LEGO Disney store re-opens

I spent one of my happiest holidays in Disney World, so looking at the pics gave me a good vibe. Wish I can go and see the new store, but I’ll have to make do with some pics unfortunately…

The Lego Imagination Center in Downtown Disney has quietly reopened after closing in February and temporarily relocating to Island Charter’s former location. One of the original retailers at Downtown Disney that opened in 2001, the store was renovated and now reflects much more Disney flavor, especially outside. “As this store is over 10 years old, we felt it was time for a complete refresh and redesign,” said Amanda Santoro, spokeswoman at Lego Systems Inc.

The changes include:

• New Disney-themed outdoor scenes featuring characters such as Buzz Lightyear and Woody with RC; Belle in minifigure style, the Beast, Lumiere and Cogsworth; and Prince Phillip in minifigure style, his horse Samson, and Maleficent as a dragon.
• Indoor suspended scene featuring Aladdin and Jasmine in minifigure style, the Genie and the magic carpet.
• A relocated and bigger Pick a Brick wall.
• A new upper level with play areas.
• A new outside play area with a racing feature.
• Digital Box, an interactive kiosk that enables shoppers to see an assembled product on a screen.

The store will hold grand reopening events on Memorial Day weekend. “We’re doing a large scale community build – building the Lego Store mascot Brickley – and Disney is fully involved in the planning,” Santoro said.

More here: http://retail.ocregister.com/2012/05/16/lego-store-shows-off-remodel-at-downtown-disney/71734/

And here: http://ocresort.ocregister.com/2012/05/16/remodeled-lego-store-reopens-at-downtown-disney/112968/

Win a Star Wars: Episode I 3D mural

I am soooo jealous of U.S. fans… why? Cos they have the chance to win one of these brick-made murals of course.

Go to Starwarsblog to read more/for updates.

Southern California fans (Update: see below) have a chance to win one of the stunning Star Wars: Episode I 3D murals comprised completely of LEGO bricks spotted at select theaters across the country. ArcLight Hollywood has just posted a contest to their Facebook page asking fans who see The Phantom Menace 3D at the Hollywood venue to snap a photo of themselves in front of the mural with a caption explaining what makes them the biggest Star Wars fan!

The entry that receives the most votes by Wednesday, February 22 will take the LEGO mural home! Click here to enter.

There’s a good chance that more of these murals will become available in similar contests across the country, so stay tuned as we’ll update this entry with any new contests that are announced!

Go to the official ArcLight site for more info.

UPDATE: It appears that Harkins Theatres of Scottsdale, Arizona has launched their own mural giveaway contest, requiring only that you “Like” them on Facebook to enter! Check it out here!

What’s this new dragon set?

Apparently an exclusive to the Mall of America store.  From mhuffman‘s Flickr.  

Some news round up

I guess most of my fellow AFOLs in Singapore have been busy hunting minifig series 4.  I actually haven’t had time to get any, so that’s a to-do this weekend…

Anyway, taking a break to share some LEGO news that I found interesting.

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1. Picture of latest architecture set Farnsworth House

Toys N Bricks shares a pic of 21009 Farnsworth House taken from the LEGO website.  You can read more from: http://toysnbricks.com/home/21009-official-picture/

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2. Groupon deal: $15 worth of eBay purchase for $7

Toys N Bricks also shared this great deal from Groupon for eBay.  Only valid till end of the month so don’t wait if you want to get some stuff from eBay k?  Before you run off to try and get a few dozen Groupons, take note that it’s limited to 1 per person and 1 per order.  Click here to buy this groupon.

Via: http://toysnbricks.com/home/usa-15-worth-of-ebay-purchases-for-only-7/

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3. Update on charity auction organised by TBB

The Brothers Brick showcases some great donations.  Personally I found these 2 to be the most interesting.  There are many other great creations you can see from here.  Note that shipping is free.

Btw, the ship is 3 metres long!  Do read more from TBB here: http://www.brothers-brick.com/2011/03/28/bricks-helping-japan-update/

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4. LEGO City ideas book

Killyrbf shares info on Sean Kenney’s Cool City.  Looks to have some nice city pics but at only 32 pages, I wonder if it’s worth getting?  Think I’ll hold out till Oct and see if anyone does a book review.  You can read more about the book from Killyrbf’s blog: http://killyrbf.blogspot.com/2011/03/build-me-city.html

The japanese idea book I mentioned previously is great btw.  Thanks to Jonathan who helped to get from Japan. 🙂

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5.  LEGO 3 in 1 Go Glow Light

ToyNews reports on yet another new LEGO licensed product.  Worlds Apart has tied up with TLG to create a 3 in 1 Go Glow Light that consists of a rechargeable night light, torch with colour change disk and an interchangeable Lego Minifigure.  

Those who have kids may be familiar with this product.  I’ve actually handled/played with (?) a Go Glow Light cos my niece and nephew have one.  Think it’s not a bad idea – soft induction to the world of LEGO ‘poison’ for your young one perhaps? 

Drawback tho? Nothing for girls AGAIN.  Geez… I’m sure it doesn’t take a genius to do a pink version with a nice fairy minifig right? (Like the one from the keychain).  Who knows, if TLG provides unique minifigs to Worlds Apart, they’ll even get some cross-over sales from AFOLs who must get hold of those minifigs.  Then again, a wider range is expected next year so there is still hope.

Via: http://www.toynews-online.biz/news/33672/Worlds-Apart-links-with-Lego

2011 Oscar Best Picture Nominations: LEGO version

Came across the LEGO version of movie posters for the 2011 Oscars Best Picture nominees (or more formally known as the 83rd Academy Awards) that piqued my interest so I set about looking for the original movie posters to do a comparison. 

The verdict? Mostly fairly accurate, with one or two exceptions where I couldn’t find a movie poster version (since there are so many versions!) that matched the LEGO version. 

If you are interested, I think you can get the posters from Old Red Jalopy tho to be honest, I couldn’t find the posters on the website when I looked.

Enjoy! 😀

Black Swan

The Fighter

Inception

The Kids Are All Right

The King’s Speech

127 Hours

The Social Network

Toy Story 3

True Grit

Winter’s Bone

Source:  LEGO Posters by Old Red Jalopy Via The Next Movie 



Some LEGO News Round-Up

Just thought to do a summary of stuff I’ve gathered from the internet… I’ve been busy all week at work, so didn’t feel like blogging individual posts after reading them. 

• Obama used to play with LEGO as a kid.  As he described: “I used to build some pretty mean LEGO towers when I was a kid”.  You can read more from CNN’s blog here.
• Baby can wear LEGO shoes even if he/she is too young to play with LEGO.  Babygadget reports on the Lego^TM-inspired Kickers shoes project.
• You can watch the LEGO Battles: Ninjago for Nintendo DS – Trailer from BSCkids, who has also reported on the new Nintendo 3DS Game – LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean
• PR Newswire reports on how well TLG is doing in this press release: LEGO Systems Records Over $1.0BN in 2010 U.S. Consumer Sales 
• I also liked the stop motion video that shows GeekDad building The LEGO Tower Bridge
• And of course we can count on Grogall to bring us the latest hi-res pics of new sets, this time for Cars 2 and Alien Conquest’s UFO Abduction sets.  You can find the pics on Brickset for the Cars 2 sets and on EB’s Alien Conquest thread for the UFO Abduction set.

In case you are curious where I get those info/stuff I’ve been blogging about, I actually Google for news related to LEGO.  Out of 20-30 hits, maybe one or two would be considered ‘bloggable’ by me.  But then whether I blog about it immediately or not still depends on how I feel that day, or sometimes I’ll keep them aside as ‘back-up’ posts for quiet news days and days when I’m too busy to write.  

And of course now and then I feel bad about being deliquent and go back to do a summary like what I am doing now. 😛

I also visit various forums (well, mostly EB for the latest news, and I always click on the threads if I happen to see Grogall do a posting, haha), and as you can see from the RSS feeds on the right, there are various sites that I visit/read.  Quite a lot of ‘work’ huh?

What do you think?  Are there stuff I’ve summarised today that you would like me to post immediately?  Give me some feedback k?

More Goodies from Ace & Ryan

Wow, the guys from FBTB dun seem to be sleeping… everytime I check back there are more nicely sorted (and well taken) pictures on the FBTB Flickr Photostream (by sets).  Thanks guys!! 😀

Like this Lightning McQueen made of 325,000 bricks:

Or all these new licensed products, some which look really good! (Ok, I’ve only copied those I find interesting but still quite a lot):

I’ll leave you to browse thru the rest.  Too many details to mention ranging from the glass bottle & globe in the POTC sets to pics of the new Cars range to how the UFO abduction function works, to details of Kingdom’s Mill Village Raid (goats, the windmill mechanism, chickens, etc)…