Category: Micro

Set 71237: Aquaman Fun Pack (2016)

What an absolute turd of a LEGO set. The minifigure is the only highlight. The set doesn’t even come with proper building instructions; you have to find those online. You can build three different vehicles from the loose parts, but I could only be bothered with the first one: Aqua Watercraft. I don’t even know what that tablescrap of parts is supposed to be.

Box for LEGO Dimensions set 71237 Aquaman Fun Pack. Box depicts Aquaman in his signature orange and green outfit plus some random underwater vehicle.
Instruction manual and two bags of LEGO pieces for LEGO Dimensions set 71237 Aquaman Fun Pack.
LEGO minifigure of Aquaman in his signature orange and green outfit holding a golden trident on the left and some weird orange and green underwater scooter on the right.

LEGO Dimensions

Remember when LEGO tried to emulate Nintendo’s amiibo™ figures? Ah yes, LEGO Dimensions. For some reason I have four. I must have purchased them at deep discount to harvest them for parts, but they’ve been gathering dust on a shelf since 2016. They’re probably the oldest unbuilt sets in my collection[1].

Four different boxed sets of LEGO Dimensions Fun Packs: Aquaman, Back to the Future, Doctor Who, and Ninjago's Master Wu.

[1] Not strictly the oldest unbuilt sets, but the ones I’ve held the longest.

Set 60300: Wildlife Rescue ATV (2021)

I picked up this small LEGO City set for the monkeys, which were new for 2021. Now I want to add them to my Eldorado Fortress setup. You get an ATV featuring wheels that turn on both axles, a small drone, a simple tree, a minifigure, two monkeys, a scorpion, a banana, and two pieces of poop for the monkeys to fling. Later I might try making some retro space rovers using the wheel parts from this set.

Box for LEGO City set 60300. Box depicts a 4WD vehicle, a flying drone, a minifigure, a tree, two monkeys, and a scorpion.
Instruction manual and two bags of LEGO pieces for LEGO City set 60300.
LEGO ATV with a drone on the back, a minifigure in a helmet and holding a clawed pole for animal handling, a tree, two monkeys, and a scorpion.

LEGO Wall of Shame

My LEGO Wall of Shame (all the sets I bought and haven’t built). I put away all the children’s games we haven’t touched in 5+ years and decided to fill this bookcase next to my desk with all (most) of the LEGO sets I need to build. I’m hoping this will prompt me to finally get around to building them. Let’s see how many are still there one year from now.

White IKEA bookcase with four shelves. Three of the four shelves are filled with unopened LEGO sets I need to build. The fourth shelf has my D&D books and dice.

After a green Christmas and New Year’s, snow is back! Went for a snowshoe hike up at Raten in -7°C temps on a foggy morning. I was the first hiker of the day, so I had to break trail the whole way. Tomorrow is forecast to be even colder.

A leafless tree covered in snow on a foggy morning.
A snowy field bordered by conifer trees covered in snow on a foggy morning.

10320 Eldorado Fortress (2023)

The completed Eldorado Fortress (I forgot to photograph the two boats). The modular sections can be combined in various ways, two of which I show here. I really enjoyed assembling this with my son. Now we need to convert the shipwrecked Black Seas Barracuda from the Pirates of Barracuda Bay set into an intact ship to assault the fortress.

The completed LEGO set 10320 Eldorado Fortress with the sections arranged to form an entirely enclosed square fortress.
The completed LEGO set 10320 Eldorado Fortress with the sections arranged end-to-end to form a wide seaside wall.

Dreikönigskuchen

Happy Dreikönigstag (Epiphany)! We’re not religious, but we celebrate by eating Dreikönigskuchen. The one we ate this morning was so good that we bought another in the afternoon! My wife was “king” again for the second year running, which is only fitting.

Dreikönigskuchen: a sweet bread with 6 lobes around a larger center. The bread has chocolate chips in it and is decorated with slivered almonds.

Eldorado Fortress Bag 9

Eldorado Fortress Bag 9/10: We build the foundations for the final section of the fortress. There’s a basement storeroom with treasure accessed via ladder and trapdoor. A pirate skeleton is wedged into the rocks. There are some loose floorboards through which pirates can escape and reach the beach. The final bag will be some sort of building on this foundation.

LEGO build of set 10320 Eldorado Fortress in progress. An L-shaped section of dark and light gray cliffs speckled with green foliage. Some water flows out from a cave to the turquoise waters of the beach. A red crab is in the water.
LEGO build of set 10320 Eldorado Fortress in progress. An L-shaped section of gray stone foundations. There's a treasure room with gold ingots accessed by ladder and trap door. To the right a skeleton wearing a red bandana is partially visible, wedged into a narrow crevice in the rocks.