Lego Space Transporter #924 - Vintage Lego Video #29

Merry Christmas!

Sony CX405 vs iPod Touch 4G Video and Sound Quality Test

Sony CX405 Review - My New Camera!

Hellego! For the past couple months, I have been reserching cameras to find a better one to fit my needs. I wanted a camera that would take good quality videos as well as pictures. I ended up finding the Sony CX405 and for the quality/price ratio, it was perfect.

It takes 9.2 megapixels pictures and can take up to 1080p 60fps XAVC S videos. I was able to get it at B&H Photo Video during their black friday sale and the camera, camera bag and a 64gb micro sd card were a total of 237$CAD! A fantastic price and in this video I will be showing you all these items and some first test footage of the camera. Enjoy!

Should Lego Make A Military Theme?

My Lego Magazine Collection from 2004 to 2015!

Peeron.com - The BIGGEST Lego Database

Hellego! I will be showing you one of my top favourite Lego related websites. It's Peeron.com!

This is a fantastic website to find information on sets, parts, instructions, it's basically the biggest Lego database. I will very often use this website to gain useful information about my vintage sets. It is the most complete website built by members of the Lego community! I hope this site will end up being as useful to you as it has been to me! You can check out my video doing an overview of the website and you can visit Peeron here: http://peeron.com/

Toronto Santa Claus Parade 2015 - Lego Float

Hellego! Here is a bonus post this week for you guys! When checking out the latest Lego Magazine this weekend, I was really interested to see what the Lego float looked like in the Toronto Santa Clause Parade. I was only able to check it out on TV so I was not actually there, but I will share with you my thoughts! Check it out!

First Look At The Last Lego Club Magazine For 2015

Lego Diner MOC

Hellego! After spending a good amount of time without using my creativity, I finally decided to sit down and start building. Here is my latest MOC, a Diner! Let me know what you think!

Is Lego Becoming Too Expensive?

Comic-Con Quebec 2015 - Back To The Future, POP! Figures, Fake Lego And More!

The Future Is Now! - A Lego Back To The Future Stop Motion

Hellego! Today is October 21st, 2015! This is the day Marty McFly and Doctor Emmet Brown go into the future! This special day can only happen once! I made a stop motion tribute celebrating this day. Enjoy!

Lego Collectible Minifigures Monster Series - Banshee Review

Getting the New Lego Minifigure Monster Series!

Hellego! This Friday I went to the mall with my friend and we got the new Lego Collectible Minifigures from the monster series!

Right after we got them I decided to film a video opening it. We really wanted to see which one we had gotten. I was tired after my long week and excited about getting the new minifigure because at first, it seemed like my Toys R Us didn't have them, so I'm sorry if some of the things I say in the video don't make sense ;).

Let me explain more clearly the story I tell in the video. We were at Toys R Us and we had looked all over the Lego section. We could not find at all the new monster series. We were pretty frustrated thinking that our store would not have them after almost a month after being released. While walking out of the store, we spot a couple of boxes at the end of the cash register, so naturally we get pretty excited. So we go up and start looking at all the figures on the box and start feeling all the bags to try and get the best minifigures. By the way, I think this series is very good so I didn't really mind which one I got. So we keep serching at the end of the cash registers where everybody can see us. The store is about to close as it's about 8:55pm and the people working there are watching a couple of teenagers getting over excited on finding little plastic figures and who are now going through every single bag to guess what minifigure is inside. I must say we felt like a couple of weirdos! But finally we stopped after an addicting search and finally paid for them. I was pretty happy we were done putting on a show for the employees!

So there is the story clearly explained. You can check out the video we filmed in the car after all this happened. Enjoy!

Why Are Lego Minifigures Yellow?

Hellego! In this video, I will be discussing why Lego decided to make their Lego minifigures yellow! Enjoy!

Lego Bionicle Comic Book Collection (2001 to 2010)

Hellego! Here is a look at a piece of Lego's 2000 era history with my collection of Bionicle Comics! A classic with the Lego magazine!

Lego Angry Birds Disgusts Me.

When I learned this news, I was pretty frustrated. Making a Lego Angry Birds theme just doesn't make sense.

Vintage Lego Idea book #250 - Vintage Lego Video #28

Hellego! I've been recently looking at my collection of idea books and I realised that it would be cool to show them to all of you! I have a good number of them and they are great to look at the sets and style that was out at the time. This one is number 250 and it originally came with a sticker sheet. Let me know if you have any old idea books of your own!

Demolition Starter Set review

One Man Spaceship #918 - Vintage Lego Video #27

Hellego! Check out this Classic Space set that has inspired many other sets! Benny's Spacehip is clearly inspired by this type of set. Enjoy the video!

The Friendly Villager - A Lego Minecraft Stop Motion

Hellego! Here is finally a new stop motion! I have been thinking of making a stop motion using the Minecraft micro-world for a while. I don't find this to be the best stop motion I've made, but for this stop motion I was using my Logitech webcam for the first time and I used Sony Vegas for editing for the first time. So I had a lot of learning and adapting to do.

I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

New Design!

Hellego! As you can see, I have made a total redesign of the whole look of CD's Brick Mix. New colors, new theme and look.

I have been thinking about this for a long time. I am really happy of the result I was able to get. I designed everything myself using Adobe Illustrator. I really like the new dark orange theme color. I think it looks great with the blue brick in the logo. For a while I had the idea as a background to have Lego studs fading out on a solid colour. I am very happy of the result I was able to get. For the logo, I had imagined a 1x1 brick at an angle with CD written on it. At first I thought of CD being as round as the stud, but I am really happy of the font I used in the end. I was not sure at first if I should have but a different blue for CD, but I think simply outlining it gave it its own simple style. I finally completed it with a nice dark shading behind the brick that just adds a little more emphasis.

Overall, I am quite happy with my work. Let me know in the comments what you think!

Lego Ice Cube Tray Review + Test and Result

Hellego! I got this ice cube tray that make 2x4 Lego bricks! In the video, I even try it for the first time and show you the result! Check it out!

Lego Robot Keychain Review

Lego City Service Truck review

Why We Like Lego

This is a topic that I have been thinking for awhile. What is it that makes us like Lego so much? I think there are interesting things to be said about this topic and feel free to let me know what you think towards this topic in the comment section!

I'm not gone!

How To Build a Lego Construction Pylon

Look at Lego Club Magazine May-June 2015

Real Lego Mug! Build-On Brick Mug review

Vintage Lego Video #26 - Vintage Lego T-Shirt

Logitech C920 Webcam review

The BEST way to dust off your Lego models

A Look At Anakin's Jedi Starfighter From 2008

Vintage Lego Video #25 - Fire Engine

Lego Collectible Minifigures Series 12 - Video Game Guy Review

How To Build A Lego Towel Hanger

The BEST Way to Sort Lego Plates

Hellego! In this post I am going to share with you what I have found to be the best way to sort Lego plates. This technique combines sorting by colour, size and plate all at the same time. Check out the instructional video to discover this technique!

CD's Brick Mix Q&A

Lego Minifigures Blind Bag Opening - Series 12

Vlog: Where I've Been, Situation, Future Plans

Lego Dimensions - Will it be Good?

Hellego! This week, Lego announced their upcoming Lego video game: Lego Dimensions. This game is very different than other Lego games. The game is a mix of Lego themes which is nice and it's a "toys come to life" type of game like Skylanders or Disney Infinity. The game will have collectible characters that you can buy. Is this good or bad? Let's analyse all this together.

Used by permission,® 2015 The LEGO Group

The game is launching September 27th, 2015 on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Wii U. You will need to buy the starter pack which includes the game, Batman, Wyldsyle, Gandalf, Batmobile and the buildable toy pad that allows you to place your characters on, to jump into the game. All this is set to be priced at 99$. It seems like you get a lot of content, but here's the catch.

There will be additional expansion packs you can buy with additional characters which will unlock more content in game. There are three types: Fun Pack (14,99$), Team Pack (24,99$) and Level Packs (29,99$). This comes out to a lot of money. They do seem interesting though. There is a Back To The Future Level Pack that unlocks a Back To The Future level, you get a Marty Mcfly figure, HoverBoard and Time Machine.

I have to admit it sounds interesting. But I am personnally against this idea. This will be great and fun for kids, but to get the game to work you need to pay 100$, then if you want everything that the game has to offer, you need to buy the different packs. This can easily go past 200$ invested into this single game. I am the type of person who likes to buy a game and have all the content with the game. I don't want to have to buy additional DLC or physical DLC to have everything in the game. Maby the occasional DLC for additional content, but other than that I find DLC and Physical DLC  not good.

When the game was first announced, I was really excited about it. It's awesome how Lego is going to mix the Lego worlds together into one story. I thought maybe the starter pack would be about 70$. At that price I would have probably gotten it. But at 100$, plus all the additional packs, to me I think it's too much. Think of all the Lego sets you could get with 150$ instead of investing that money on one single game. That's what I think about it. I'm not going to start telling you not to get it and it's perfectly fine if you get it. I hope you have lots of fun playing that game. But I find that is too much money for only one game.

Another aspect I have been thinking about, is if the minifigures are detachable. Because if the minifigures are detachable from their plates, well then you get much more value out of the game and packs because you can use the collectible figures in your Lego creations and sets. If they are stuck to the plate, well then their pretty much only good for putting on a shelf.

Those are my thoughts on the upcoming Lego Dimensions game. I think the story will be fantastic and I don't think you are making a mistake if you are getting it. But I am against the price of the game and all the extra packs you need to get if you want everything out of your game.

What do you think of the game? Do you think Lego is doing the right move with this game? Let me know by leaving a comment!

A Look At Lego City My City... And Other Things

Hellego! For the past week I have been very sick which is why I had not posted during Easter weekend. I did not get to stuff my face with chocolate and I missed a whole week of school. I spent a good amount of time in bed reading magazines. I read a lot of Lego magazines, rereading a lot of the past ones. But in the most recent issues, I kept noticing unlock codes for the online Lego game Lego City My City at http://www.lego.com/en-us/city/my-city.

Lego seemed to have hyped this game in the past and I never seemed to have gotten into it. I started it months back and never completed the tutorial. Now obviously, when you have the flue, playing video games is not the best activity to do, especially the big 3D games with 3rd or 1st person view with lots of camera swerving. It can make you quite dizzy and you may not have a good time. But Lego City My City seemed like a pretty casual game with not to much camera movement, so I decided to give it a try!

Right when I started, I was very impressed. I started out with a much better impression than the first time I tried it. For a web browser based game, I was very impressed by the graphics. A lot of it is a far up view of your city, but you can really zoom in and see every detail of your city. It's fun to go around your city and observe what your citizens are doing. Every minifigure has a unique action.

Top View of City

Zoomed-in onto street activity

The main goal of the game is to expand your city by doing work around your city to earn studs, which will allow you to then buy property and build buildings. The work you do around the city can be chasing a crook and locking him up, to flying an airplane to deliver packages to the airport. These are all done through mini-games.

Running after a crook

Going to tow someone's car

The whole goal behind this game is to expand and build your own unique city and completing challenges by earning studs. I am very impressed by the work Lego has done on this game. It is a very complete and packed game. It feels like I am playing something bigger than a web browser game. The only bad aspects with this game are a few sound problems I've had. Sometimes, when loading, the music would suddenly go up in intensity and go back down. I am able to run this game fine on my computer, but for certain users it can be quite hard. The game runs with Unity and when you play the game it uses close to 1.5GB of RAM. So if you have 2GB of RAM on your computer, it might not be enough to play this game. That just tells you how big of a game this is.

So go ahead, give this game a try if you have not! Lego has hyped this game in the past and I can now see why. They've put a lot of hard work into this game and it's given a great result. Tell me what you think of this game in the comments!

First Look: Lego Club Magazine - Issue 2 of 2015

Comparing The Two Lego Captain Americas

The Lego Movie - Double-Decker Couch Review

Vintage Lego Video Series Video #24 - Space Probe Launcher

Lego City - Swamp Police Helicopter Review

Hellego! Here is the review of the new Lego City Swamp Police Helicopter polybag! Toys R Us was selling this polybag for 5,99$ instead of 4,99$ which I think is ridiculous, especially for a polybag with 51 pieces. I discussed a bit about this in the review so check it out!

Lego Colletible Minifigures series 12 - Prospector review

The Lego Group 2014 Annual Press Conference

Hellego! This week has been a very exciting week! The Lego Group did their annual press conference for 2014 and it was nothing but good news!

Used by permission,® 2015 The LEGO Group

The 30 minute press conference started with Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO of the Lego group, dancing while signing to The Lego Movie's Everything Is Awesome theme song. He was very excited to share with us the achievements of the Lego Group in 2014.

Used by permission,® 2015 The LEGO Group

He started talking a bit about their philosophy and how play is one of the most important elements in a child's development. They discussed the importance of play with the quote from Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, the founder of the Lego group: "Our idea has been to create a toy that prepares the child for life - appealing to its imagination and developing the creative urge and joy of creation that are the driving forces in every human being." Next, every person attending was given a bag containing six Lego bricks and was asked to build a duck in 40 seconds. Once they were done, they were asked to compare the ducks with their neighbours. The goal was to see how Lego bricks can be combined in an infinite number of ways.

After this introduction, Mr. Thompson, representing The Lego Foundation which collects 25% of The Lego Group's income to research the value of play, talked about what happened inside the attendee's brain while they were building their duck.

The conference moved on to the presentation of The Lego Group's achievements in 2014. "This was another successful year for The Lego Group. It is our tenth consecutive year of growth." says Jorgen. This is very hard and unique for a company to have. With that, we already know that our favourite company is doing very well. The first achievement Jorgen presented was how The Lego Group is continuing to globalise their business. In 2014 they have gained 900 new employees and built two new offices in Shanghai and London. Jorgen stated that 2014 was a record year in terms of investments with a 17% increase. In 2014, The Lego Group has built and expanded production facilities, notably a new one in Mexico and invested a lot in their Denmark facility.

Jorgen moved on to the amount of children around the world they were able to reach. They estimated that in 2014 they reached over 85,000,000 children, reaching 400,000 with The Lego Foundation and engaging with 10,000,000 children though Lego Education.

Used by permission,® 2015 The LEGO Group

Jorgen moved on to talking about The Lego Group's responsibility in 2014. If you've been following the blog this year, you're probably aware of some of the environmental changes The Lego Group made. For the fifth consecutive year, The Lego Group has had zero product recalls. They have introduced a more sustainable packaging and partnered with the World Wildlife Fund. They have also had full certification of the FSC for their cardboard and have seen their first production line based on their new windfarm energy. Finally, in 2014, The Lego Group has signed a partnership with unicef. Jorgen concluded by calling out three elements from the responsibility report. First off, The Lego Group reported a very high net promoters score with a very high increase in 2014. This means Lego consumers are talking very positively about The Lego Group. Secondly, Jorgen said that Lego continues to have "a record high level of employee engagement, motivation and satisfaction." Finally, Lego asked retailers globally how satisfied they were doing business with The Lego Group. More than 90% are responding and giving a very positive score.

Used by permission,® 2015 The LEGO Group

Jorgen moved on to presenting his partner, John Goodwin, the Chief Financial Officer to talk about the financial results.

Used by permission,® 2015 The LEGO Group

John revealed to us "in true oscar style" that The Lego Group had a growth of 15%. "In Lego speak that is awesome," said Goodwin. He continued on saying that "2014 was a highly successful year." He said that their traditional lines like Lego City, Creator and Technic did extremely well. He continued to say that the newer lines like Lego Friends and Lego Super Heroes also had a very big growth. He also said that The Lego Group has had tremendous success with The Lego Movie line of products when the movie was launched in February. He continued by saying that all three of their regions grew double digits during 2014. This was succeeded with the lunch of over 300 products this year.

John concluded with the financial results presenting the operating profit margin which was 33.9%. This gave a total profit of over 7 billion Danish Krones which is the equivalent of over 1,310,862,700$

Used by permission,® 2015 The LEGO Group

That is what concluded the conference. A few fun Lego facts in 2014 is how The Lego Group manufactured over 60,000,000,000 elements, produced over 500,000,000 minifigures, had over 650,000,000 Lego tyres produced and had a total of 3500 unique Lego elements.

Used by permission,® 2015 The LEGO Group

This concludes the 2014 annual press conference by The Lego Group. You can view the entire press conference in the embedded player below:

This was one of the best Lego press conferences yet. There was so much exciting and positive news during this conference. It's great to know that literally everything is awesome at our favourite company and that Lego is up there in the top companies. What do you think of all this information and numbers? Does it surprise you? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section!

Lego Seasonal Polybag - Decorating the Tree review

Lego Toys R Us Geoffery Exclusive Polybag review

CD Shops: New Lego Movie sets, Interesting polybags, Playstation, Taget Canada Shutting Down

Hellego! Today I went to the mall, something that doesn't happen often. I had a lot of specific items to look for like the new The Lego Movie sets, some Playstation accessories and I also wanted to check out my Target store before it closes completly.

Follow me on my visit!

13 Year Old Boy Builds Braille Printer Out of Lego

Hellego! Here is a very cool news story this week, in the innovative city of Silicon Valley, California, a 13 year old boy has built a braille printer out of Lego! This story is very strongly related to my previous post, the First Lego League in Toronto that took place last weekend.

Credit: Braigo Labs http://www.braigolabs.com/what-we-do/

His name is Shubham Banerjee and he has launched his own company to produce low-cost braille printers for the visually impaired. Right now, braille printers cost about 2000$ which is way too expensive for most blind people. Shubham built the braille printer using a Lego Mindstorms EV3 set for his school science fair project. Just like the First Lego League, his is tackling a world problem by fixing it with Lego Mindstorms. Only this time, he is looking to have his idea put on the market. His parents started to get involved and since Shubham is to young to be CEO, his mother decided to take on the job. He has created his own company called Braigo Labs.

His idea is so good, that the big company Intel has recently invested in his project. His end goal is to develop a braille desktop printer that costs around 350$ and weighs just only a few pounds. When he started his company last summer, he started with an initial 35000$ investment from his dad. Since then he has already used some of the money to build a more complex version of his Lego printer using an "off-the-shelf" desktop printer and a new Intel computer chip. This new model, the Braigo 2.0 can translate electronic text into braille.

This is an absolutly amazing project. I highly reccomend you share this project with anybody you can to get the word out. You can visit the Braigo Labs website at http://www.braigolabs.com/

Ontario Students Participate in First Lego League

Hellego! Last weekend, hundreds of Ontario students participated for the First Lego League provincial championships!

The First Lego League introduces kids aged 9 to 14 to the fun of science and technology. Kids build and program their own robots using the Lego Mindstorms technology to create the most innovative solution to a problem. They then place their robots on a themed playing field and develop a solution to the problem presented to them. Some past challenges have been about climate, quality of life for the handicapped, transportation and much more.

The students headed over to Oshawa and the students were able to demonstrate their solutions to fix real world problems affecting their community. The Toronto Star interviewed some of these kids to know what they had to say.

"Mateen Mirzaei, 14

Robot Rulers, Aurora

This is more advanced than the Lego most people know. What drew you to join your school team?

I built robots before the club, but not as advanced as this. You can connect motors to it and sensors and actually program it — like a real robot.

Your team got to speak with a NASA scientist while preparing for the competition. How was that experience?

Amazing. (A NASA robot) is not all that different than this. It proves that it’s possible. They’re just making a robot that’s going to space and it’s more accurate. But ours is a toy. It’s not as accurate as you want it to be. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t."

"Madeleine Kennedy, 12

The Musical Misconceptionists, Toronto

This is your first year with your school’s robotics team. What made you want to join?

There was an open house at our school and I saw the team perform. I’m interested in technology so the robot was really cool. Last year, I think 70 people tried out but only 10 made it.

Your team also made a song to tackle some of the hysteria around Ebola. How did you choose the topic?

We thought Ebola was a serious issue and there were so many misconceptions about it, so we wanted people to make people aware and not afraid. People were saying our music teacher had Ebola. It wasn’t true, and we wanted to end these misconceptions."
Credit: the Toronto Star http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/01/17/lego-league-competitors-talk-science.html

The First Lego League is a great way to get kids creative and teach them about science. The kids had lots of fun this past weekend. If you would like to learn more about this competition, you can visit http://www.firstlegoleague.org/

Lego Collectible Minifigures - The Lego Movie - Hard Hat Emmet

Lego How To Build - How to Strap Captain America's Shield on Back

Lego Collectible Minifigures - The Lego Movie - Larry the Barista review

The Lego Movie - Castle Cavalry review

New 2015 Lego Bionicle Sets - First Impressions

Hellego! I have been reading the booklet that came with the Lego Magazine that I previously showed you and I have discovered a lot about the re-release of the theme and I really had a strong feeling about it.

I am very happy to see that Lego seems to stay true to the original Bionicle, especially with the Toa. The story is similar, the names and roles are the same and even the overall look of each Toa is very similar to the original versions. The Protectors are what have changed the most. They seem to have a bigger variety of colours and new types of weapons. I think some change is good and I think overall Lego did a very good job! Check out my video commentary where I show you specifically what I mean.



What do you think of the new Bionicle sets? Leave you thoughts in the comments!

First Lego Magazine of 2015! - "Unboxing"

Hellego! I have recieved the first issue of the Lego magazine for 2015! I was pretty surprised because first, Lego is going to stop giving copies of the Lego Club magazine to people over 13 years old. I was also surprised when I saw it because it was inside a plastic protector and had more than one document which does not happen often. I figured since it was the first one of 2015, I might as well show it to you!

In total there were three documents that came with it. The magazine, a Star Wars booklet and a big booklet introducing the return of Bionicle. Check it out!



If this turns out to not be my last issue, would you like me to keep showing you each magazine issue? Let me know in the comments!