Swans on Tea

… and friends

Collection of 10 Distribution Plushies

They are claimed to be anatomically correct.

LEGO + kinetic sculpture = AWESOME

[Shakes fist at sky] Think Geeeeeek!

Back when the Monolith Action Figure was just an April Fool’s joke, I wrote

I wonder of this will turn into a real product, not just available on Europa, based on consumer demand. I’d buy one.

It’s now a real product. When you click on Buy Now it takes you to a real shopping cart, instead of a gotcha! page. I am following through on my vow (Ha! Who says I’ve got commitment issues?!)

They still bring the snark, though. There are some LEGO™ randomly selected toys, and they tell you

-Random packed means you have a 1 in 16 chance of getting any particular figure

-For liberal arts school graduates: Ordering 16 will not “guarantee” you get all 16 figures.

The Reverse Geocache™ Puzzle Box

A puzzle box that can only be opened when at a particular location.

MakerLegoBot is made of Lego, makes things out of Lego, is so meta it hurts

Building things out of Lego? Lots of fun. Building a thing out of Lego that itself builds other things out of Lego? That’s totally mindblowing, and that’s what Mindstorm master Will Gorman managed here with his MakerLegoBot masterpiece. The machine takes input from a PC running MLCAD, a sort of industrial design tool for blocknauts, and then churns out anything you like — so long as it is comprised of 1×2, 2×2, 3×2, 4×2, and 8×2 bricks.

All we need is a LEGO robot to play with the finished product, and we’re all set.

More accurately, it’s “Backflip, Frog! Backflip!”

My sister had bought some of these toys for the purpose of distracting small children (with whom she works), and since I often play a small children on not-TV, I had to film it. Unfortunately I was lacking in the proper lighting equipment and it was raining, I made do with indoor lighting and my one lamp. Ergo, it’s a little dark (as far as the lighting goes. The plot is rather uplifting, I would say) though I was able to improve it a little with iMovie.

How to revive dry Play-Doh

After months of tinkering, I have discovered the best and easiest way to restore dry Play-Doh to its perfect state (besides Hasbro’s former suggestion that you buy a new can).

Several decades too late to help me, which I assume is everybody’s first concern, but good to know nonetheless. Tinkering to systematically find the best method. That’s science, baby!

How to make a square egg

A Common Nomenclature for Lego Families

Thousands of different Lego exist, yet when your seven-year-old asks for “a clippy bit,” you know exactly what to hand him. GILES TURNBULL surveys a caucus of children and determines a common nomenclature.

Back when I was a youngster, many of these pieces did not exist in our LEGO™ collection. (Can I have my curmudgeon certificate now?) Mainly it was the single- and double-wide pieces, of standard thickness and the thin plate pieces, and 4×4 roof pieces: angled, and interior and exterior corners. Not much more than that. I think I noticed the explosion of newer pieces with the introduction of the spaceship sets my brother got: hinged and rotating pieces, non-rectangular plates and real windows.

It’s only a model.

Found one of these in our group’s mailbox one recent morning.

Building a Model Block IIR(M) Satellite

Best result with titanium and space-hardened electronics heavy card stock.

The Avenging Narwhal play set.

Comes with multiple tusks and “three adorable animals to impale”: seal, penguin, and … koala bear.

Not for children under three, because of the choking hazard. Not because of the “appropriateness” of the toy.