Galaga

It's after Christmas, which means Hallmark stores around the country are discounting their Hallmark Keepsake ornaments.

Last year Topless Robot informed me of the Pac-Man cabinet ornament and how it was in the perfect scale for 4 inch figures. (Which I was heavily into at the time.) I figured this year they might continue the series with another arcade cabinet and I wasn't disappointed. This year they went with Galaga.

And since Hallmark clearance usually means anywhere from 25%-75% off, it means it's time for me to go out and find the Galaga arcade cabinet ornament. Fortunately there's one nearby where I live with some still left in stock.

If you put in the batteries (which I don't to prevent battery rust) you can make the screen light up and play the Galaga theme song. (The Pac-Man ornament did the same... with its own respective theme of course.) But I know what you really want to know, is it in perfect scale for 4 inch figures?

Yes.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 24

It's Christmas Eve, and that means we're on our last day of our advent calendar. What do you bring us?

Oh yeah, now we're talking. A chimney and Santa Claus! That's like two days worth of material in one. If all the days were like this then this calendar would have totally been worth the overinflated Lego price. Even if Santa has an incorrect hat, clothes and beard. (This has got to be a European Santa, you know, the kind you had to write reports about in the 4th grade. Dude has a fricking basket on his back.) And even if the glasses Santa is wearing make him look like a nerd dressing up as Santa at the office Christmas party.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 23

Down to our last two days!


Oooo, a Christmas Tree. This could be good... oh, no it isn't. It's okay, but it looks a bit lopsided. I feel like the Christmas tree should have been more impressive, particularly since this is the first fully Christmas Lego item in this set.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 22

Only 3 days left. I'm so excited!

OH... MY... GOD... LEGO CHAINSAW!

Unfortunately it's too big to be held by any of the figures without tipping them over. OVESIZED LEGO CHAINSAW. I guess this gives us a little bit of insight into yesterday's official city axe weilder. I guess he cuts logs. In the city. Where logs are so abudandtly necessary. I guess he could be the guy who makes fire wood for yuppies who have fireplaces in their condos with central heating because why shouldn't they have luxuries that are completley pointless. Or maybe he's the dude who cuts up logs and branches that have fallen into the street during windy days. Because the city's too cheap to buy a wood chipper.

But he already has an axe. Isn't a chainsaw overkill?

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 21

We're moving into the home strech now!

It's a guy with a bright orange vest and an axe. An axe. What sort of guy who works for the city needs an axe? Is he the official Christmas tree cutter?

I do love his expression though. He looks perpetually annoyed. A surly Lego Minifig. Awesome.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 20

I've just noticed there's no Day 25 on this thing. I've never had a Advent Calendar before. Is that normal?

To Wikipedia!

Oh, it is! Okay. Fair enough. Let's open up day 20!

Another RC car, some... okay, looks like really tiny traffic cones, the kind people skate through, and a traffic cone that's sitting on a...flag base with a checkerd flag through it, how would that even work? Wouldn't you have to cut open a traffic cone and wrap it around the flag? I'm thinking too much about this.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 19

I lost count... So yes, here's Day 19... Wait, 7 Days (including this one, so does that mean 6 days?) left...

Hey, it's a kid and his remote control car. That's sort of Christmas-like, you know, because kids play with presents on Christmas. Although not really in the snow. And most of the City stuff so far has been very outdoorsy. And the kid has the tiny inarticulate "Short" legs they put on smaller sized Lego figures. I hate those.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 18

Now down to 8 days left...

It's a water fountain. And appropriately it appears to be frozen. Because in the winter the water is supposed to turn to ice. Or apparently blue flame. Seriously, that fountain is on fire. FIRE! Or Lego cheaped out and just used the same mold they use for flames to represent water. How zen.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 17

Number 9 on the countdown...

It's a street cart. Which scoops up snowballs from the look of it. Seems like if you wanted so scoop up snow you'd need a bigger cart, but hey, who knows what the annual snowfall in Lego City is?

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 16

T-Minus 10...

Hey, it's a maintenance man/clean-up dude. And he's sporting the Lego face known as "The Lipton" due to its uncanny resemblance to James Lipton. I have a Lipton face!

That sounds weirder than it really is. Or maybe it's about equal.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 15

Tomorrow we start the final 10 day countdown, so today is the opposite of the anti-climax. It's the anti-prologue. Or something like that. Will today be match my lack of hype?

Yup. It's a bench. That's kinda cool. Kinda. Nothing to do with Christmas, unless it's a reference to drunk people collapsing and sleeping on benches in the park as a sign of ones own self-destruction.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 14

Day 14. Here we go...



Christmas? No. Okay.

I am underwhelmed. Apparently in Europe people sell coffee mugs and flowers from the same stall. Or they don't mind leaving their used mugs by the merchandise. That's assuming the flowers are what's being sold. Maybe it's a mug stand that hasn't been cleaned in so long that it's growing flowers.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 13

We've gone beyond the 12 days of Christmas, what comes next?

Hey, it's a waiter in a chef's hat. That makes no sense at all. It's vaguely Christmasy, in a very tenuous "I guess there are waiters at Christmas parties" kind of way. But yeah, I'm not buying it. And that hat is continuing to freak me the hell out. I bet it's European. I'm just going to assume everything in the Lego sets I don't understand is European.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 12

As we start into the two week countdown, let's take a look at what the Advent Calendar brings us today.
Hey, it's a brightly wrapped package. We're back on track for Christmas! And there's a letter! And a crate... yeah, not sure about the crate, but hey, why not. There's some writing on the envelope, but I can't read it. So it's either mean to be gibberish writing or it's in some European language I don't know. You know who thematically matches today's advent calendar prize?

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 11

Day 11, oh palindrom of days, what do you bring us?


A little car. If it's that small does it count as a cart? Once again, everything to do with City, nothing to do with Christmas.... Wait, is it to do with the city theme? I don't see a lot of yellow and red buggies driving through my city, or any city. Maybe it happens in Europe. Or the mid-west. Although it is yellow and red, so I'm assuming it's related to our yellow mail carrier from yesterday.

What a horrible song, it doesn't even rhyme.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 10

Wow, we're already into the double digits. What do you have for us on the tenth day of Christmas oh Advent Calendar.


It's a guy in red. Well, I guess red is Christmas-like. He's a red... guy. In a hat. With a satchel. Maybe an EMT?


Oh, he's a postal worker. In red? Do postal workers wear red in the Netherlands? Because here in America they wear Blue..... OMG! He's like a Bizarro mailman. OR AN ANTI-MAILMAN. AN EVIL MAILMAN!

Lego Advent Calendar: Day 09

Day 9, let's open you up.


A traffic light. Yeah, nothing says Christmas like traffic lights.

You know who doesn't like traffic lights? Oh, I think you know.

Cosmic Silver Surfer & The Swordsman

What did I say about the Swordsman being made into a minimate? That it was a long shot? When did I say that? Two months ago?

Well looks like they shut me up fast.

Of course I bought it. It's a Toys R Us exclusive. I'm never going to see one of these on the shelves again. And I do want the Swordsman, even if the only thing I know about him is that he was on the Thunderbolts. I'm a little familiar with the OLD SWORDSMAN, who was a really good swordsman who fell in love with Mantis, until he died and his body was inhabited by the spirit of some god who also loved Mantis and holy crap old Avengers comics were weird. But the new Swordsman? Nothing.

But I want to complete the Thunderbolts team after spending forever trying to find Bullseye & Moonstone.

The other figure it comes with, Cosmic Silver Surfer, is pretty much the Silver Surfer with some transparent lightning bolts from that are reuses from the Electro figure and the all purpose "energy" fists used in the mini-mate line. I've already got a Silver Surfer figure, but this one comes with a board that has pegs for his feet and a base to make it appear like it's floating. THAT IS FRICKING AWESOME!

So hey, two figures I'm really excited about. SOLID.

I'm totally putting the Surfer next to Might Muggs Galactus.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 08

Bring it on Day 8!

Hokay, so we've given up on the winter theme then. It's a roadblock. Or a Road Block. I think they're both acceptable. It's stuff like this that pretty much reminds you that Lego is a European property.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 07

Okay folks, it's day 7 and that means we're a week into our journey of the Lego City Advent Calendar. Let's open it up and see what we get.

It's a police officer. With a mustache! And what I assume is a megaphone. Maybe it's a radar gun? Or maybe it's a sonic gun. Either way, a police officer is an interesting addition. You can't have a city without a police officer. But is it Christmas related? No. But do I care? No. I've got a Lego Police Officer! I've made a conscious decision not to buy expensive Lego sets solely for the minifigures, because when you get down to it they're not worth paying big money for, even though I appear to be the only to believe that. (I value them at $1 at most. Officially they're valued at $2.50 - $5 a piece. Unofficially they're valued at $2 - $20. For Lego minifigures. Fricking collector's market.) But I do like minifigures. Unfortunately as a result of my policy I don't have a lot of good minifigures. So getting something like this is a nice surprise.

Mini Tie-Fighter

You know when I first heard that Target was having holiday special Star Wars Legos available for stocking stuffers I was skeptical since I had already seen the stocking stuffer Legos in Target and they were Racers, not Star Wars. But I was also excited, because having not gotten into Legos until this year, I missed out on the cool Star Wars Legos from the original trilogy, instead stuck with this Clone Wars animated stuff. So I kept my eyes open and BAM found them and then I tried to remember why I was excited. Because looking at the ones that were available did not excite me. They weren't iconic ships, they were representations of ships I didn't know.

Then today I was in a Target Christmas shopping (for toys, because that's all I give my friends because adult presents are expensive) and BOOM, what did I see?

Tie Fighter.


Oh right, that's why I originally got excited.

It's not bad, the minis always suffer from lack of detail because that's the nature of the beast.

Here's a shot next to a minifigure so you can get a sense of scale.


I like this, not a GREAT representation of a tie fighter, but you get it. Although it's a little fragile. I've already lost a piece somewhere in my living room. I'm sure it'll turn up, but it's so tiny that it might not. Although on the bright side, it's not a piece that's immeadiately noticeable.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 06

Moving into Day 6 we find that the Advent Calendar provides us with...



A lamp post. I guess that's Christmassy. Sort of. It has a holly sort of thing going on. I'm not really sold on it.

House of M Spider-Man & Scorpion

Based on all the various toylines that use House of M Spider-Man as a variant, he seems pretty popular. I have no idea why. It's an okay design but without the a black spider logo I feel like something's missing.

But I didn't get this set for another version of minimate Spider-Man, nay nay. I got it for minimate Scorpion. Look at him, and his tail! Cool, until you open it up and realize that the tail's got almost no articualtion (one cut joint halfway through and a loost ball joint that keeps popping it out attached to the back harness.) Also, heavy as hell. The figure can't stand up on it's own. If you rest him on the tail he can kind of lean back in a way that isn't too bad, but this is not a self-supporting minimate.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 05

Day 5 of the Advent Calendar brings us...



So is this a... bench? A ice skating stall? It's something with two ice-skates and an awning of some sort. I'm going to go with an ice-skate market stall.

Lego City Advent Calendar: Day 04

Oh Advent Calendar, what does Day 4 hold for us?


Another kid in a helmet? Hmm, and a slightly better accessorised one at that. Nice scarf. And ice skates. How will he affect the dynamic of the unfolding Lego Winter scene?