are, if it's a display set, or if it has a "plaque", ucs is ucs. this is a hill i'll die on :-) ebay i had been eyeing these lego desk pals but ultimately decided against getting one sometime last year. (or was it earlier this year?) i've wanted a proper giant lego minifigure for a while (and yes, i own 76393... and only built harry though, last weekend, i got to see some up close and personal that had been repainted. i thought they were 3d printed and was pleasantly shocked to learned they were just repainted desk pals. they are as i had hoped they'd be. so, i ordered a couple. unfortunately, they're more expensive now than they had been. they were discontinued some time ago so supply is finite but seemingly plentiful. something about lego being on ebay results in no less than a 1.25 to 1.5 times markup, more typically two times. check for yourself sometime, sets that aren't even available to anyone, even reviewers, posted for sale on ebay and for about twice the msrp. i don't mind paying a premium on something when it's warranted. in this case, eh, we'll hold judgement until i take delivery.
at least with the ebay order, i got 1% cash back on the subtotal, $0.80 usd, and 3% cash back on the total, $2.65 usd. (and... oddly 3% cash back on a donation, $0.03 usd.) excluding this, in all including applicable taxes, fees, and donations, i spent $207.79 usd. well, less the $20.17 usd already in my paypal account. the care bear was marked down 16%, so, wheee! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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lego minifigures 71030 looney tunes 1pc
brickarms m4a4 - eclipse strike desolate space - gitd
modern combat helmet (mch) - black
pcv - specialist - black
soda can - funta
brickarms akm - eclipse strike - monk-a warfare
lego star wars advent calendar 75307 building kit
easy sorter funnel tray 9.5 x 9.5 x 1.5 inches (4-pack)
care bears funshine bear stuffed animal, 14 inches
usaf dress uniform
brickarms blaster pack - nova
admiral thrawn
p1 332nd trooper orange helmet
desk pal stationary system 9 handy desk tools