Things and Stuff

I haven't written for a while, and sure as hell don't feel like doing assessment stuff at 11pm so I thought I'd jump on here and have a play around.

So I had a look at the stats for this thing and apparently people still view it (I dunno about reading it, but they view it). Unsurprisingly the majority of page views come from Australia (artificially increased by this 'puter and my desktop... especially from when I want to link to Greg or Max's much more interesting blogs) but second place is the US, that's a little odd... Norway comes in at 7th (unsurprising given I started this thing properly when I was there) but 3rd through 6th are a MYSTERY... Slovenia comes in just behind the US with a BIG margin over the 4th place Germany... Now I've been to Germany, written posts for this blog in Germany and blogged about German things here, so I can see why German computers might link here... But Slovenia? WHY? I've never been there, never written about there and to the best of my knowledge never even met a Slovenian... The closest thing I can think is I've probably bad mouthed their Eurovision entries a few times... This is born out by the fact that of the 290ish views from Slovenia 200 were this month (surpassing my Australian audience by over 2 views to 1)
Next up is even MORE of a mystery... IRAN... WHY? SUPER WHY? How is there any content on here that would even come up for google.iran? Close behind that is Russia... Sorry boys you can't get my credit card details from here

Rereading some of my older posts though I worked out why people managed to find my blog by searching "White Rabbit Dynamite" before I made that a tag (because I couldn't work out why people would find me that way). That was the name of the band I saw on my pub crawl in Berlin (interestingly the "alternative berlin" tours I did and then blogged about are another way people find this... btw if you're ever in Berlin, google "alternative berlin" and do their pub crawls/walking tours).

Anyway to give this blog post some content (other than the bollocks about stats) I thought I'd talk about the lego digital designer and the things I've made with it

For those not in the know, Lego Digital Designer (or LDD for short) is a program that lets you build lego on the 'puter and if you do it in the right mode you can then buy said model complete with custom box and instructions... Needless to say I've spent a LOT of time on it and built some quite bizzare things. I've got 43 models of various sizes and themes

Anyway here was one of my first (and to date most excessive) creations

 

1500+ Pieces, near on $700 and a build guide of over 400 steps... It would probably top out at 60cms tall...

Bigger isn't better though... some of the smaller scale things I've made look much nicer

It "almost" looks like a realistic castle

As opposed to these

I don't just do castles though, I do other weirder things

The Dragonfly Copter

The Spider Bot

 The Copter Boat

 

Whatever this is...

I tried making a normal house once... I ended up with this

In fact this is the most "normal" model I have

(It's a space station btw)

And this is to just prove I can use real lego too

Love, Hugs and Kisses

ANt

So the insanity tour of Europe continues... Did someone see my shit? I swear I had some shit before I got here...

So at the last actual text installment I was on a train that had boarded a ferry (!) for Copenhagen.

I was asked why would I bother getting the train when I could fly... Well yes they can take a little longer and can cost a little more (if you fly bargain airlines) but they do have some bonuses.

1. No dicking about with check in hours before you get on
2. No need to repack your luggage and carry on so they don't confiscate your toothpaste etc
3. They are more comfortable
4. You can move about
5. You can actually see stuff out the window

So yeah I like trains much more than planes in Europe atm

From the window of the train Denmark looked a bit like it belonged in a fairy tale and while at Copenhagen central station I saw the Copenhagen rollerderby team. I was reading my comics on the train to and the Eastern European ones are just getting weirder and weirder... From Copenhagen it was a train and a bus to Billund to meet Cam at the hotel... leading to one of the most awesome weekends ever...

Just quietly... Legoland was amazing. I foolishly didn't charge my camera, but I only had like 70 pics left so I flew through them in no time. Most of the trip was exhaustively documented by Cam though (thanks Cam!). My weather luck continued unabated however... It was raining in Billund until the moment we stepped outside and then started again once we got back in.

Cam and I did virtually no rides in the park... all we did was the atlantis ride to look at the aquarium after it and the power builders one where you get to program your own ride. Both were very cool, but couldn't hold a candle to miniland. For those of you not in the know, miniland is the main attraction at all the legolands and is basically a collection of scenes and monuments and famous buildings etc made in a small scale from lego. It sounds a little bit lame, and the pictures I've seen in books and the net etc seem a little lame too... but actually seeing it really does blow your mind with the scale and attention to detail. If you remember legoland at Birkenhead point, or the displays they had at centrepoint after birkenhead closed down think to the big models and stuff that they had... The animals and stuff... Those were all cool but have NOTHING on the entire cityscapes they made in miniland... Cam and I spent over and hour running around saying "look at this look at this" "Oh my god look at that" etc. We then finished the day with a trip to the lego store. No if legoland is the biggest theme park in Europe (as I was told) then the lego store is the biggest tantrum location in Europe... "I want it..." "NEIN" "Bitte" etc... Now the phrase kids in a candy store comes to mind, but this isn't very accurate as eventually you eat so much candy you feel sick and can't eat anymore... I don't think you ever could get sick of lego and the lego shop. Cam and I spent a bit of money on lego (I only spent like $75 there) and then went back to our hotel room to play.

The next day we went off to the Lalandia aquadome, a water park type thing basically next door to legoland. It was lots of fun too, a pissy little wave pool and kiddy stuff and then some pretty cool waterslides. Particularly the big one, the tornado...

We then hopped a couple of planes and came back to Nantes (where Cam lives atm). Tomorrow I'm hoping to skip off to paris for two days, then off to Greece to meet Rosie and Karen

Love, Hugs and Kisses
ANt

Legoland pictures

Pics from legoland

Some castle somewhere

An Oil Rig
A fatass sinking the boat

Cute little things like this are around all the scenes

Safari!

A Stave church made of lego

Legoland was cool

Love Hugs and Kisses

ANt