Subject:
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BUGs 938/432-12/JW-3 is over
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.loc.au
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Date:
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Sun, 21 Oct 2001 12:41:17 GMT
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Viewed:
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352 times
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A good turnout today at my place for BUGS 938/432-12/JW-3 (this representing
the new numbering scheme in which the IP address of the host's computer is
multiplied by the time of the commencement of meeting measured in seconds
since 1 Jan 1970 Greenwich Mean Time, with the postcode used to calculate a
checksum after application of a Soundex Code -- see many earlier threads for
the history of this simple yet effective numbering scheme).
Present were: me (Kerry, as host!), Mel Brown, Peter and Ben Parsons, Gary
and Callum Quinlan, Michael and David Dallaston, Mark Harrison, Ken Wilson,
David Drew and Tara Anderson. Tara having forgotten her street directory
might have spent the morning randomly driving around Brisbane except that
the BUGS were emitting a lot of Lego pheromones which guided Tara at some
primitive instinctive level to us. "I love the smell of ABS in the morning",
she said. A late scratching was Tim Hungover Gould, who had better make a
special effort to attend the next meeting as penance.
The morning kicked off with admiring the sets and MOCs brought along. The
theme of Mostly Medieval attracted a number of castles (somewhat
predictably), including a particularly elaborate MOC by Tara. The sets
ranged from the 1980s through to the contemporary sets like King Leo's.
Despite the general consensus that the early castles are generally superior,
it seems many of us succumbed to the allure of the 1/2 price sale of King
Leo's a while back.
Gary and Callum contributed a particularly imaginative medieval fairground
ride, a fine piece of Technics, cunningly disguised behind castle walls with
rampant dragons, and a Tudor-walled ticket office. They had originally built
it for the previous meeting's "mechanical" theme but couldn't make the
meeting, so did a refit for medieval conditions!
Mel finally revealed her major project (hinted at during our previous
meeting at Mark's). Such was the secrecy that it came swathed in a sheet and
it was not unveiled until a sufficient crowd was in attendance. It is a 3
story luxury apartment complex, based on a photo of first prize in a charity
lottery. The building was primarily white, with black door/window frames,
featuring many detailed features, such as its extensive balconies and
gardens. The top floor was done with interior detail, featuring an excellent
kitchen, bedroom, bathroom etc. Although Mel says it is not yet complete (a
lot of roof still to go), it was a most elaborate piece, with many minifigs
gracing it with their daily activities. One of the minifigs dressed in a Ned
Kelly helmet was in the process of mugging two innocent victims on the side
path. Well, we think it was a mugging; the victims' hands were raised in
fear, but as Ned appeared to be armed with a banana, they may have been
overreacting. Monty Python fans will be of course be fully conversant with
the risks posed by assailants wielding a banana (or other forms of fresh
fruit). For the ignorant, please see the artice on "self defence against
fruits" at http://perso.infonie.fr/edwood/monty_python_sketch.htm
David Drew has now got two strikes against him for failing to bring any Lego
with him to our Brisbane meetings. We are starting to wonder if he really
has any Lego at all; perhaps he is a spy in deep cover! Sensing our doubts,
he attempted to divert suspicion by making a large Shop@Home order (more
below).
Although history would generally not associate pirates per se with the
medieval period, nonetheless there was a strong pirate sub-theme in
evidence, fuelled largely by the recent discounting of 6291 Armada Flagship.
Both Michael Dallaston and I decided that the Flagship would be much
improved by buying a 2nd one in order to incorporate an extra centre
section, two large square sails, and a much enlarged sterncastle. However,
we took a different approach to the random red/yellow pieces in this set,
Michael electing to build the sterncastle with these colours to provide a
context for these colours, while I eliminated them going for the all
blue-and-white theme. Gary, the Man Who Time Forgot, claims to have been
completely unaware of the discounted 6291s, despite the myriad of messages
on .loc.au on the subject. Meanwhile Ben and Callum got stuck into staging a
pirate war with the various pirate ships in attendance (I had a home fleet
of 3 to defend against the marauding intruders).
Peter and others came perilously close to the Dark Side, as they lovingly
fingered the beautiful smooth blue triangular tiles on my "Insignia della
Infanta" asking "what set are these from?". Let it be recorded that on
hearing that they came from the Megablocks Blue Thunder, Peter beat a hasty
retreat from the contaminated ship!
So the morning passed most pleasantly. After lunch, we had our traditional
trading period with the usual frenzy of buying, selling, and trading. Tara
took pity on Gary The Man Who Time Forgot, and traded him one of her
discounted 6291s. Peter had a large selection of space sets for sale, and
also his new line of hand-made wooden bases (with raised edges) made in
multiples of the 32x32 baseplate, ranging from the 1/2 base to the 2x3 base.
Speaking as a happy customer of Peter's wooden boards, they are very useful
for building and transporting larger models built over multiple baseplates,
or for when the baseplate is one of the flimsier variety.
Then we moved into serious discussions about our joint Shop @ Home order, so
out came my laptop and away we went. The entire process took about two
hours! Although many people had come with a clear idea of what they wanted
to order, the process took a lot of time as everyone wanted to see each item
ordered (and those not ordered!) in full detail with zoomed-out photos and a
lot of analysis on the value-for-money, etc. Once again Lego pheromones came
into effect, and people found themselves purchasing items not on their
original lists! Indeed, as the person at the keyboard, it was hard to keep
track of the all the "one for me", "I'll take two", "me too" and figure out
the final quantity. Mel, meanwhile, was doing a sterling job tracking the
details of each person's order, for working out the individual costs. With 9
of us buying, the $90 shipping was a mere $10 each, so there was a strong
temptation to make the most of the low shipping costs by ordering with
enthusiasm. Incidentally, the most popular single item was the Lego pen (7
ordered), followed by Castle Arches (6 ordered but all by me!). We ordered
from many parts of the catalogue, but I think the most popular section (by
item count) was probably the bulk parts, but by dollar value I think the
most popular section was probably the trains. We all enjoyed our in-house
shopping expedition, and it looks like it may be a regular feature of future
meetings.
Peter may have avoided the Dark Side, but Ma Vie En Rose is threatening to
engulf me. I ordered two more watches from Shop@Home, one of which turned
out to be called the Belville Pink Watch. Fortunately I bought it as a gift,
but I will have to be careful of the pheromones when handling it!
Speaking of future meetings, Gary Quinlan is offering to host our next BUGS
meeting, tentatively scheduled for 2 December with a Christmas theme. So
pencil it into your diary, and watch this space for Gary's official
announcement! David Drew will be amazing us all with his fabulous all-white
Christmas-themed Technics/robotics MOC built from all those Space Shuttles
he owns, while Tim Gould will be presenting a Star Wars sleigh pulled by a
team of red-faced Darth Mauls.
Play well!
Kerry
--
============
Kerry Raymond
kerry@dstc.edu.au
Proud to be LUGNET Member 599
www.lugnet.com/people/members/?m=599
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: BUGs 938/432-12/JW-3 is over
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| (...) At last, common sense prevails in the numbering of meetings! Well done BUGS. (Now, if only we could sort out what to call Sydney Meetings...) (...) And people wonder what's so special about LEGO! (...) At last, a use for those charity lottery (...) (23 years ago, 21-Oct-01, to lugnet.loc.au)
| | | Re: BUGs 938/432-12/JW-3 is over
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| Hi all, it is the hungover one here (...) Now are you going to make the dating code available under the GNU public license so that I can generate a routine for determining (in cases where a house has two or more active IP's) a traffic based log (...) (23 years ago, 22-Oct-01, to lugnet.loc.au)
| | | Re: BUGs 938/432-12/JW-3 is over
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| (...) Why not just use Stardate and Galactic Coordinates :) (...) Actually I built the sterncastle in red because I have a woefully small amount of 1 by X bricks in white or blue (damn today's juniourized sets!) Anyway besides all that, I had a good (...) (23 years ago, 22-Oct-01, to lugnet.loc.au)
| | | Re: BUGs 938/432-12/JW-3 is over
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| (...) Yes indeed! :) - Hahaha classic! (...) Great to see everyone again :) Shame on you Mr Tim! I already know what it's like to turn up to a meet with the previous night of drinking :P Talk about being on another planet! (...) Very cute! (...) (...) (23 years ago, 22-Oct-01, to lugnet.loc.au)
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