NWI INGO General Post - Part 8

[actaeon277]

Another day wasted due to migraine.
Ugh.
INGO and sleep.
I need to get up, pay bills, get Christmas cards out, and change my locks.

 

[Snapdragon]

Bacon Tattoos | Inked Magazine

Love the bacon and eggs skull and crossbones.

 

[Snapdragon]

Another day wasted due to migraine.
Ugh.
INGO and sleep.
I need to get up, pay bills, get Christmas cards out, and change my locks.

Christmas cards?

Migraines suck. I get them too.

 

[actaeon277]

Christmas cards?

Migraines suck. I get them too.

Yes, I might be a little late on them.

 

[danmdevries]

TAXES DONE!!!!

And I got my biggest refund in many years.

Enough for a nice dinner AND a nice cigar AND a nice bottle of spirits. Not much more though.

Income however was the lowest in 3 years...

 

[bradmedic04]

Retail price for the ruger is going to be around $450 IJRC from the SHOT SHOW video.




I did say good bye to the LEGOs for close to 8 years you know when the 1st child was born and they had the whole color mess and death to 9v trains.
Only reason I am semi back is the kids like them and it is a toy I am willing to buy for them for educational/imagination value.
The glory days of Jedi's LEGO are sadly in the past.

So you CAN but you choose NOT to and that is OK.
So long as you understand that it is a CHOICE you are making.



Them days are nnnneeeeevvvveeeeerrrr coming back.

Wait wait wait. Hold on. Did you refer to them as LEGOs with an s? Are you ok?

 

[danmdevries]

I did say good bye to the LEGO for close to 8 years you know when the 1st child was born and they had the whole color mess and death to 9v trains.
Only reason I am semi back is the kids like them and it is a toy I am willing to buy for them for educational/imagination value.
The glory days of Jedi's LEGO are sadly in the past.

I actually like some of the modern LEGO sets.

The mindstorm and Technic series both embody old school LEGO philosophy of build what you can imagine from this big box of plastic bits.

But, without a good amount of experience following directions on the sets and buildling, rebuildling, modifying etc, you'll never be able to piece together anything remotely interesting.

So, though LEGO 'purists' may not like the modern LEGO set, the old philosophy exists in their other brands. Maybe not so much in their main sets which are basically 3d puzzles (which I enjoy very much thank you). I won't buy a set if it is just full of precast pieces made just for that set, I prefer to buy sets that are mostly "stock" pieces despite the fact that I build them, and set them on a shelf. Sometimes I'll take them down and rebuild into an alternate model (with directions) but that's not often.

I do still want a LEGO train, just haven't gotten around to buying one. Maybe with this 20% off coupon I've got I'll pick one up. Depends on retail in-store with coupon vs online price...

Wait wait wait. Hold on. Did you refer to them as LEGOs with an s? Are you ok?

Y'know for all his grammar and spelling errors, LEGO was one of the few words he consistently used and spelled properly despite the common usage of the incorrect LEGOS.

Jedi must be ill.

 

[actaeon277]

[video=youtube;b6UAYGxiRwU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6UAYGxiRwU[/video]

 

[chef larry]

Nope, I didn't get out of there till a little after 10. I thought they still had win 222 packs when I left. What did you wind up with?

Nothing. I was looking for CCI mini mags. Will be back Friday morning.

 

[chef larry]

I guess I just have to get it out of my head that they are still $99 (my last one was $75). I know they are well worth it, but I can't see myself paying over $120-$150 for a base model, which makes $240 for the LTR still outrageous. Guess I'm just caught up in the good ole days.

Back in 1971 when I started driving gas was 31 cents a gallon. Look at it now.

 

[danmdevries]

Hm. Maybe I could pre-spend some of my return and stimulate the local economy by smoking.

Speaking of stimulating... Bob, did you ever try that bottle of MCM I gave you?

 

[jedi]

TAXES DONE!!!!

And I got my biggest refund in many years.

Enough for a nice dinner AND a nice cigar AND a nice bottle of spirits. Not much more though.

Income however was the lowest in 3 years...

Lucky you!
I am still need to get all the donations in order.
Hopefully by this weekend or next.

 

[danmdevries]

Geez, my fingertips are blanched.

Basement is only 56°F and I've been sitting down here doing my taxes for three hours, a lil chilled.

 

[jedi]

Wait wait wait. Hold on. Did you refer to them as LEGOs with an s? Are you ok?

Even Jedi sometimes falls to the DARK SIDE and gets on your level with the text.
Besides Jedi was on the train with GG at the time of that writing and it's hard to concentrate with the fear of an APPLE product appearing out of no where!

 

[chef larry]

Yes, I might be a little late on them.

NO. Just early for this year.

 

[danmdevries]

Lucky you!
I am still need to get all the donations in order.
Hopefully by this weekend or next.

I probably missed a couple things that'll come in the mail in the next week or so, but my itemized deductions were about 800 less than std. Charitable contributions that I can provide documentation on, probably less than 1k. I have receipts for 600ish, figure even if I do have over 1k, it's not going to make that big a difference and I'd rather just get it DONE. Typically I file around early mid March. Feels good to have it done and over with.

 

[aclark]

Back in 1971 when I started driving gas was 31 cents a gallon. Look at it now.

Yea but the days of the $99 Marlin are only about 3-4 years gone. The one I got for $75 was on sale for $99 at Dick's and then they had a $25 MIR as well. This was in 2010 I think.

 

[danmdevries]

Got the clubhouse all to myself. Watching this old house with a La Palina KB corona.

 

[jedi]

I actually like some of the modern LEGO sets.

The mindstorm and Technic series both embody old school LEGO philosophy of build what you can imagine from this big box of plastic bits.

But, without a good amount of experience following directions on the sets and buildling, rebuildling, modifying etc, you'll never be able to piece together anything remotely interesting.

So, though LEGO 'purists' may not like the modern LEGO set, the old philosophy exists in their other brands. Maybe not so much in their main sets which are basically 3d puzzles (which I enjoy very much thank you). I won't buy a set if it is just full of precast pieces made just for that set, I prefer to buy sets that are mostly "stock" pieces despite the fact that I build them, and set them on a shelf. Sometimes I'll take them down and rebuild into an alternate model (with directions) but that's not often.

I do still want a LEGO train, just haven't gotten around to buying one. Maybe with this 20% off coupon I've got I'll pick one up. Depends on retail in-store with coupon vs online price...



Y'know for all his grammar and spelling errors, LEGO was one of the few words he consistently used and spelled properly despite the common usage of the incorrect LEGOS.

Jedi must be ill.

Jedi fell out of love with The LEGO Company (TLC) when they started using flesh color faces, changed the color scheme slightly and killed the 9v trains. This all occurred during the early 2000s. The color scheme did not really affect Jedi as the new colors were OK. You could tell the difference between the greys but apart from that the other colors were a very close match. TLC never came out publicly on why they had to change the colors a bit. The rumor is that the old colors used lead in the process as did some of TLC's competition and to avoid any type of lawsuit TLC just like other building blocks companies quietly changed their coloring processes. IRJC MegaBlock actually went into litigation over lead traces in their products before it was dropped/settled out of court. One can say the color change was the 1st nail in the coffin.

The second was the flesh color which TLG converted to during the middle years of the 1st star wars license. At first TLC used yellow for all the faces but the big 'crises' was what to do about lando. They went with a brown face and converted all the rest of the figures to flesh color. Prior to this all LEGO minifigs had yellow faces apart from one set which was of Native Americans that used a redish huge for their faces from back in the late 60s.

TLC official stance on this change was that the star wars universe represented REAL LIFE actors and as such in order to ensure they were properly represented a 'truer' color would be used for them. They caved to the PC of the day if you ask Jedi! Granted the minfigs do look 'better' in flesh color as they more closely resemble the actors/characters but at the time same LEGO has always been about using your imagination. A few blocks can represent anything to a child. They can be an x-wing, a spaceship, a race car, etc. Yellow minifigs represented everyone as there was no race in the LEGO universe. Again Jedi rolled with the punches and allowed the change.

The final nail that finally made be walk away from TLC was the death of 9v trains. LEGO trains have never been a strong category for TLC in the USA. The price point for a basic set was and still is too high for many. TLC wanted to move to something more economical and modular with their robotics sets. What that product became was the new train sets that you see now which are just as expensive as before and blow! The only good thing about them is the track that is more flexible but for die-hard train fans we lost a lot of functionality.

That was the 3rd nail in the coffin within the span of 18 months that finally made Jedi become a fallen Jedi and walk away.

 

[jedi]

I probably missed a couple things that'll come in the mail in the next week or so, but my itemized deductions were about 800 less than std. Charitable contributions that I can provide documentation on, probably less than 1k. I have receipts for 600ish, figure even if I do have over 1k, it's not going to make that big a difference and I'd rather just get it DONE. Typically I file around early mid March. Feels good to have it done and over with.

Not going to make a difference as the IRS has stated that no checks will be going out until last week in FEB at the earliest due to YOUR congress waiting until the last minute so the IRS is behind scheudle.