Lego Women of NASA

For Christmas my husband got me a Lego set, but not just any Lego set, the Women of NASA set.

It's got 3 stands with nameplates for the four women featured: Nancy Grace Roman (with the Hubble space telescope), Margaret Hamilton (with a stack of books filled with flight software source code for the Apollo Guidance Computer), Sally Ride and Mae Jemison (with the Challenger shuttle). I love the attention to detail. It also comes with a booklet talking about the women and their contributions to science.

Geeky Baking - Lego Chocolates

Looking for a nice gift for a geeky love interest?  I've seen lego gummies in several places, but when gifting things to adults gummies aren't necessarily the best choice.  So I took my faux lego moulds (purchased off of ebay) and made chocolates instead.

I made several coloured blocks using a mix of coloured candy melts and flavoured baking chips.

I melted the chocolates in a bowl in the microwave and poured them into the moulds to harden.  Now, I used some flavourings with the plain candy melts so they'd taste different.  Just be aware that essences and extracts aren't the same thing.  The strawberry essence I used (a few drops was sufficient) was strongly flavoured.  The maple extract I used required more drops to add the flavour and significantly darkened the chocolate (as the extract acted like black dye).  Also, the butterscotch and peanut butter chips I bought didn't melt nearly as well as the chocolates.  I ended up having to squish the clay like mixture into the moulds with my fingers.

The brick colours/flavours I used:

white - mint chocolate drops (the ones I used had little candy bits on the ends, which looked great in the bricks)
off white - sugar cookie flavoured candy melts
red - red candy melts + strawberry essence
blue - blue candy melts + maple extract
green - butterscotch chips + green food colouring
brown - peanut butter chips

Movie Review: The Lego Movie

Directed by: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, 2014

IMDB listing

Pros: fun story, humour works for adults and kids

Cons: occasional jerky animation, not enough knights and castles!

Emmet Brickowski is revealed to be the lego minifigure of prophecy when he finds the Piece of Resistance, the only thing that can stop Lord Business from unleashing a superweapon on the world.

This movie is so much fun.  The characters are great, with quirky personalities (especially the 80s something astronaut), with the exception of Emmet who’s so ordinary he acts as a straight man for the others’ humour.  

The film manages to use a lot of proprietary characters like Batman and other DC heroes, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Wars characters etc.  While only Batman has a major part, it’s crazy seeing so many different universes intersect.

I found the animation style took a little getting used to.  It’s filmed as though it’s done with stop motion animation, so things are a bit jerky at times.  

My only other ‘complaint’ is that they spent a decent amount of time in the western world, but only passed by the medieval one (which is my favourite).

There’s an odd commentary in the film about whether adults should collect LEGO sets, making them to their exact designs and displaying them or if LEGO is best enjoyed as a kid’s toy, mixing up all the pieces and coming up with new, sometimes crazy, things.  As someone who loved LEGO as a kid (back before they had kits) and who now has a LEGO Hogwarts on display (as well as numerous sets done by my husband) I’m a bit of a fence sitter.  Given LEGO’s push for kits in the last decade or so, it seems odd that they’re now saying to let your kids tear those labourously built brick sculptures apart (and make no mistake, it is VERY time consuming putting these things together).

I did leave the film wanting to actually play with the Hogwarts set, rather than have it on display - or pull out some old LEGO blocks and build something new.  The movie was a lot of fun and if you like LEGO and using your imagination, go check it out.

[Normally I would embed the trailer here, but I saw this film without having seen the trailer and it was... liberating seeing a film with no expectations and no idea what the plot was.  So I'm linking to the trailer instead.]

Fan Expo Canada Cosplay

Since Saturday's so crazy at Fan Expo, I decided to go on Friday this year and see if it was easier to get around.  It was, mostly.  I've got a slideshow of costumes, followed by some nifty lego creations that were on the show floor.  There are a few 'celebrity' cars as well (Kitt from Knight Rider and the Batmobile).  If the slideshow doesn't work (or you don't have/like flash or want to see the pictures larger) here's a link to the album.

[And for those of you who commented on yesterday's reading list post, I will be adding the authors when I get the chance, I've just been busy.]