Lego Hulk Smash!

Continuing a bit from Monday, I played a bit with my Avengers Lego, and ended up taking more pictures of Hulk smashing Loki. Easily the coolest moment in the entire movie, where Loki is picked up by the feet - in the middle of one of his insane, evil speeches - and literally thrown all over the floor.

Anyway, I tried to recreate it using the Lego figures, and a gif creator. This is what I ended up with.

I should get a camera mount...

Lego Avengers

At Lego's 55 year anniversary, I'm delivering a big one. An article on the Lego Avengers sets. Not all of them, but a solid majority of them. And this was a big deal to me. I grew up reading Marvel comics, I grew up absolutely loving The Avengers. Simultaneously, I built Lego (and I continue to do both these activities). Never did I consider a future where I would get to build official Marvel Lego sets. But there is a another aspect of this that makes the whole experience so much better: The fact that Marvel succeeded in making solid, entertaining movies out of their Avengers heroes. Scratch that. They're not just entertaining. For their genre, they're at the very pinnacle. I've written about Avengers before, I've had a Figure Friday on Hawkeye, and I've teased the Lego sets. So here's the big one, and it's basically just tons of pictures of three of the four sets, with added commentary. I'm still missing the Quinjet, with Black Widow. The Quinjet is cool, but I may just pick up a single Natasha on ebay. But so far, the Avengers line up is looking good.

Anyway, hop on in for the Earth's Mightiest Brick-heroes.

sillyfigures

Just a bit of weekend sillyness. Have a good one, people.

Baked Creamy Chicken

I'm not sure what to call this, but it's nothing special really. Oven baked chicken, and a cream sauce with mushroom and broccoli. I was a bit indecisive whether to place the chicken fillets directly in the pan, or have them on a grate. I ended up using my cheese graters, but I'm not sure if it had any effect what so ever. The idea was that juices from the fillets would drip down, leaving the chicken crisp - and the juices would be used for the sauce. Of course, there are almost no fat in a fillet, so not really a lot of juices for the sauce. Certainly not enough to leave a significant imprint on the sauce.

Chicken was in the oven for 20 minutes at 225 degrees C, but it could easily have been 250. Rub garlic, basil and oil on the fillets first.
Sauce is made by frying spring onion and adding cream. Fry some heavily peppered mushrooms in lots of butter. Steamed broccoli adds some color. Enjoy.

Arctic Masters of the Universe?

The winter came suddenly for my buddy JP. Being a resourceful person, he chose to see opportunities, where others would simply complain, barricade the door and hibernate until the spring came and rescued them. JP took his toys outside for a photo session. Now, I have reminded him to get a better camera. Still, these pictures aren't half bad for a phone.

Click on in for pictures of toys outside in the snow!

What toy are you opening this weekend?

I'm opening a 2011 remake of 1987s Techno Viper.

Enjoy your weekend, and open your toys!

Trains

Have you noticed how many songs there are about trains? In every genre, there are several songs about trains. From jazz, with "Take the A-train", to metal, with Ozzy's Crazy Train. And it's not just the good genres that gets train songs. There's even an entire musical about trains. Of course, I'm not the only one to notice. Check this out. 

One of my favorites is of course Porcupine Tree's "Trains". A mighty song. It's obviously about something more than trains - the good ones usually are. And I strongly encourage you to check it out. 

But I don't write about music. Not on this blog anyway. What happened was that I was home with my parents this Christmas, and my father brought out his toys one evening: Model trains. He claims he's not a collector, but he still likes his toys. Now, I did take more pictures of this session, but I'll share the best ones today. 

These are N-Scale, which says something about the distance between the tracks more than it says something about the scale of the trains. Usually though, they are 1:144. Or to put it simple: They are tiny. 

I like it. It's almost like they are 1:18 to a 1:18 toy. Meaning that they would scale-wise be to a G.I. Joe as a G.I. Joe is to me. 

Uh.. Anyway.. I know almost nothing about trains, but I think I like the complexity behind the constructions, both the original trains, and these small models. Are they toys in the traditional fashion? Well, I wouldn't give these to a small kid, and it's definitely not for everyone. But they are toys. My father collects toys. 

Don't ask me about details on these. I see two black steam engines, one blue steam engine, one green electrical train, and one tiny red train. 

Enjoy the pictures, and give a thought to what your favorite train song is!

Christmas 2012 Impressions

Rest assured, this will not be the last time I write about the Christmas of 2012. I have a big, and somewhat expected article coming up. Loyal readers will understand what I'm talking about. But I'd like to share a few images from Christmas eve. In our country, the main day for celebrating Christmas is the 24th. And I'm not sure I like it. It's almost like we try to cram everything Christmas into one day. Big dinner with the family, gift giving, vacation. That last part is definitely taking a bit hit in our Christmas celebration, and probably many others' too.

Anyway, we ended up eating well. Reindeer, this Christmas, like last. It's a tradition within our family, and it's fantastic. Reindeer is lean, and tasteful. It has that wild taste, but it doesn't force itself on you, like elk or deer easily can do. Reindeer is not a common meal for Christmas in Norway, certainly not in comparison to the other traditional Christmas meals. Sauce, potatoes, various vegetables, sausages, wine, liquor, the works. Dessert was lemon fromage.

Presents were opened, and my nephew - a fellow brick buddy - got tons of Lego. The poor guy almost got nothing but Lego. I too got lots of Lego, some of it I have shown in the blog already (it was Rorschach, from the Watchmen, by the way). Some is yet to be featured.
I couldn't help him finish the NinjaGo (sic?) boat. But it looked awesome on the box -_-.

Question is if this is the last Christmas he'll wish for Ninjago for Christmas. I believe Lego's new theme, the anthropomorphic action theme Chima, will be the next big thing for the kids. It certainly doesn't look too original (Battle Beasts anyone?), and the play feature, with push-driven battling vehicles, isn't impressing anyone.
But it's Lego. Never bet against the bricks.

Recipes and ranting: Turkey Pie/Motuc at retail

Pie is not a dish. It's a concept. Much like the pizza, the pie can be customized in almost any way you can imagine. Maybe even more so than the pizza, the pie leaves you endless possibilities. And I like the thought of that. And I would like to try out more pies in the future.

I'll not show you how to make pie, because I honestly don't know. Obviously, what I make here ends up being a pie, but the main part about the pie has to be the lid of pie dough. And I just don't know how to make that. All I know is that it's actually a bit tricky. Unlike the bread, which is extremely simple, the pie dough can't be made while blindfolded.

So with this dish, using leftovers from the new years turkey, I used a pre-fabricated pie dough.

Read on for "recipe".. and another rant about toys.

Guess the minifigure!

I mentioned one of my students last week. A great kid, creative and funny, even though he's barely reached his teens. He's really into superheroes and Lego, like any sane person should be. Last week he he brought with him to school two packs with counterfeit Fantastic Four trading cards for us to open.

And today I'm showing something he made me for Christmas. It's not uncommon for teachers to get gifts from their students, but it's usually cakes or flowers or something along those lines.

This, on the other hand, was one of the best gifts I've ever received. Let me break it down: It's something we both like, in Lego. It's home made, sort of, and actually well made. It's obvious he's made an effort with it. And finally, it was totally unexpected. Both the gift itself, and the character.

I saw what character he had made right away, as it was something we had talked about. But I had never imagined that character in Lego. I enjoy being surprised. My student has chosen to do some artistic deviations, which I found sensible. Other than that, I feel this is as close a minifig-representation of the character you could get.

I'll not tell more now. Can you see what character this is? Write below if you have a suggestion!

Displaying a collection

This is a continuing project, and I doubt I will ever finish it. How to display a large collection of toys in an elegant way.

I showed a few months ago how my coffee table looks like, and I also mentioned the Ikea Detolf display cabinet as a possible solution. Well, I bought one, and it's been sitting here for far too long, unopened. Finally, probably out of frustration, my girlfriend took responsibility and assembled it.




I can't fit my entire collection of toys in a single Detolf, let alone ten, or even twenty. But then again, I don't plan on showing off the entire collection in my house at all times. I do like the idea of a rotating display, where I will be active in what I put into my Detolf. At the moment, I'm thinking of getting a couple more of these, they are absolutely awesome, for the price.

They don't seem to take up a lot of space. Obviously, they don't take up more space than the size of the cabinet, but since the Detolf have four glass walls, and glass shelves, they appear significantly smaller than cabinets with wooden frames. The top has a slot for a spot light, which is something I'll consider. I'll also look into led strips. Relatively easy to assemble, once you get the hang of it, but due to all the glass, the entire package is very heavy.

I do wish they came with four shelves instead of three. But I have seen people get around this by placing acrylic cubes in the back of each shelf, and in that way As it is now, there's no point in displaying smaller toys, like G.I. Joe or the smaller Transformers, as they will create a huge gap of space between each level of toys.

Right now, I just placed a few bigger toys, more or less randomly. These where the toys I had lying closest to me, most of them have been featured in previous articles. The bottom shelf is a curious one, as it's at ground level. I had no toys I felt comfortable displaying that close to the floor, so I ended up with the basketball. Temporarily? Who knows.

The first shelf contains the Sith Interceptor, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. We also see a helmet-less Masters of the Universe Classics Battle Cat and She-Ra. Neither has gotten face time in this blog, which is a shame. She-Ra is a cool figure, and Battle Cat is one of the best toys made in recent years.

The second shelf has a couple of more MOTUCs, in Shadow Beast, Panthor and Orko. DC Comics Jack Knight, Starman, has been shown in this blog previously, as has Marvel Legends Hawkeye.

Top shelf has a couple of robots, including the extremely impressive Scorponok. MOTUC Moss-Man ranked high in my "Top ten Masters of the Universe Classics" (a list I plan on revisiting soon). Finally, I managed to sneak in a few StarCom figures.

Top shelf, or rather on top of the entire cabinet, He-Man piloting the mighty Wind Raider, one of the most surprising toys to come out of the Classics line. Fantastic sculpt and paint, lots of play value and just an impressive sight when displayed like this.

Fantrstic 4 trading cards

That's not a typo in the title, by the way. One of my young students brought me a gift back from a holiday trip in the Canary Islands. Tenerife is particularly well known for having an abundance of knock off items. You can buy counterfeit anything for almost nothing by just walking on the beach.
Me myself bought a real Rolex for $9, last time I visited the island with the lonely mountain.

This student shares my interest for superheroes, and recognized the ridiculousness of this KO item: Fantastic 4 trading cards, with a Sue Storm keychain.

Fantrstic 4 "game" cards

The cards look delightfully home-made, complete with shoddy lamination and spelling errors. Notice the weird code below the logo.
The outside of the pack said "game cards", but I'm not sure how this game would be played. There is no information about the persons pictured on the individual cards, and the packs seemed to contain a mix between promotional pictures from both movies, and artwork from the comic around the same time. I do like the artwork by Mike McKone, who did an awesome run on the re-made Teen Titans from 2003.

The key chain is obviously the star price. It's just the right amount of hilariously awful, and is a prime example of why I adore knock off products. Is Sue concealing something behind extreme make up? Is she wearing sunglasses? Or is she just missing her eyes? I don't know, but I do like this silly gift, and the way it's presented.
Enjoy your weekend.

Asceticism

Happy New Year, good people! I hope 2012 was fortuitous for you all, and that 2013 will be even better. I'll at least start off with a solid one: recipes and ranting! (I should copyright that phrase)

Read on for fried salmon in sour cream and almond sauce, quasi-asceticism, and a serious rant!