{"id":144,"date":"2010-12-06T14:58:44","date_gmt":"2010-12-06T19:58:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/?p=144"},"modified":"2010-12-06T15:00:40","modified_gmt":"2010-12-06T20:00:40","slug":"lego-advent-calendar-day-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/?p=144","title":{"rendered":"Lego Advent Calendar: Day 6"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/ADventLegoSign.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/ADventLegoSign-300x127.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"127\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-145\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/ADventLegoSign-300x127.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/ADventLegoSign-1024x436.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Today is St. Nicholas Day, a holiday not celebrated in America. I remember this only because I took German in high school and our teacher loved to tell us that on the 6th of December, St. Nick would visit the children of Germany and fill their shoes with fruit and treats. Pretty boring. But, St. Nick had a buddy named <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Knecht_Ruprecht\">Ruprecht <\/a>who would follow Nick around and beat the bad kids with a staff or bag of rocks. <\/p>\n<p>I can\u2019t tell you how to find the area of a curve, I don\u2019t recall the atomic weight of Calcium, and I\u2019m not sure if the Spanish American War was a real thing, but I always remembered that in Germany, on December 6th, a mythic friend of St. Nicholas will beat your ass if you&#8217;re bad. Thanks, high school!<\/p>\n<p>Doing some mild <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Saint_Nicholas\">Wikipedia <\/a>research on St. Nicholas Day was interesting. My favorite sentence: <\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven up to the present day, a flask of manna is extracted from the tomb of Saint Nicholas every year on 6 December by the clergy of the basilica.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I want some Santa Juice, too! That doesn\u2019t sound right, but it\u2019s too late to go back and delete it. <\/p>\n<p>As much as I enjoy the American, corporate Santa who drinks Coke products and charges you for his photograph, the look of the European \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/6\/67\/Old_Father_Christmas_Image.jpg\">Father Christmas<\/a>\u201d is fascinating. He\u2019s less fat and more sinister, the type of guy who would certainly be roommates with a living nightmare named Ruprecht. <\/p>\n<p>They should make a movie about Ruprecht. And I should write it! AND I WILL, TOO! First scene:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nRuprecht is carrying his bag of rocks. He spots some children saying the F-word. He beats the children with his bag of rocks. Title Card comes crashing through the screen: \u201cSack of Pain: Christmas Justice!!!\u201d The exclamation points show the audience that this movie is for real, and in your face. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I think Russell Crowe should star in it and Andy Richter can be the voice of Tootles, the talking bat. (I\u2019m adding the talking bat to give the movie some much-needed comic relief.) <\/p>\n<p>Where was I? Oh yeah, the Advent Calendar. You probably guessed that today\u2019s prize would be a mini-figure, but this particular figure came with a special accessory. What did St. Nicholas give me today?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Advent6.1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Advent6.1-1024x764.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"477\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-146\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Advent6.1-1024x764.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Advent6.1-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cat Girl!<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s another Lego Child, meaning she\u2019s short and her waist doesn\u2019t bend. She comes with a pet cat that has no eyes. The cat is entirely white, so it could also be used as a cat statue or a life-sized fake cereal marshmallow. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Advent6.2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Advent6.2-1024x764.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"477\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-147\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Advent6.2-1024x764.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Advent6.2-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sword Boy seemed pleased to have a friend, but as soon as Cat Girl started playing with all of his stuff, he got pissed. He wasn\u2019t even playing with the Toy Crane Truck, so I don\u2019t know why he\u2019s upset and throwing a fit. Let Cat Girl have a turn, dude. And put down those sticks! There is no hitting allowed in Good World! Ruprecht is watching\u2026<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Advent6.3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Advent6.3-1024x764.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"477\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-148\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Advent6.3-1024x764.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/Advent6.3-300x224.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Also, I put the cat on the skateboard. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Day 6 Rating:<\/strong> 3.2 out of 4 (Points deducted because the cat is creeping me out in a Pet Cemetery sort of way.)   <\/p>\n<p>Tune in tomorrow, or as Tootles says, \u201cYee-haw! Let\u2019s eat some biscuits!\u201d (That\u2019s his catchphrase. It\u2019s going to catch on in a big way. Just you wait!) <\/p>\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.laserfarm.com%2F%3Fp%3D144&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;height=80\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:80px;\" allowTransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is St. Nicholas Day, a holiday not celebrated in America. I remember this only because I took German in high school and our teacher loved to tell us that on the 6th of December, St. Nick would visit the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/?p=144\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4,5,6],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wonderful","tag-advent","tag-christmas","tag-lego"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157,"href":"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laserfarm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}