lego: chima legend beast crocodile

Well, I was correct, not only am I well on my way to picking up all of the Lego Chima Legend Beasts, but the Crocodile was a unique build.

Unfortunately I put off building the set until the sun was disappearing out of my living room at a rate of knots... so while these photos start out with lovely directional light, it disappears not long into the build.

I did take some time to knoll out the pieces once again, it definitely makes it easier to put the sets together, but I couldn't see myself doing it on a large set as you'd lose all your build space to the knolling.

I quite like the Cragger minifigure... especially with his moulded crocodile mask/head taken off, and it's definitely one of the more interesting weapons.

I'd love to see what other uses the Lego community has put the lower jaw tile to, it's fairly specific, and to be honest I kind of expected it to be a sticker, since most of the other sets (this one included) have been heavy on the stickers.

I couldn't help thinking that this looked like either the world's strangest train or else some sort of post-apocalyptical car and trailer.

The use of the green "claw" pieces as back ridges was a nice touch, as was the curved bricks split across the two parts to make up the croc's body.

I don't understand the silver claw pieces on the front feet though. I could kind of understand if they were pointed up or outwards, but pointed in like that just seems strange.

This is definitely the longest of the Beasts, but the articulation in the tail and the middle of the body make for some more interesting poses. In some ways it's strange that the head doesn't swivel at the neck, but I think you'd get into some trouble with the front feet if it did.

The top jaw is the last thing (other than the little handrail section for Cragger to sit behind), and it's the most interesting part of the build as far as I'm concerned. Especially with the white tooth pieces which I haven't encountered before, and the extra large tooth piece just adds an extra something to it.

I was also impressed to see that the jaw is still able to completely close.

As much as I wasn't overly interested in this set initially, I think it comes in just in front of the gorilla, but still behind the eagle and the wolf. And I'm definitely going to have to take a little side trip to Target some time tomorrow and see if I can get my hands on the lion.

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shopping with the blue and yellow

It was a very Swedish kind of day...

No prizes for guessing where we ended up today.

The day started out in the usual fashion... it wasn't as cold as yesterday morning, but it was still freaking cold. So after a very warm shower and rugging up nice and warmly (in pretty much the same outfit that kept me warm through all of yesterday), I headed downstairs to find Ma just getting out of her car.

Shopping was somewhat on the lighter side... partly because I didn't fill up half the trolley with all manner of vegetables... I thought that this week instead of the usual soup or stew I've been making for lunches, I might try my hand at my Tuna Mornay again (the twelfth ever post on this blog, all the way back in 2005... and I just realised that I totally forgot my ninth blogiversary, but at least I blogged on the day in question).

I also picked up a fourth Lego Chima Legend Beast (the crocodile) during a wander around Target... but I just realised that means that the only one I'm now missing is the lion, so I might need to pick that one up just so I have the whole set, especially while Target has their Toy Sale on.

Then after a detour to the North Adelaide Village to pick up my drycleaning and grab some more coin bags from the bank (I swear I have a bunch of them somewhere, I just don't know where they are... mostly likely in the last remaining moving box, but that's a pain to go through), we headed back here for the usual unpacking and whatnot.

Because I got my (very true and also) signed Tyler Oakley "I can't stop watching YouTubers" poster earlier this week, a trip to IKEA was in order to pick up a frame big enough to hold it.

I also realised that I no longer had a dish big enough to hold all of the Tuna Mornay, so that was also on the list, as was a water glass for work. However the additional bathmat, new toilet mat (whatever they're officially called), the suction cup mirror for in the shower and the solar powered lamp with the spherical base were all "impulse" buys.

The lamp will be pretty good if it manages to pick up enough solar power from it's place on my bedside drawers during the day.

Ma was looking for some inspiration on storing her jewellery, but nothing jumped out at her even though there were a bunch of possibilities... we may have to workshop the concept for a while before we get there.

Then on the way back to my place we stopped off at Bunnings to pick up a couple more Command hooks to hang the frame I just bought, and also grabbed a couple of others to hopefully hang a few more pieces.

And that was that really... the poster looks pretty good in the frame, I just need to get around to hanging it on the wall, the lamp seems to be working okay, or at least it did once I actually figured it the hell out (it shouldn't have been that complicated, but remembering to actually pay attention to the instructions helped), although the suction cup mirror seems to be a bit of a lost cause because I can't get the damn thing to stick to the tiles. I'll need to give it another try later, or work out a different way to use the mirror.

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photo friday: knitted

Given how cold it's been today I figured a little knitted artwork was more than appropriate.

We haven't visited our old friend the dot point round up in a while, and given that this evening kind of got away from me, let's try that...

• Josh and I took our "very long conversations" to a whole new level when I swung past his place last Sunday to pick up my Spirited artworks... and left four hours later.
• I finally heard from Tink on Tuesday, she had the baby on the weekend, another little girl... so there goes my theory about boys for all the pregnant ladies I know.
• Work has been a little quieter this week, only to get slightly mental today... but on the up side, something I was doing to keep myself occupied for the most part is something I was going to need to do next week anyway.
• I forgot Random Hotness again this week... I am wondering if it might be time to retire that particular feature, but then I would mostly end up just blogging on Fridays and Saturdays... I dunno, it's something to ponder.
• This morning on my walk I didn't exactly fall, but I slipped and even though I did an, under the circumstances, elegant slide to the floor rather than a fall, I still scraped my knee all to buggery.
• People who aren't me generally complain about the temperature of our office. And I won't lie, it's cool enough that I now wear layers in the office, but today was SO cold because of the wind that I was wearing a sweater AND a scarf for the whole day.
• I'm enjoying flicking between my usual chiro and the other chiro on staff (and for the purposes of clarity, at least to me, I'm going to start referring to them as Tick, my usual chiro, and Tock, the other chiro.. TOC, geddit)... especially since I got some shoulder massage action that rendered me physically speechless.
• This evening was the opening of Gary Seaman's new show Hiraeth at Tooth and Nail Gallery... and due to a rescheduled chiro appointment I was able to hang around the city and head along. It's definitely a different direction for Gary, and a couple of the pieces had me wishing for a) more available wall space and b) more disposable cash.
• I did get to hang out with Josh some more and say hi to Gary briefly, but it was also interesting now many other artists I recognised while I was wandering around, not to mention former clients of Josh's.

So not the most epic of weeks, but it definitely ended on a high note.

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lego minifigures series 12

I've been waiting for this image to drop for several weeks now and finally, after teasing almost half the figures in other places, the official group shot for Lego Minifigures Series 12 has arrived!

• Video Game Guy
• Prospector
• Rock Star
• Swashbuckler
• Jester
• Fairy Tale Princess
• Spooky Girl
• Pizza Delivery Man
• Hun Warrior
• Genie Girl
• Lifeguard
• Wizard
• Dino Tracker
• Space Miner
• Battle Goddess
• Pig Suit Guy

They're definitely back to full power with these sets, because I'm loving this series to bits. Particular favourites are the Video Game Guy (aka Gamer... I imagine I'll be getting at least one extra version of him), the Spooky Girl (especially the Goth teddy bear), the Battle Goddess, the Lifesaver (because, Lego abs), the Pig Suit Guy (there will have to be an extra one for Ma because she's born in the Year of the Pig), the Hun Warrior, the Jester (LOVE those playing card tiles) and the Genie Girl.

I also love that they've gone for a very Ramones vibe for the Rock Star rather than something more generic.

I'm a little so-so about the Dino Hunter (aka Lara Croft/Katniss hybrid), but I think that's mostly about her hair. The Prospector is cute, but the Space Miner is a bit ho-hum. I'm also not that bothered about the colour choices on the Pizza Guy and the Fairytale Princess. The Swashbuckler should have been right up my alley, but that open shirt is just TOO open. I think I'll need to wait until I see both him and the Wizard in person (or at least until I see the review from WhiteFang over at Eurobrick forums).

But overall I'm one very happy AFOL... Roll on October!

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ghibli inspired saturday art and shopping

Today has been an excellent day... an excellent, art filled, revisiting kind of day.

Today was the day for Spirited, a Studio Ghibli inspired art exhibition masterminded by my friend Josh from Espionage Gallery and hosted with help from the fine people at Splash Adelaide.

And this morning couldn't have been any more perfect for a Ghibli exhibition... when I jumped out of bed I discovered that a thick mist had settled in over everything... I could only see about a block... and the city, which usually dominates the skyline from my bedroom window was completely gone!

So in the spirit of the day, I threw on my Lego Castle Forestman logo shirt and my fluffy green scarf and off we went.

We perhaps got a little more overexcited than usual at the supermarket, at least the total came out slightly higher than usual. But because we were working to a timeframe we kept our wandering to the bare minimum and headed straight back here.

Then we took ourselves off to the Himeji Gardens in the Southern Parklands.

We arrived literally just before they opened the doors and were amongst the first few inside the gardens after a quick chat with Josh.

It was a fantastic location for an art show... with pieces hidden all around the gardens and hanging from trees. Even if they did have to wrap them in Gladwrap to keep the moisture out.

In addition there were a number of Ghibli characters dotted around the gardens... Totoro, Ponyo, Kiki's cat Jiji, the Kodama forest spirits... and they all looked brilliant, especially the umbrella toting Totoro (the one in the image at the top of the post) welcoming visitors just outside the gates.

I've been squirreling away whatever leftover cash I've had at the end of the week since I started working again, and once I knew this exhibition was coming it became my "art fund"... at least in part.

I also had a little mental caveat in place that I was going to specifically looking for anything Porco Rosso related (which is my favourite Ghibli movie) or else anything that I fell completely in love with.

Sadly there was only one Porco piece and to be honest it just didn't grab me... however I did see and fall in love with two pieces inspired by Princess Mononoke.

There was less variety than I was perhaps expecting... there were a large number of Mononoke pieces, a fair few Spirited Away pieces, but only two pieces from Howl's Moving Castle (although one of those, the feather piece in the previous set of images was very loosely themed), one from Ponyo and only a couple from some of the other movies.

Ma, who is a much bigger fan of the movies than I am, bought herself a Spirited Away print and the aforementioned feather print, so I'll go and pick them all up from Josh tomorrow.

After we came out I picked up a couple of blindbox vinyl toys left over from the physical gallery days and we bought some Nutella, peanut butter and chocolate chunk cookies. They were great cookies, unfortunately it was three for $2.50, and Ma and I had one each... but accidentally left the third one on one of the Splash Adelaide tables. Whoops.

From there we headed into the city and after a couple of missed opportunities we happened to find a car park literally outside of the Museum.

Which was great, because we were headed off to see The Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize for the eighth year running.

Every year we swear that we shouldn't go on the opening weekend, and every year we do... but to be honest, as aggravating as it can be I'm not sure it would get any better later in the run.

This year was something of a mid-range showing... there were some very good artworks and some really sub standard ones, but not very much with a major WOW factor.

And once again I really couldn't understand why some of the pieces had gotten "Highly Commended" prizes whereas far superior (at least in my estimations) seemed to be overlooked.

My personal favourite was Thoughts on the Frailty of Life II by Maureen Prichard so that was an easy choice for the People's Choice Award, whereas trying to chose a piece for the other prize, Dr Wendy Wickes Memoriam Prize, which needed to "communicated the most significant scientific message", which was a much harder decision.

Actually it makes more sense now that I read the blurb about it on the website, but with only the above phrase to go on it was a tough choice.

And we won't even talk about overhearing some monumentally stupid conversations going on between people wandering around in the exhibition.

Afterwards we had a brief wander over to the Mall, I poked around the Apple store to see how much an iPad Mini would set me back (short answer, more than I'm willing to pay at present), had a brief yet unsuccessful hunt for some colourful yet cheap nail polish for Ma and then decided to head back to the Himeji Gardens to grab some lunch from whatever food trucks had shown up.

The trucks in question turned out to be Hot Mumma's Curries and Chimichurri Grill, so we hit Hot Mumma and I had the Korma Roll, Ma had the chicken wrap and then we split a serve of Chimichurri fries, because to be honest, they make the BEST fries of all the food trucks!

And then we headed back into the Gardens for another look at the exhibition now that the sun had (mostly) come out.

We arrived just in time for the Umehara bamboo flute performance... which was really lovely. And I just wanted to adopt the amazing old Japanese man playing the flute (in that whole, "please be my grandpa and tell me stories about the old country" kind of way).

He was so sweet, especially when he was telling the crowd about the tradition of the performances and being generally adorable.

And he had his (I'm guessing anyway) son playing the drums with him, and while he never did that whole "drumsticks over his head" style of dramatic Japanese drumming, he was also brilliant... not to mention as cute as a button.

Ma, along with a large chunk of the crowd, also got to be part of the performance when they handed out a bunch of cute traditional Japanese instruments, whistles and things to make the "sounds of the forest".

Technically it should have been a total cacophonous disaster since everyone was just playing whatever they felt like, whenever they felt like it, but somehow it all came together.

Then, after helping Josh out with sticking "sold" stickers on a couple of pieces, we called it a day.

Well, we would have called it a total day, had Ma not turned the car in the direction of Haighs.

Neither of us went especially overboard, but it's hard to resist their "seconds". It was a nice end to the day though, nothing like a good bit of chocolate to round out an excellent day.

So that was our very arty, inspired and all around enjoyable day.

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photo friday: petals

This has been a tough week. Of course all things are relative and it's not like I had to defuse nuclear weapons, conduct a symphony or conduct international espionage or anything, but relatively speaking, it's been tough.

Last Sunday was, in equal measure, a day well spent and a day completely wasted.

I had a rental inspection on Tuesday morning, so I spent the first five hours of Sunday cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing the toilet, vacuuming the carpet and doing all the other things that I've put off doing around the house since I tweaked my back (and, to be honest, a few other things that I've been putting off just because they didn't really need to be done, but since I was already in the zone, I figured I may as well do them).

I also discovered that there was a tiny amount of water running down the brick wall by the door... related, one can only assume, to the water that had been dripping from above the door a few months back but not quite so dramatic. So that was something else to go on the short list of issues to leave for my land agent.

Another issue was the fact that my smoke alarm started bleeping on a regular basis on Sunday morning. I say regular, but what I really mean is it did it twice and I took it down off the ceiling and took the battery out. Interestingly since the battery was replaced on Tuesday it hasn't been going off at the proverbial drop of a hat and I've cooked meat in my frying pan twice now (that was usually what set it off).

But back to the cleaning... I gave the apartment a good going over and it all looks fresh and tidy and lovely... which is always nice!

The remainder of Sunday was spent laying on my bed watching RuPaul's Drag Race, because I figured that I'd earned it by that point.

The great thing was that at no point on Sunday was my back a major drama. Yes, I was careful and aware of it, even though there was a fair degree of careful bending, but I felt generally fine.

Cue Monday morning... yeah, not so much.

At various points during the week I've been in somewhat varying degrees of pain throughout the day, which never makes me all sunshine and rainbows to be around. And this is really where most of the toughness has happened during this week. I think I probably stressed the muscles in my lower back out a little since that's what's really been more and more achey as the week has progressed. Thankfully I had a chiro appointment this afternoon at lunch time, so my ever lovely chiro was able to wrangle my back into a more appropriate configuration.

After the inspection on Tuesday I got home to find that my lovely land agent had replaced the battery in my smoke alarm as well as returning it to the ceiling and put some graphite powder in my locks as I'd mentioned one of them was becoming incredibly hard to turn. Yay for efficient rental personnel. However I also walked in to find that there was water dripping from over the door again.

And I also discovered that I'd paid an old gas account number instead of the correct account number, so there was an overdue notice waiting for me in the letterbox.

Le sigh.

Fortunately that was easily fixed thanks to the awesome Amy who I called the following morning at the gas company.

The dripping thing is less easy as it's a strata/outside issue, so it's not controlled by my land agent, hence I'm still waiting for something to happen. But on the up side, the water has stopped dripping from over the door and returned to running down the wall periodically. And I'd be more concerned about that if it wasn't disappearing once it gets to the floor and not doing anything to the carpet, at least as far as I can tell.

Just to round out some general whinging about stuff, there's either a new dog in the neighbourhood or a dog that has recently lost its mind because it keeps continually barking. In fact, it's doing it right now while I type this. Thankfully it's not really close, but it’s close enough that I can hear it from the bedroom window, but it's too far away to work out where the hell it actually is. Shut up dog, seriously, you're bat shit crazy and barking at NOTHING!

Also work has been a little bit mental... I spend the majority of Tuesday making a spreadsheet full of survey data sit up and beg. I'll be honest, I was annoyed at the beginning of the day because I knew how long it was going to take, but by the end of the day I was loving myself sick because it's seriously one of my favourite things to do... I love taking a bunch of data and turning it into a chart producing machine. I think I've said it before, but while I'm in no way, shape or form a numbers person, I fucking LOVE putting together a great spreadsheet that calculates things and counts them and has formulas and shit.

Then yesterday I didn't feel like I had a chance to catch my breath for most of the day... but as I keep reminding myself, it's better than the alternative.

Today was better, and since I had the chiro appointment I even went out at lunch time which I don't usually do. I even stopped by JB HiFi to take advantage of their TV sale (Dollhouse and Teen Wolf).

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