the vynsane asylum

When exactly is the double VIP points next month? I'm still waiting on that to get a lot of bigger sets.

don't you mean this month?

it's the 14th-29th.

hey, look! another enormous set i get to review!


LEGO 71016 Simpsons Kwik-E-Mart by vynsane, on Flickr

"Who needs the Kwik-E-Mart?"

meanwhile, i've been redoing my LEGO sorting. most of it was sorted by piece type, then color (if i had enough of that piece in that color to warrant it). i'm now re-sorting them by color first, then piece type within each color. i think it will make it easier to build stuff, since i will be looking to build within a select few colors, which means i can take out less bins at a time.

Have you ever shown us pics of your Lego sort stations? I can't remember. You must have an epic amount of bricks.

nah, unfortunately there's not much of a 'station' - the endless refrain of our family is "in the new house..." and as such i will have a glorious LEGO/comics/office room to show off via pics and vids and will be so full of awesome that it will go viral and all that. for now, i have a few cubbies along the wall in my wife's home office, which used to be our daughter's room, with about 30ish 14" and 10 11" small parts organizers of varying make and manufacturer - Home Depot just can't seem to stay with one supplier or even one model within a supplier. i have two of these huge mamajamas one of which is now retired (empty) and the other one is solely relegated to my Winter Village collection. since that one is full now, i'd imagine the second one will pull the same WV duty as i collect more, starting this october.

i then started with a bunch of 'RIMAX/Workforce'' brand (best quality plastic and tolerances for removable separators, but because they're not made in 'murica HD doesn't stock them anymore), a handful of these 'Plano Stowaway' brand (cheapest plastic by far, but slightly deeper and better layout for the dividers), two 'Plano double-lockjaw' which are quite good, but more expensive, a few 'Husky' brand (somewhere in between the RIMAX and Plano in terms of plastic and the same basic layout as RIMAX), and now four of a different model of Plano organizer which are slightly smaller, even though they're still called 14" organizers, because economy.

over the past two weeks or so, it's been an iterative process. unsorted pieces were/are in an ever-growing collection of coffee cans and pretzel jugs. we get the large Utz pretzel jugs about once a week or so, and when they're empty they're great for temporary storage of parted out sets that are awaiting sorting. i also have a coworker who supplies me with more, as she buys a jug for her office at about the same rate. i got three of them from her the other day.

so now i started by going through those and sorting them out by color family (neutrals: black, white, grays; earth tones - dark brown, reddish-brown, dark orange, dark tan, tan, nougat, gold; primaries, secondaries), including pieces that were already in the organizers by piece type. then i re-sorted each color family into distinct colors. i have about three pretzel jugs each of the neutrals, and one each of the primaries/secondaries, plus a spill-over coffee can for reds and blues. i have one jug for browns, one for tan, a large coffee can for dark tan, a medium coffee can for nougat, and a small coffee can for gold.

now i'm going through them again by piece type within each color. i now have 14" organizers with 1x plates and tiles in yellow/orange and blue/purple. next i'm doing red, then greens.

i moved the last three posts from the "The Sorting. The Fucking Sorting." topic since it was a bit of a hijack.

since i just got almost all my various containers in on place after breaking down a few more sets i had in a large bin in the attic, i took a picture:

I'd like to imagine that whenever you visit someplace new, you just Jack some poor shmuck's plate as a souvenir.

Ghostbuster's Firehouse!! Yay!!

here's the official product image:


75827 Ghostbusters Headquarters by vynsane, on Flickr

i have to say, i'm conflicted by this product. as a child, for an assignment for school where we had to learn how to write to a company to voice an opinion or criticism, i wrote to LEGO to suggest they produce a line of toys based on Ghostbusters. they responded that they prided themselves on creating original material for their themes (my how times have changed) so in a very real sense, this (in conjunction with the Ideas Ecto-1 set) is a dream come true. however, the original proposal that everyone voted for on Cuusoo/Ideas included both the firehouse as well as the Ecto-1. LEGO made the decision to produce only the car, which made sense at the time, as Cuusoo was still in its infancy.

now, they unveil a much more expensive product featuring the portion of the Cuusoo proposal that they originally excised. it seems a bit suspect to me, given that a normal LEGO set is usually two years in the making from pre-production to retail availability. the Cuusoo Ghosbusters proposal hit 10k supporters in august of 2013, a couple months over two years ago, and the Ecto-1 was unveiled in february of 2014. it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. the way Cuusoo/Ideas works, is that the originator of the proposal gets 1% of all retail sales of the final set. if BrentWaller, the guy whose proposal became Ecto-1, isn't getting a cut of this new HQ set, it really makes me question LEGO's ethics.

My excitement is tempered by the pricetag.
And I really want it more as an addition to my modular series, even though I have the other fire station.

oyes


Box, front

part 1 of my review over at toys n bricks!

Jelly.

I need to be a reviewer! You get those sets for free right?