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.

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.

Lego Clone Walkers

I've never gotten into the Lego Star Wars stuff, mostly because I'd have to get another job or two to afford it, but I picked up a couple Clone Walkers for me and the kids to assemble, and we got through it with no fuss or thrown pieces! I thought these were pretty neat. Wonder how they would look with 28mm Clones....

Yeeeaaahhhh!

Saw the GWAR & Lamb of God show last night in Milwaukee...wish my phone camera was better...got a nice black eye from the pit too so you know it was a fun night!

Happy Halloween!

Here is a pic of my girls Trick-or-Treating and posing with a member of the 501st Legion...I dressed up as a ravishing Princess Leia (Classic...no Slave Leia!) for work but no pics for that, lucky you!

Pics from my Rock-Con 09 Games

Here are some pics from my Rock-Con games, first up is a game of Combat Storm played by eight people...lots of stuff blew up and troops mowed down...good times!!

Next up are some pics from my Clone Wars Combat Storm mod...The Battle of Kashyyyk!! I have to count this one as a draw, all the battledroids had gotten wiped out, but the CIS had managed to take out all the Clone vehicles with some clever manuvering of the Homing Spider Droids!

Some pics from Rock Con 09

Here are some pics I took at Rock-Con, including a 40K table, Mordheim table, some Historical crap with factories, an OGRE battle, and these cool battlesuits for a Stargrunt type battle which looked very cool!

Dr.Destruction's Haunted Forest

Took the kids to Jerry Smith's Pumpkin Farm on Saturday, mostly to go to Dr. Destruction's Haunted Forest...when Halloween starts to roll around, the kids always say "when are we going to see Dr. Destruction?"...ah, my young Padawans! They can't wait to get there, then are reluctant to go in..Mwahahahaha! Here are a couple of pics I took of the Haunted Forest. If your in the Kenosha-Racine area, go check it out!

Ahhh, time for Pokemon Club again!

Another Pokemon Club meeting this past Monday at the Kenosha Southwest Library...now if you remember, last time the lady running the club told me that I couldn't trade cards with the kids in future meetings, so now my kids had to do the work...imagine my "suprise" when my 6 year old traded an SP Aerodactyl for a fire energy card. Well, she was excited. But she traded some other cards for some we didn't have, while I played solitaire Pokemon to see if the other kids would ask what I was doing, since no one actually plays the game at the club. No one asked. I think the kids just collect and trade and then play video games at home. The next Pokemon Club is on July 6 from 4:00- 5:00pm, so if anyone reading this is in Kenosha or nearby, stop in so I have someone to trade with!

Awwww...how sweet! Heaven (right) finds someone to trade with...someone who dosn't know the value of what she is trading...my kids learn fast!

Survived Another Pokemon Club...

Took the kids to the Kenosha Southwest Library for Pokemon Club, an hour of swapping cards, playing Pokemon games on the WII, and playing the card game (so I've heard...no one seems to actually play it there...) This is our second time at the Club, I got a bunch of doubles on eBay so we can trade with the other kids. Unfortunately, I was told at the end of club that next time I can't trade with the other kids anymore (I guess because the club is for K - 5th graders, and here I thought all the other parents were just sitting in the corners 'cause they were lazy or something...) so my girls are going to have to do all the work next time. The next Pokemon Club is at the SW Library on June 1st. Maybe I'll start my own club where parents bring thier kids' toys late at night and we swap all that stuff...

Yeah, it's as loud as it looks!

Okay, just starting this thing

Started the blog today, but I gotta get workin', be back soon!