Hey I'm Still Around!

Sorry its been awhile since I've updated the 'ol blog. Life has been incredibly stressful and challenging for the last 5 months and I'm working to make things all better. I haven't had the time for my toys lately, but I've been spending a lot of time with my kids (well, I always spend a lot of time with them, we've just been doing other stuff). Anyway, we've been playing Pokepark: Pikachu's Adventure, and I finished it tonite. I thought it was a pretty fun game. Hope to be back soon with some of the "normal" stuff!

All Your Lego's Are Belong To Us: A look at some Not-Lego's

I won some ebay auctions from some sellers in the Hong Kong area advertising brick sets that fit Lego. I love the Engrish on those posts. Some household brand names include Enlightened Child, Kazi, and LoonGon. Actually these sets are pretty cool. Some of the Chinese sets you can get are basically Lego copied sets with the box pictures and all, these were all original designs. The Kazi sets actually have "Kazi" molded on the tubes of thier bricks, lego style. The other companies...uh, not so much. There were 25-35 pieces per set depending on the kit,most parts fit good, although there was some "flash" on pieces, and one small round piece I had was warped beyond fit. Well, I won some kits for one cents, and others for a buck, so I don't think I'm paying for quality control....

These kool little tanks are made by Kazi, I got them for around a buck each plus shipping. They will make great little drone tanks for some future Lego mega battle.

Here are two different missile trucks, and 2 mine detector vehicles, all also made by Kazi. These are small kits, in "scale" with the tanks but of course a minifig towers over them, so they will also make good drone vehicles. Of course, in world of Lego and Lego knock-offs, does it really matter? They just drive!

Lets get serious now, here comes the Military. These fill an area that Lego dosn't do. I think the mine detector vehicle is an Elightened Child set, and the cannon in the middle might be too, although they don't look like they came off the same production line. The biker with the rifle is a Kazi set. The cannon guy looks very happy to be blasting away with that thing, and the biker has a smug look on his face. The mine detector dude dosn't look too thilled though, I guess he was the guy who showed up late and got the lame vehicle.

On to the civilians. I'm not sure what kind of construction vehicle this represents, but the guy looks happy to operate it anyway. He picks up loose Lego's to take back to Pirate's Industrial Park. It's made by some company called LoonGon. The round section on top rotates all the way around. The police boat and the racing car are Enlightened Child kits. Boy, the cop looks like he's gonna meet his quota today, but the race car driver is all business. The strange little spaceship is made by Kazi and more in scale with the tanks and missile trucks. I think the design was put together by a guy with a bits box and nothing to do for an hour.

If you liked this post, let me know and I'll pick up some more for review!

Kool Stuff in Kenosha

This past weekend had some kool stuff going on, on Saturday, me and the kids hit the Kenosha Kite Festival. Believe it or not, I find some kind of inner peace flying kites, I usually pick up one or two here and there if they look cool. There was a lot of neat kites and the kids had fun, especially when they had candy drop from a bag in the air pinata style.

Then we hit the Kenosha Public Museum on Sunday to check out the Model Train Expo. They had a lot of neat set-ups there, Including a huge one in the seminar room. The kids liked looking at the stuff, although by the fourth layout they had enough. My Dad used to have a good sized set up back in the day, so I enjoyed checking them out.

Toy Story Bucket O Soldiers

Got a Toy Story 3 Bucket O Soldiers...I must say, these guys are awesome! Most of them are similar to the classic Timmee/Processed Plastics soldiers, but with new crisp sculpts. The bucket contains 72 pieces that include 7 Sarge figs, 7 soldier standing with pisol/binocs, 7 kneeling riflemen, 7 riflemen laying down, 7 riflemen looking upwards, 7 riflemen at the ready, 7 mine sweepers, 7 bazooka men, 7 mortar soldiers, 7 stab with rifle soldiers and 2 paratroopers, both unique sculpts that I'd love to get as regular infanty. Well worth it, check out the pics!

Oh My....

The Kung Zhu Special Forces have infiltrated my beloved Department 7...normally I would think it was a cool idea, but I am sooooo tired of these things....

May 4th Star Wars Day Battle: LEGO Rhen Var

Had to do a battle for Star Wars Day! Since I'm starting a series of battles this summer featuring Rhen Var and Tatooine, I thought I'd kick off Rhen Var using LEGO Star Wars and ToyMallet 40cents rules. Doug commanded the defending Clones while I fought with the invading CIS. True to history, the Battle Droids won the day.

Ooooh! The Carnage....

Free Comic Book Day!

Ahh...the first Saturday of May...Free Comic Book Day! The kids posed with some Super Heroes like Spidey, Pheonix and Batman at Heroes & Dreams and then we stopped at Rockhead's for a few more titles. The kids picked up stuff like Shrek, Archie and Sonic, I grabbed Iron Man and G.I.Joe.