Subject:
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Report on LegOz 2000-09-17-4218 (The Great Southern Expeditionary Force)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.loc.au
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Date:
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Tue, 19 Sep 2000 05:31:44 GMT
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The Great Southern Expeditionary Force went forth last Sunday.
Mel, Tim, and Kerry farewelled their non-Lego significant others in the
misty dawn light of Brisbane. The LTV (Lego Transport Vehicle) gave a
throaty roar and the perilous journey though the minefields of Pacific
Highway construction commenced.
OK, we went from Brisbane down to the Gold Coast to see the Lego exhibition
at Myer at Pacific Fair shopping centre.
We started the day with a quick detour via Robina Toyworld for Kerry to pick
up her UCS Tie Interceptor. Robina Toyworld was slightly better stocked with
Lego than it had been a few weeks ago. There were UCS sets on the shelf as
well as the Millennium Falcon, but otherwise there was not a lot that was
particularly interesting. The 6087 Witch's Magic Manor was on special for
$39.99 like most other ToyWorlds.
At Pacific Fair, we started off with a quick look around Toys'R'Us. The 9719
Mindstorms Robotic Invention System seems to have come down in price,
selling at Toys'R'Us for $298 (formerly over $400). The 8448 Super Street
Sensation (Super Car Mark II) was about $150 (I think this has been
previously reported). There were a number of discounted items, but the
general feeling was that better prices would be found at Myer which was
having a 20% sale in conjunction with the Lego exhibition. In addition,
Coles Myer shareholders can get an 10% saving at Myer.
So, on to Myer. Despite our intention to see the display, we nonetheless hit
the shelves first. It was interesting to note that most sets were priced
below RRP (which is quite unusual for Myer). My initial thought was that the
sets were "sale priced" already but, no, the discounts were an addition 20%
(+ 10%) off the marked price. Myer was quite well-stocked, carrying a wide
range of current catalogue items. However, the new Technics sets (Silver
Champion and Power Puller) were not among them.
If you are interested in 9719 Mindstorms RIS, then Myer Pacific Fair is
selling them for $315 which at 20% off is only $252. If you are entitled to
a Coles Myer shareholder discount, it's only $226.80.
Finally, we managed to make it to the display. The display was quite good.
The general theme was Adventurers in a jungle setting with Mayan or perhaps
Aztec ruins and treasure troves. So, there were explorers with their planes,
boats, and vehicles. There were statues and temples with native people and
various animals and birds. Most of the displays involved some kind of
lighting or movement or speech effects (although a few didn't seem to be
working). Some of the display pieces had a sign indicating the number of
hours of development time (typically 700 hours) and the number of bricks
(typically 30K-ish). A general reaction to many of the displays is that we
would not have had the talent to make such a piece even if we had had the
bricks in the first place.
In addition to the Adventurers displays, there were also a number of smaller
display cases which featured other Lego themes (e.g. Star Wars, Pirates,
Castle, ...). Typically these consisted of some standard models from that
theme together with a couple of larger models constructed from elements from
that theme. I presume the message was intended to be "hey, you really could
build something like this yourself". Naturally these models were not as
large or as complex as the main display pieces.
I was particularly thrilled to see the Mindstorms demo outside the main
display area. Some of you who follow the robotics and technics newsgroups
will probably already be aware of the wall-climbing robot that has been
demo-ed at a number of USA toy shows. I hadn't realised it would be part of
the exhibition at Pacific Fair, so it was a real bonus for me. For more
details of this little marvel, see:
http://www.enginemusic.com/toyfair/toyfair.htm (go down to the end of it)
I must admit to having a bit of a buying frenzy in Myer but I am delighted
to report that I have now done the bulk of my children's Christmas shopping.
Indeed I only bought a very small soccer set for myself (3401
Shoot'n'Score), so I was virtue itself :-)
Incidentally, UCS sets and Millennium Falcon were also very competitively
priced (given the discounts) at Myer. With the benefit of hindsight, it
would have been cheaper to buy my UCS Tie Interceptor at Myer than Toyworld
Robina. Such is life!
We staggered back to the car laden with our purchases, and then lunched to
restore us ready to shop-till-we-dropped once more.
After lunch, we visited Target and K-Mart at Pacific Fair. However, with the
range and discounts available at Myer, there was little to tempt us at these
stores.
We then visited the Australia Fair shopping centre in Southport. The
ToyWorld there had a fairly standard selection, nothing special to report.
Still it was not a wasted visit as Mel found a non-Lego item of interest,
Tim found a brick-separator (we'd convinced him at lunch time that no
serious AFOL would be without one), and the nearby BookWorld had some really
cheap ($1 and $2) Lego books, again nice for children's Christmas presents.
A quick coffee to fortify ourselves for the journey home and thus ended the
Great Southern Expeditionary Force.
<Usual disclaimer about the unreliable nature of my memory re prices and
availability -- confirm with the store if it's important to you. Usual
disclaimer about being a Coles Myer shareholder.>
Kerry
--
===========================================================================
Dr Kerry Raymond, Distinguished Research Fellow kerry@dstc.edu.au
CRC for Enterprise Distributed Systems Technology Ph: +61 7 3365 4310
University of Queensland 4072 Australia Fax: +61 7 3365 4311
===================================================== www.dstc.edu.au/kerry
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