Melting Bricks

End-User License Agreements in future LEGO sets

Joubarc — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:57:41 +0000

In order to further protect its renowed brand, the LEGO company will start selling its sets under the cover of an End-User License Agreement. While no official announcement has been made yet, the news has been confirmed on a well-known european fan community site, which makes it a certainty.

The agreement is supposedly going to be prepended to building instructions, so that the buyer has no choice but to read it before building the sets. Set boxes seals will also state the user must accept the licence before breaking them to open the set. Various online sellers have regarded the move as positive, as this will allow them to added another classification of new sets: in addition of “new”, “mint”, “mint in box”, “mint in sealed box”, sellers will now have the possibility to extort more money from buyers by selling “mint in end-user-agreement-seals-sealed box” sets.

Amongst other things, the agreement will prevent the user from usual things such as copying, reverse engineering or disassembling; but it will also cover more specific topics such as glueing, swallowing, vacuum cleaning or melting. Orienting studs in unconventional directions will also be prohibited unless explicitely allowed by the user’s man… erm, building instructions.

One anonymous leaksperson of the LEGO company was quoted as saying:

It’s already in there, actually. Current sets already prohibit users from building on grass - or is it carpet, I never know for sure -, from opening bags in the wrong order, and so on. So what we’ll do is just extend this to more stuff. We would have done it already if the icons for what we want to add had been drawn already. The one about not combining our bricks with other brands was particularly hard to illustrate.

The new EULA icons can be found in the building instructions for set 7745 - Secret World Police Headquarters, which are already available as a PDF document from LEGO’s website even though the set will only be released beginning 2010.

Horoscopes - February 2008

Joubarc — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 06:43:48 +0000

Aries: Although you won’t admit buying even one Belville advent calendar, the stars know you’re the one responsible for the sell-out.
Taurus: Bricklink knows better than you which items you want, and will send you countless emails to remind you of it.
Gemini: You’ll be very disappointed when everyone you know, when asked “what’s 50 years old this year and has entertained children ever since”, answers “Why, the smurfs, or course”.
Cancer: Your Ikea bill will be higher than your LEGO bill this month. Shame on you!
Leo: You’ll receive the only unbuildable set ever produced by LEGO.
Virgo: You will order the new mail van, but it will get lost in the mail.
Libra: Buying a large house to accomodate for your LEGO is understandable. A bigger car might make sense. But bigger shoes?
Scorpio: LEGO will release the protocol used in remote-controlled 12V train points, but even that will be too technical for you to understand.
Sagittarius: Wearing a short-sleeved checked shirt is a nice tribute to the 50 years of LEGO, but unless you live in the southern hemispher, all you’ll get is a serious cold.
Capricorn: No, that’s not ABS granulate falling from the sky. It’s just snow.
Aquarius: Despite your attempts to do some tourism in Belgium, all your hosts will be able to talk to you about is LEGO. Well, there’s a chance you might get to eat actual belgian fries, but that’s about it.
Pisces: With all these new windows and doors, your heating bill will reach new heights. If only LEGO knew about insulated glazing…

Non-horoscopes

Joubarc — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:45:51 +0000

As you may have noticed (or not), there were no horoscopes for December; and January was starting to look like it would go the same way. Of course, I could blame my own lazyness (it runs in the family), or the fact I have a lot of extralegotal work (hey, I do), or whatever.

Instead, I prefer to give you the real reason why there were no horoscopes recently.

You didn’t get any horoscopes because:

Aries: LEGO decided to use bricks instead of stars for their new online rating system, so the stars are mad at LEGO.
Taurus: The stars are on writer’s strike.
Gemini: You would have forgotten to read it anyway.
Cancer: Indiana Jones stole my divination orb, mistaking it for some ancient artifact.
Leo: The stars knew what you were about to get for Christmas and didn’t want to disappoint you.
Virgo: Eurobricks predicts the future of LEGO much longer in advance anyway.
Libra: The stars were busy showing the way to the Three Kings, who still don’t have a GPS.
Scorpio: Your immediate future was too predictable: you were going to buy a lot of LEGO, like every month. Maybe more.
Sagittarius: The stars are considering a new LEGO-based horoscope system, in which your sign would be “Jack Stone”.
Capricorn: The cat ate the horoscopes draft version.
Aquarius: You forgot to renew your subscription to Melting Bricks.
Pisces: The stars were captured by the good wizard to decorate his hat.

Best wishes for 2008!

Horoscopes - November 2007

Joubarc — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:43:47 +0000

Aries: “Let those who never bought Mega Bloks throw me the first brick” is not a valid defense. There are a lot of such people, and you will get bricked to death.
Taurus: Spammers know you so well they will send you emails about enlarging your brick.
Gemini: You will fall under the weight of your event nametag. Try limiting yourself to 1×8 bricks like everyone else, maybe.
Cancer: You will rebel against building instructions and open all bags of your new set at the same time; and you will even go as far as building it on carpet. Or grass.
Leo: You will be cornered by a Bionicle designer who will complain about Exo-force for hours.
Virgo: You will be ready to preorder a thousand of Belville battle packs as soon as LEGO announce it. They probably won’t, though.
Libra: The LEGO marketing department will consider doing an impulse set at a 100$ price point just to match your definition of impulse buy.
Scorpio: You will spend hours trying to find out when “The 50 year brick” is coming to the theater.
Sagittarius: Someone will again publish a MOC based on your own secret design. Start searching your house for cameras.
Capricorn: You will use a troll minifig image as avatar on the Internet forums you visit. It suits you well, actually.
Aquarius: It’s a good thing you get free t-shirts at events, considering your fellow LUG friends will again rip your clothes off you for fun.
Pisces: The heads of all your Technic figures will be mysteriously replaced by Fabuland animal heads.

Horoscopes - October 2007

Joubarc — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:39:05 +0000

Aries: Each time you ask for random galleries on brickshelf, you’ll only get Jack Stone stuff.
Taurus: You’ll find yourself surrounded by no less than 5 LEGO ambassadors. Don’t worry, they’re quite friendly, but try to stay out of the way when they hug.
Gemini: You’ll hear a very big secret, but it won’t be about LEGO, so the stars don’t quite care.
Cancer: You will get lost in LEGOworld by trying to avoid the Jetix party area.
Leo: Unfortunately, your horoscope for this month happens to be in Danish. Which means it sounds like complete gibberish.
Virgo: A new LEGO calculator with a power function will be available, and you will be the first to buy it.
Libra: You will get a LEGO Millenium Falcon for your birthday. The mini one.
Scorpio: You don’t see how people could be excited about new track geometry. Geometry was hard enough for you in school.
Sagittarius: There’s no such thing as having too much LEGO, no matters what the signs are.
Capricorn: Thanks to LEGO, it turns out there is some kind of purity in you after all.
Aquarius: You will mix up Ole Kirk and James T. Kirk, and will get a beating both by LEGO fans and Star Trek fans.
Pisces: You may be a 12v zealot, but now is really not a good time to brag about it.

Horoscopes - September 2007

Joubarc — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 19:43:07 +0000

Aries: You will try a drastic diet to be able to wear the LEGO t-shirt of your dreams.
Taurus: Hollywood will help you settle the question once and for all when you realize you need to watch the Matrix movies in a row, not in a column.
Gemini: Your dual nature will force you to reject from your collection all LEGO parts which don’t have a symmetrical version.
Cancer: You will be required to present a valid LEGO builder license the next time you go to a toy store.
Leo: The LEGO company will refuse your suggestion for a new part. Which is just as good, honestly.
Virgo: You will receive a Belville ice cube tray for your birthday.
Libra: The author of your September horoscope didn’t sign a contributor agreement. The stars apologize for the inconvenience, but it will need to be rewritten.
Scorpio: The new LEGO bulldozer is very powerful, but not enough to dig your swimming pool.
Sagittarius: You will soon be able to troll the forums of LEGOfan once again.
Capricorn: Sure you’re eager to reenact the war of 1812 in LEGO, but suggesting to burn a 4-year work MOC won’t make the concept very popular.
Aquarius: Now that you have built a turtle-shaped robot, all you need is for someone to port Logo to the NXT.
Pisces: The rumors you will read about 2008 sets aren’t true. These sets will be released in 2009.

Horoscopes - August 2007

Joubarc — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:40:26 +0000

Aries: You should not talk to anyone about your idea of putting 12v inserts on RC train tracks. This only works for straight tracks.
Taurus: You will read about 60 pages of the latest BrickJourna before realizing it’s not actually something different than BrickJournal.
Gemini: LEGO will finally react to your numerous complains about the bizarre price differences between countries on Shop@Home: they will discontinue Shop@Home in your own country.
Cancer: Your plans for a big nighttime Great Ball Contraption gathering will be thwarted when you discover LEGO does not produce glow-in-the-dark balls.
Leo: LEGO’s 75th birthday will make you forget about your own birthday completely.
Virgo: You will print all your MOC pictures and put them on a real LEGO brick shelf.
Libra: A dream will convince you to make huge donations to all LEGO community sites you regularly visit.
Scorpio: Your new remote-controlled dinosaur will be no match for the neighbour’s dog.
Sagittarius: You will report your issues to LEGO ambassadors, but they would really prefer to hear only about LEGO-related issues.
Capricorn: After spending an entire month building a giant remote-controlled robot, you will realize that you can’t control 19 power functions motors with only 4 channels.
Aquarius: You won’t be able to get rid of the RC tracks that come with each train station you purchase.
Pisces: You will dedicate this month to put copies of your LEGO pictures on every new picture site available.

Horoscopes - July 2007

Joubarc — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 06:17:31 +0000

Aries

You’ll move your LEGO site to another hosting company, but the new one won’t be more reliable.

Taurus

You’ll select a LEGO set as the allowed one personnal item for your adventure trip, but you will take en empty box by mistake.

Gemini

Your new office cubicle will be as small as a vignette.

Cancer

You’ll plan to attend so many LEGO events during the summer that you will mix all the dates.

Leo

You won’t touch a brick this month as you will be too busy with Harry Potter.

Virgo

Don’t eat that lettuce - it grows hair.

Libra

You’ll search your entire LEGO collection for hours for a 2 x 3 red brick to photograph, but you won’t find any.

Scorpio

Your prayers for more female minifigs will be unanswered. Unless you call Tina a minifig; then, yes, you’ll get some.

Sagittarius

The LEGO Company will suddenly release a set at the planned date instead of months in advance, which will confuse you greatly.

Capricorn

You won’t be able to make up your mind about what to bring to the LEGO event you organize. A big mosaic maybe? Or not?

Aquarius

You’ll wonder if Indiana Jones sets will contain a Lara Croft minifig. Hint: go watch the movies.

Pisces

You’ll set up your LEGO blog to update automatically when you’re on holiday, but it won’t quite work.

Horoscopes - June 2007

Joubarc — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:37:30 +0000

Aries: One of your minifigs will definitely frown at you.
Taurus: You’ll be invited to participate in a new show, Big Brother: LEGOland edition.
Gemini: You’ll brag about buying a foreign castle, having it shipped to you brick per brick, and rebuilding it in your garden. Just change the subject when people ask its size.
Cancer: You will paint your cat’s legs green so that you can call it Mobile Devastator. It’s a very suitable name.
Leo: Stars don’t know what set “revolutionized” your building, but they could venture a guess on which one will cause your spouse not to talk to you for a week.
Virgo: You will start using garbage as cement and your city will collapse.
Libra: Your bad habit of glueing LEGO together will at last turn against you when you buy the new key rack.
Scorpio: You will bring a Mars Mission missile launcher at your office, and let’s just say missiles won’t be the only ones to be fired.
Sagittarius: LEGO’s reputation may be the best, but it won’t help your own reputation that much.
Capricorn: Trading skeletons for aliens should be easy, but why on earth do you want to do that?
Aquarius: You will mark all your train tracks in preparation of a big LEGO display, but that’s pointless: you will be the only one bringing RC track, and there is not a chance anyone else would take them.
Pisces: Your new pirate ship won’t float. Next time, don’t test it in a deep muddy lake.

Horoscopes - May 2007

Joubarc — Wed, 02 May 2007 20:57:40 +0000

Aries: You will refuse to pay the full price for a Death Star which isn’t even completed.
Taurus: You will fail a geography exam. Billund is not the capital of Denmark. Maybe it should, but it isn’t.
Gemini: Your chances to win a golden LEGO minifig will be around nil. Maybe if you considered actually buying some Star Wars sets…
Cancer: Your friends will have a good laugh at your expense when you believe their story about Octago bricks for yet unborn children.
Leo: Stop nagging your LEGO ambassador to get a visa for LEGOLAND. None is required.
Virgo: There will be a new release of NXC, NBC, or BrickCC.
Libra: You will fill a cushion with ABS granulate and sleep very well on it, having the sweetest LEGO dreams ever.
Scorpio: You will train chicken to lay LEGO-shaped eggs. Much better than square eggs.
Sagittarius: You will forget yet again that the LEGO shop which is located one hour drive away from your home, closes on Sunday.
Capricorn: You will borrow a friend’s kids, but you will be very disappointed when they arrive with stuffed bears for toys instead of their LEGO bricks.
Aquarius: There won’t be any new sets released in May, but no worries, your LEGO money will be needed in June.
Pisces: Your devotion towards LEGO will go a step further when you start learning Danish. Det er ikke særlig svært.