I like this calendar quite a bit…so far. Perhaps the Gods of Playmobil have stuffed good items early in the calendar with a sinister hope to lure me away from Lego calendars. It’s working.
Yesterday’s Jonas Cannoncube was a fantastic surprise, and I like him even more today. Did I mention his jacket is a deep, rich shade of purple? It’s luxurious.
What’s behind today’s door?
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This is my first December 2nd in six years in which I have not touched a Lego brick. Not gonna lie, it feels weird. But change can be good.
I did some investigative journalism (Wikipedia) and learned a few cool things about Playmobil:
1. It was invented in the early 1970s by Hans Beck of Germany. I imagine Hans had an old workshop deep in the woods where rays of sunshine cut through the colorful leaves, draping the entire area in a rainbow of golden autumn colors, as a small creek babbled nearby and the curious deer and chipmunks would peek their heads into the window to see what the old toy maker was creating. Or maybe he sat in a beige cubicle inside a cooperate office. It’s magical either way.
2. The figure is called a “Klicky.” In Spain, the male characters are called “Clicks” and the female characters are called “Clacks.” And in England, instead of Playmobil, the toys were originally called Playpeople…but England is terrible at naming things since they call ladybugs, “ladybirds.” WHAT THE HELL, ENGLAND! It’s not a bird, it’s a bug! Do you also call spiders “Wall Fish” and penguins “Polar Humans”?
3. The first Playmobil people were based on Native Americans, Construction Workers and Knights.
4. They come to life at night and steal the tongues of lying children.
What lurks behind today’s door?
Yesterday I got a boat. Today I got…
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December is here! Every December for the past six(!) years I’ve opened a Lego Advent Calendar — a big box that spits out tiny toys of varying degrees of fun every day until Christmas. But not this year.
This year, things are different.
As a kid, three of my favorite Christmas tree ornaments were: A wooden castle, a small wooden sled and a wooden airplane with a tiny propeller that spun if you flicked it just right. I would meticulously hang the ornaments on the tree so that it told a story…in my mind. The plane was hung towards the top of the tree, because planes fly. The castle was placed in the middle because it was built on an a hill (or a cloud). And the sled was hung towards the bottom. The story would change from year-to-year, or day-to-day, but essentially a hero would fly to the castle, do something heroic, and then escape on the sled in a dizzying action scene that Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg would be hard-pressed to recreate in a movie. Imagine the speeder bike chase from Return of the Jedi mixed with Die Hard and seasoned with the first twenty minutes of Temple of Doom.
Those three ornaments were lost somewhere, but I still create stories for my Christmas tree. Glass balls are planets, metal snowflakes become magic portals, the spaceship is…well, a spaceship.
The idea of creating Christmas tree stories was part of the inspiration for the new Pencil of Stories. This Power Pencil comes with six wooden ornaments that (may) spring to life as you use the magic pencil to tell tales of adventure and pterodactyls. What’s the story behind the girl, the yeti, the jetpack werewolf and the goblins? You tell me.
I may have lost my wooden airplane, castle, and sled, but I can replace them with new ornaments. The story continues!
The Pencil of Stories and all six ornaments (and a Goblin pencil!) are available now as one set! Click here to visit the store and start writing new, weird, wonderful stories!
It’s here! The last day of the Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar!
While yesterday was a bit of a bust, I’m excited to see what Lego planned for the big finale.
Let’s see! Continue reading
The calendar is almost empty. Christmas is almost here. I am almost ready!
I doubt I’ll open another Star Wars calendar next year. Looking at the items I’ve received over these past two years, I’m not sure there’s anything left in the Star Wars universe that I’d want in Lego form.
Already got myself a Speeder Bike, Millennium Falcon, AT-AT w/ antlers, and Middle School Principal.
So next December might be spent opening the classic Lego City calendar. But we’ll see how we all feel in 2016…when we’re all living on the moon.
What’s behind the penultimate door? Continue reading
Today is the shortest day of the year and also the busiest. I haven’t finished my Christmas shopping, because…well, I don’t need to explain myself to you! BACK OFF!
Sorry. Sorry. Holiday stress.
It may be that I’m drunk on Star Wars, but I think this year’s calendar is better than last year’s…and last year’s was pretty great.
There are only three doors left! What lives behind door #22? Continue reading
I saw The Force Awakens! Here are some short, spoiler-free thoughts:
I loved it. I loved seeing the old characters, but even more, I loved meeting the new ones. The heroes and villains are wonderful and the new characters have more personality and life to them than I expected. I love the mysteries. I love that there are now thousands of fan-theories about where this is going. And I love that we need to wait until 2017 to learn the answers to these mysteries.
There are people who hate the movie, or at least loudly proclaim that they hate it. And that’s fine. But if I gave these people a billion-million dollars, they could not create a better Star Wars movie than The Force Awakens. Some people are just being cranky because A) if you disagree with something, it makes you seem smarter and B) they hate everything and nothing is good.
Haters can try to tell me that this movie was terrible, that it was a retread of other films, that the film relied too much on coincidence. And yet nothing they say can travel back in time and wipe the smile from my face that popped up when the movie began and stayed with me the entire night.
If you haven’t seen the movie yet, avoid spoilers if you can, but even if you know how it ends, it’s a whole different experience to see it for yourself.
And to top off the experience, now I get to open a cardboard door and play with tiny piles of Lego Star Wars pieces!
Today’s item is… Continue reading
I’m seeing The Force Awakens today. That means I will never write another blog without knowing what happens in that movie. This is it.
I hope the first word of the opening text-crawl is “Hey!” or “Lando.”
While watching the original trilogy this month, my girlfriend noticed that a lot of Star Wars characters (Jawas, mostly) sound like Minions. If a Jawa in the new movie says, “Banana!” we’re both gonna lose it.
Let’s see what’s hiding in one of the last remaining doors of this above average Lego calendar!
Yesterday’s item was amazing, and so I’m not expecting anything grand in today’s calendar box.
I’ve wrapped up another successful season of Power Pencils! I won’t be able to process any new orders until after Christmas. If you missed out, stop by the day after Christmas and use your gift cards on magic pencils. It’s the gift you really want!
Thank you all for the support! I hope you love the pencils and signs. I had fun making them, and more are on the way.
And now let’s rip open today’s door and find… Continue reading