7306 Golden Staff Guardians

Posted on November 24, 2010 by kayakermanmike

The Pharaoh’s Quest Lego sets have shown up on the Toys R Us site before most of us expected. I’m starting out with the smaller set due to available time around the holiday. The Golden Staff Guardians set comes with 2 mummies and a lone adventurer on a motorcycle. The set itself consists of 70pcs and retails at 11.99 at tru but is the typical ~$10 set at most locations.

The minifigs are what first caught my eye about this series. In this one you get two mummies, as mentioned before. What’s great is they each come with reversible heads which give you the choice of one eye, or two. Front and backs of the mummies are printed rags on the torso while the front of the legs are printed with loin cloth type print. Each also comes with a pharaoh hat in black in the same mold as we recently saw in the Series 2 minifigure’s pharaoh and in older sets featuring similar themes as well as a sword and scarab shield each. The lone adventurer comes with front and back printed torso to give the appearance of suspenders over a blood stained tank-top. Overall, the adventurer looks pretty bruised and beat up, with scar/injury on face, 5′oclock shadow and blood. This particular fig has a nice steampunk or postapoc feel to it that I’m really digging.

Beyond the figs, the set comes with a little stand in which a two-pronged staff which can be knocked out of place with a flick missile

The lone adventurer rides a cranberry deep-red motorcycle armed with a rifle from the Western molds and dynamite, which I first saw in the Power Miners sets, but may have appeared earlier.

And of course, the set comes with a few extra pieces. Not shown hear is the clear headlight that fell on the ground, and has yet to be found.

Overall the set is a nice little set that gives us some cool new pieces and a couple of mummies to add to you monster collection. The overall series seems to want to lean toward steampunk, and with a few modifications would fit in to the genre very easily. I can’t wait to get the other sets open and assembled.

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Pharoh’s Quest Lego available on tru.com

Posted on November 19, 2010 by kayakermanmike

Just came to realize that TRU has the newest Pahroh’s quest sets available for order!

If your order is over a certain amount shipping is free. Since you can’t find the stuff easily I swiped a listing from http://www.brickshow.com/2011-pharoahs-quest-lego which I’ll add links to the TRU site to help out. Like usual, you need to search for the sets and they’re all but impossible to find by browsing.

You can use promo code 941747 for BOGO 50% off. You can seemingly only use the code once per account, so choose wisely. (Thanks to FBTB for the promo code.)

Also free shipping (up to $20) on orders over $49!

* Attack of the Scarab (7305) – Will include 1 mini figure and features an exploration camp.
* Race for the Golden Staff (7306) – Will include 3 mini figures and features a centre with a golden staff, motorbike and mummies.
* Duel in the Air (7307) – Will include 3 mini figures and features a red RAF biplane, Egyptian pillar, mummies with wings.
* Cursed Cobra Statue (7325) – Will include 3 mini figures and features a live Cobra statue, car, mummies and snakes.
* Mysterious Sphinx (7326) – Will include 3 mini figures and features a large Sphinx, car and mummies.
* Pyramid of the Pharaoh (7327) – Will include 7 mini figures and features a baseplate with pyramid, car and a giant scorpion.

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Minifig Series 2 still available!

Posted on October 30, 2010 by kayakermanmike

If you still haven’t gotten the figs you want or need, Entertainment Earth has dropped the price of the Display Box to 149. Get together with a friend or two and split the box, resell what you don’t want, or go whole hog all on your own. ;-)

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Glory Days? Not so sure…

Posted on October 25, 2010 by kayakermanmike

A little while back I realized my buying lunch out had gotten a touch out of hand. Read: daily. You see with a new little one we’ve been relying on some ready cook, or quick meals at home for dinner meaning less leftovers to come in the next day. So the last time we went grocery shopping, I decided to pick up some emergency lunches to keep in the desk. As we were walking down the isle, I somehow fondly remembered Ramen being “not bad.” I picked up two fancy Ramens, also known as Maruchan Instant Lunch. You know the ones, like in the picture. They come in an ever so Earth friendly Styrofoam cup and you pour boiling water in to sit and ‘cook’ for 3 minutes.

I suddenly remember now why I liked these in college. I WAS DRUNK. Clearly there is no other reasoning. Nothing I can come up with is redeeming about this stuff, well except for the warnings. Warning #1 “CAUTION: HOT!” A clear indicator this stuff is meant for inebriated college kids. Let’s break it down. The instructions clearly state pouring in the boiling water yourself. You only wait 3 minutes and it’s cooked. So in the 3 minutes this stuff is doing it’s thing, if you somehow forget you JUST POURED HOT WATER IN IT, clearly you must be drunk.

Warning #2 is a little more in depth and disturbing. It states (again in all caps, which I will ignore) “Handle with care especially when serving children.” Now they must mean if I were serving this up as a side to a nice plump Irish child because there is no way this stuff is suitable for consumption by a young child.

Lets delve in to the package and see what we find. As would be expected, a nice helping of noodles that if found in a video game, might be more than +2 rads. As if the noodles weren’t enough indigestible starch, they also give us a somewhat, kind of, kind of not, portion of kernels of corn. Just like Y, the sometimes vegetable ends up being a bit bland but is rounded out by a few shavings of carrot. Then comes the most disturbing part.

Shelf stable meat looking product.

See what I did there? I gave that it’s own paragraph. You know why? I wanted you to ponder that for a moment. This cup, needing no refrigeration has something, kind of resembling meat in it. I’m not sure it is meat. What I am sure of is it’s a little chewy, dark colored (my Maruchan was ‘beef’ flavored, more like salt flavored) and was a little like that skim coat on top of the gravy when you’ve left it on the table too long at thanksgiving.

So in conclusion as I sit and type and stare at the empty foam cup, I think back to the glory days of college and discover one more thing shattered. And that, at the time, had to have been my sobriety.

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Turning up the heat on window shrink wrap

Posted on October 24, 2010 by kayakermanmike

Kawasaki 840015 Black 10-Piece Heat Gun Kit

It’s my least favorite chore, but when your house was built in 1880, you don’t have much choice. It’s time to start putting shrink plastic on the windows. It’s a task that usually drives me nuts, and doesn’t come out looking all that great, until now. This year I decided to order the Kawasaki 840015 Black 10-Piece Heat Gun Kit. to help shrink up that plastic. In years past, our wimpy little hair dryer really hasn’t done much to shrink up the plastic and give that crystal clear look that’s promised on the box. With the help of the heat gun however, I was able to get that plastic as taut as a drum head.

The heat gun comes with some nice extras too. Perfect for stripping surfaces that don’t contain any lead. Everything is there that you might need. A few nozzles and some different scrapers. From Amazon:

Kawasaki black 10-piece heat gun kit
Built with powerful 12.5-amp motor
Features dual speed settings
Also features dual temperature range
Includes wide jet, halfond jet, reduction jet, plain jet, scraper handle, 3 scraper heads, and heat gun cradle

Remember NEVER use a heat gun to strip any surface you suspect has lead. Doing so could cause serious injury.

The idea of windows insulation plastic is a simple one. If you can stop drafts from coming through your windows, you’ll save some heat. Better yet, if you can cause an area to have dead air, you can add some insulation qualities to the window too. That’s where a little rope caulk can come in handy. This stuff feels a little bit like clay and comes rolled up in a couple of rows making it easy to select he width that’s going to seal the cracks. By putting this around your window sashes to seal them to the frame and themselves you create another barrier to the wind coming in and with the plastic, according to the depth of your window, makes a good pocket of air that’s not going anywhere. A word of caution though, rope caulk, though it comes off easy in the summer, will make it difficult or impossible to open the window. I’d suggest not using it on the only window in the room if you ever think there could be an emergency making it necessary to exit through that window.

So although the chore isn’t my favorite and only gets done a few windows a day, with the help of a few tools and products, we hope to help cut down our heating bill just a little bit. Remember, everything adds up.

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Look at the monster, now look at me

Posted on October 18, 2010 by kayakermanmike

Who says Sesame Street isn’t relevant?

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Lego Darth Vader Alarm Clock

Posted on October 16, 2010 by kayakermanmike

UPDATE: There’s a storm trooper too! These just look bad ass. LEGO Unisex 9002113 Star Wars Darth Vader Mini-Figure Alarm Clock Get yours today! Or maybe one for a friend!

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