1285 Nightbeat.

Thanks for the various content suggestions. I appreciated them all. Haunting Hour is what I’ve been watching although that accounts for all of 3 hours worth of my time. Still, the first episode was a creepy doll one, which is a good start. I’ve been falling asleep early, like right after I get the Teen to sleep, then I wake up way too early and cant go back to sleep. anywhere from 3-5 AM after going to bed at 12 or so. Which makes the afternoon incredibly hard to bear. Because I want a 3 hour nap at some point. Unfortunately our society doesn’t take naps into account. Which is a damn shame, I suspect a lot of the world’s problems could be solved by controlled napping. Really I think a lot of people are just cranky babies who need a bit of a lie down.

Mega Bloks has expanded their Call Of Duty Zombies sets. Really they amount to army builders for zombies in different clothes, but they are still pretty cool. They made a little farm for Tranzit and a prison for… whatever that DLC is called. I kind of wish they’d make some civilians, or maybe make a deal with State Of Decay so I could have a Marcus figure. XD The problem with Mega Bloks, unfortunately, is quality control. I’ve noticed that the base plates have a tendency to not exactly be flat, or even get uneven spacing from one end to another. It’s not a massive problem generally, but it happens more often than it does with Lego. And these days their prices more or less match Lego, so it’s less a question of them being the cheaper option and more of them getting away with doing shabbier work. On average I’ve had few problems, but I have had them. That said, they upgraded the Halo figures to more closely match the COD line. They are more articulated now, and have customizable armor. (there’s also a set of lime green Spartans that I am drawn to…) I like where they are going with the ideas they have.

I’m not a huge fan of the traditional Lego minifigure. I liked the movie, and whatnot, but I prefer the Friends style minifigs. It’s just a preference I have. The problem with Lego Friends is that it has a tie in narrative that restricts creation of generic figures. It doesn’t have to, but that’s how Lego chooses to play it. Really the problem comes down to the same kind of problem you have with all Lego figures. The only way to differentiate between characters is accessories. In the main like that comes down to faces, hats, and bodies, just like with Friends, but there are a lot more hats and hair to choose from. Basically Lego needs to make some new hair packs, or assortments of generic figures, kind of like the blind bags they’ve done with the traditional lines. Of course none of that is important in any real way, I just want to talk about it as an enthusiast.

Here’s something odd about Lego Friends; girl hair is a soft vinyl like substance, but boy hair is hard, glossy, plastic like regular figures. Not that there are a lot of male characters to begin with, but of the sets that do have them this difference is present. Is it cost saving? Is it an aesthetic choice? Is it so you know not to switch girl hair with boy hair? I’m really curious about it. My guess is it’s cost saving. They don’t need to have the ability to add accessories, because boys generally don’t wear bows, so you just make the hair out of the materials you would already have on hand that are cheaper.

Did you know you can order specific legos in some cases? I found the option in their online store. There are limitations, but you can just order bags of green bricks if that’s what you want. Here’s the problem though, there’s terminology involved. You have to figure out what different kind of bricks are named in their system. It’s easy enough for regular bricks, but what about wall paneling? I was just looking to see what was available and was like “What the heck would you call this?” Their system makes sense one you figure out the pattern, but I was like “People actually had to sit down and agree on what all this stuff is called.” Like some kind of Lego naming summit.

You can get standard bricks in most colors, but wall panels and stuff tend to be restricted to one or two tones. Which is fine, I understand why you’d need to do that. The actual price per Lego is interesting to take note of. It’s also something I’d never thought much about. What got me going on this whole thing was kind of my research into doing better backgrounds. It got me looking at architecture which got me wanting to build stuff, which led me back to Lego.

They have this cool set of white bricks for making mock ups of buildings and such. It’s super expensive but I want to play with it. It looks so fresh and clean. XD Like building stuff out of toothpaste.