Kategoriarkiv: International

Sarah Alainn’s second album: ”Sarah”

Lämna ett svar

Two years after her debut album, Sarah Alainn, known to gamers as the voice behind Xenoblade Chronicles, returns with a brand new album produced by none other than the legendary Chrono Trigger and Xenogears composer Yasunori Mitsuda. It has great potential and lives up to much of it.

”Sarah” is a collection of original songs and covers with a focus on soundtrack classics. ”A Time For Us” from the 1968 version of Romeo & Julia opens strongly and is one of the better songs, while ”Les Parapluies de Cherbourg” is a jazzy, slighly boring French song from the musical movie with the same name. Other covers include ”The Prayer”, a beautiful ballad by David Foster who wrote absolute classics like ”I Will Always Love You”, ”Glory of Love” and ”You’re the Inspiration”. This goes a bit too much into Whitney Houston territory, but shows that Sarah, despite a more slender voice, can belt out mighty tunes. Then there’s ”I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Miserables, a classic done by tons of singers. Sarah’s version would be one of the better, if not for a grating church organ that only goes away for the mighty second part. ... Läs hela texten

How to piece together a UCS Millennium Falcon (or any other expensive out-of-print Lego set)

4 svar

So, you’re into Lego and you have a bit of cash to spend, and there’s lots of sets that you really want. The problem is, the sets you want went out of print years ago, and when you look for the sets on Ebay or Amazon they cost ten times what they used to or more. The good news is: it doesn’t really have to cost that much. Lego is Lego is Lego. A 2×4 brick is the same whether it came in the Millennium Falcon or in a starter box. And there are plenty of people who sell parts at nearly retail price (commonly $0.1 per standard part). The bad news is: it’s still gonna cost you. ... Läs hela texten

Completing Lego Café Corner (10182)

Lämna ett svar

It’s funny, isn’t it? When you proclaim that something isn’t going to happen, the chances of it happening increase tenfold. I once said that I was never going to the United States, and if I were, at least I would never go to Los Angeles. I’ve been to the US, twice. Both times in Los Angeles. Funny how that works.

I also said that even though I had bought Market Street, Green Grocer, Fire Brigade, Pet Shop, Grand Emporium and Parisian Restaurant, I wouldn’t get Café Corner. The first of Lego’s incredible line of modular houses was simply too expensive, and besides, it was too tall to fit in my shelves. And now it sits here at my desk, waiting for a slight modification to trim it down a little. ... Läs hela texten

Lego MOC: Café Corner interiors

Lämna ett svar

Well, I’ve done it. Somehow it started with me wanting to get one or two of the Bike Shop & Café sets, to combine into something that could become the start of a new custom Lego modular building. Then I thought that I could spend that money on pieces for the actual Café Corner, the first of the original houses. Then I spent that money, and more, and now I have all of it. It just needs to be built, which I’ll get started on shortly.

However, as the first modular, Café Corner didn’t have any interiors. This was partly as a specific idea to promote custom builds, and partly to reduce the part count. So the entire thing has three empty floors. While waiting to start the building itself, I created interiors to fill those gaps. Note that these are set up on preliminary plates just to get the dimensions of the room. ... Läs hela texten

Lego MOC: C’Heiron’s inn

Lämna ett svar

This has been a work-in-progress for quite some time. Shortly after I bought Medieval Market Village I started making alterations to it. The idea was for it to fill in as C’Heiron’s inn, a place where our characters in the Middle-earth Role Playing game used to hang around for a time. Since I’m making a ton of custom minifigs based on these characters, the inn was a suitable background for them.

However, having all of them just standing around in a bookshelf is a bit of a mess, since they all need bases to not fall over, and I can’t easily move the entire thing around. Also, I wanted a bit more detail to the actual area. So I got myself a 48×48 baseplate and tons of spare bricks and started rebuilding. ... Läs hela texten

The weird world of Lego Belville Golden Palace

Lämna ett svar

I was ordering some random pieces off Bricklink and as usual I looked at the available sets to see if there’s anything worth getting. One set caught my eye, in more ways than one. It’s called ”Paprika and the Mischievous Monkey”, and a quick glance can tell you this is not a common set. It was rather cheap so I took a chance.

Belville was for many years Lego’s attempt to find a female audience. Unlike most themes it survived a stunning 15 years from 1994 to 2009, which also happens to be pretty much exactly the years I didn’t care about Lego. The unique selling point with Belville was that it was mostly a doll toy, with fairly large posable dolls roughly the size of their earlier Technic maxifigures. They came with the regular Barbie-styled environments and props, from what I can tell. While it was probably overall just a blip in the Lego history, the theme did introduce some special parts still in use today. ... Läs hela texten

A Lego Market Street (10190) bargain

Lämna ett svar

As I mentioned recently upon completing the modular building Green Grocer, these things can get pretty addictive. The series, which started in 2007, is in a class of its own in terms of quality and detail. All of them come together to form a coherent street full of vibrant detail, so you’d naturally want to have them all. Luckily, Lego only releases one per year and luckily for me I simply can’t fit all of them in my shelf. Since I’m building the street along the top of my Ikea shelves, there’s a very small clearance. I had to shorten Fire Brigade and Grand Emporium to put them there, and Green Grocer very barely made it. That means I can happily skip Town Hall (which is entirely too tall) and Café Corner and Palace Cinema (which would need to have their prominent corners neutered). ... Läs hela texten

Putting together Lego Green Grocer (10185)

2 svar

Building Lego modulars (or, as they’re officially known, Creator Expert) is an addictive hobby. I started out with Fire Brigade a little over a year ago, as it was readily available. It was an imposing building and, as a returner to Lego, it had tons of new building techniques that I had never considered as a child, even though it mostly used the same parts as back in the day. Then I got Grand Emporium in the summer, with the intent to change out the interior to make it into an arcade. Then in January I bought the brand new Parisian Restaurant, as these things release once every year. And about a month ago I decided to piece together Green Grocer. ... Läs hela texten

Lego Council of Elrond Extended Edition

Lämna ett svar
Rivendell04

For quite some time now, I’ve been working on a completely ”My Own Creation” Lego build. The set Council of Elrond was released by Lego and gave us Elrond and Arwen as well as some lovely pieces in new colours, but it was a very small build that hardly did the scene justice. So I set out to make one from scratch.

The inspiration was obviously the movie itself. Although only nine chairs will fit in a reasonable space (and I already spent enough buying three loose copies of the original set), I’ve tried to stay close to the look of the movie. The main area was built in a semi-circle and then raised up, and the sloped edge with shrubbery added after. ... Läs hela texten

Why Dark Souls’ Drake Sword is the greatest noob trap of them all

Lämna ett svar

Dark Souls II is almost here and a guide to Dark Souls might be off by about two years or so. However, this is something that can’t be said enough. If you’ve ever struggled with the game for no apparent reason, you might have fallen into the most devious trap of them all.

One of the great things about Dark Souls is how it’s constantly bringing in new players, and how the experience of following a new player through trials and death is almost (almost) as exciting as doing it for yourself. However, for some peculiar reason the story is often the same. ... Läs hela texten