I try to not plug my books or T-shirts too often. You know the art (one guy even tried to steal the art). You know the links to Amazon, RedBubble, & TeePublic & the links up top here. There’s even the Linktree. It’s a fun creative outlet for me, and I would appreciate a few more sales, just like I appreciate all that you have purchased!
T-shirts are on sale this weekend at TeePublic, so you can snag one for $16, Stickers, pins, & other stuff are on sale at my shop too.
Well. One.
I have sold a few, but I love being tagged on social media if you get one, like this post on threads.
Check out all the stuff in my merch stores on RedBubble and TeePublic!
Hit me up on all the socials if you do buy a sticker, T-shirt, book, or anything. I’m @AiXeLsyD13 pretty much everywhere.
Oh yeah, I ordered my Ohio Valley Style Pizza T-shirt, too… and a sticker & some maze stickers. They look neat on stuff!
TeePublic is having a sale, and they encouraged me to spread the word. I did on various social media platforms, and Ill post those here. I’d appreciate a share if you have the time or are so inclined, and it would be cool if you’re inspired to pick something up for yourself or as a gift!
Check out http://tee.pub/lic/AiXeLsyD13 for $16 T-shirts, and other merch for up to 35% off!
There’s also always my RedBubble shop and Maze Book, too. (I’m still slowly working on a 2nd book.)
Apologies for the shameless pug, but I have to get the word out somehow. I don’t pay for advertising, as the artist profit for print-on-demand services is pretty small. If I can simply fund my creative outlets, it’s a nice lil’ personal win.
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@aixelsyd13/post/DCuBGbtxwut
So, Amazon has October Prime days now on the 11th, & 12th, and the behemoth has cleared the path for other online retailers to trudge along on their wake.
I don’t think my book will be on sale, but if you haven’t bought it yet… let a few brothers hold $5.99 and add it to your cart with all your other stuff! Jeff Bezos and I need your financial support. He needs to build space ships, and I need to pay medical bills and buy LEGO sets.
In slightly cooler news, TeePublic and RedBubble are offering site-wide sales:
If you have thought about grabbing some stuff from either one of my shops, now would be a great time. The T-shirts, stickers, and magnets are cool. I hope to order mores tuff to check out the quality. You can get wall art to clocks, to tote bags, to mugs, to shower curtains!
If you have not thought about it, now would be a great time to think about it.
They’re good gifts for people that have everything.
I also need someone to help solve some mazes so I can include the solutions in my next book!
This year, we let the kids pick the vacations. Luckily a new job afforded me more time, and we took a year off from being camp counselors/directors. I had offered the beach. I hate the beach, but we have never gone as a family. They brainstormed & settled on Legoland in New York, a trip to visit good friends that live in NJ who took us to New York City, and an upcoming trip to Washington DC.
My wife did the booking/research and set us up for 3 nights in the hotel and 2 days in the park. We both looked at two Facebook groups prior to going to help glean some knowledge:
Somehow, I was dirty banned from the first group with no warning or explanation. 😂 The second group is totally cool. I would suggest joining both. The only thing I can think that got me banned was the toilet thing (keep reading), or that I said to take cash even though they all said not to. (More on that in a bit too.)
I’ll put a list of my tips at the end.
Full disclosure: I like LEGO as much as if not more than the kids. We all do. Even my wife has gotten into building some really cool sets.
The hotel was super cool. We stayed in a Kingdom themed room. It had a separate nook with bunk bends and a TV for the kids, and a King-sized bed & TV for the adults. It came with a bin full of mostly Duplo & some LEGO to play with. It also had a treasure-hunt the first day to get (3) LEGO poly bag sets. We got them the 2nd night too, but not the 3rd. 🤷
I think we watched ALL of the LEGO movies in the room. That was neat.
The lobby has a giant castle that looks like LEGO, a treasure-trove of Duplo & Lego blocks, a climbing wall that isn’t a climbing wall, an area with large LEGO bricks made out of some material that feels like Crocs. There are so many photo opportunities throughout the hotel and park, it’s crazy.
Yeah. 4,672 kids climbed on this wall. Employees would all politely tell them to get off, and the parent / grandparent / aunt / uncle /random stranger would undoubtedly always exclaim “But, it looks like a climbing wall!” There is a sign to the left that says not to climb… but really, it LOOKS like a climbing wall. I suggest the shore it up so it’s safe to climb, or put stuff on the shelves so they don’t look like seats. Or maybe get a bigger more centralized “No Climbing” sign.
The restaurants in the park & at the hotel were interesting. They were crazy expensive, which we had gleaned from the groups, and kind of just expected anyway. The food was eh. I did not like their “fry sauce” on the burger. Breakfast was free with the stay and was a nice tray with scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, French toast sticks, sausage, tator tots or home fries, fresh fruit, and the option of coffee, juice, milk, or water to drink. Pop or iced tea was an up charge.
The rides and attractions are definitely geared to pre-teen kids, but were fun for the whole family. The Dragon was my son’s first roller coaster ride. The indoor rides were fun, and of course they drop you in the gift shops. We kept telling my son that the same stuff would be in the big store. We were wrong. Some stuff was different. No build a minifigure in the big store.
We did not do the water park… It’s convoluted as you have to reserve time in 20 minute increments and it seems like a wild pain in the keister. We thought about doing the pool at the hotel after the park, but we decided to chill the first day and it was raining the second day. The pirate themed rides were perfect for us.
I almost bought the park-exclusive Legoland New York set, and would have for $75, but I didn’t feel like it was worth the $100 asking price. Maybe next time? We did get the photo package for one day, and they kids’ LEGOLAND drivers license photos. I did buy two little New York City themed sets.
The thing that made me laugh the most was our toilet project.
My son was having fun playing with the blocks and all the other kids in the hotel lobby. He became somewhat of a warmonger or arms dealer. Kids were coming up to him like he was Peter Dinklage in that Thor Movie where he forged Stormbreaker, or Tony Stark supplying all sides with arms. He was making Duplo and LEGO swords, guns, and who knows what else for any kid that would ask. He was having an absolute blast. I built Godzilla and a city to smash to pass some time. I also built a Duplo rubber duck and we attached to it a Ninjago figure’s head.
Then my daughter and I got silly. She built a pile of poop out of brown LEGO bricks. I told her to get me a bunch of white Duplo blocks, and made a toilet. At first, we just sat her stuffed LEGO guy in a chicken costume minifig on it. Then, we put it on the tray beside a salad that a LEGO waitress minifig sculpture was carrying. It was hilarious to see kids & adults discover it.
All-in-all, we had a great time. I think you will too if you’re into LEGO and your kids are the right age. Check out the last of my pics if you didn’t already see them on Instagram, or skip down to my helpful tips!
My LEGOLAND New York tips:
If you have been there, please share your tips & tricks in the comments! If you have not, ask some questions and I’ll try to answer!
Here’s a bunch more mazes. No real common theme. Inspiration is weird. Try ’em, post ’em, tag me. Post it on your WordPress or Instagram or Twitter, or Facebook or Tumblr or TikTok or whatever. I’m @aixelsyd13 on most all platforms. I think I even signed up for Hive and Mastodon. Host it somewhere and use html to post it here in the comments. You have a world full of options.
Do it on your phone or tablet. Print it and do it like it’s 1993. Have fun. There are no rules. Anarchy abounds!
I mean, at least they pretended to care. My review finally went live on Amazon. Wonder if anyone will find it helpful?
Got this seemingly automatically generated super polite “thanks, but go [fornicate] yourself” email:
Politely worded, no further need for follow up on their end. Bravo.
I also reached out via FB Messenger and DM on Twitter. Got this through Facebook, nothing from Twitter:
Shenanigans abound.
The kids have shown a commitment to their respective basketball teams over the years, so it was time for a significant upgrade in height and backboard size.
We bought a Spalding Ultimate Hybrid® 60″ Performance Acrylic Portable Basketball Hoop off of Amazon.
So, following is my review that should eventually go live on Amazon. I thought you may get a kick out of it.
🏀 This is a sturdy stylish basketball hoop. It is the described height and backboard size. The delivery was courteous and professional despite the dilapidated box. 🏀
That concludes the positive portion of my review. Putting this together was an exercise in patience & mental fortitude, and I failed. I mean, is it together now? Yes. Did it take much longer than it needed to? Yes. Am I, perhaps, just an idiot that can’t follow instructions? I doubt it, because every piece of furniture or children’s toy that I have purchased from the late 1900′ s to now has involved my dumb☆$$ assembling it. My resume includes, cabinets, beds, desks, dining room sets, shelves, dressers, Batcaves, a Kid Kraft Kitchen, doll furniture, the TMNT lair, Barbie’s dream house, and even an outdoor swingset treehouse thing. I have gotten pretty good. I even build LEGO as a hobby. I can follow instructions. I am quite familiar with my local Harbor Freight and Home Depot stores. I have some power tools and I know how to use them. 🔧🔨🪛🗜🚧
This manual had to have been written by someone that has never seen a basketball, a bolt, a screwdriver, or assembled anything. The frustration therein is compounded by the fact that the packaging was obtuse and the instructions at times were actually absurd.
I’m not even sure where to begin. Most furniture to be assembled has the packaging that directly labels the parts. Maybe stickers, maybe it’s stamped, maybe there is a cardboard backing to a pack numbering or lettering each bolt.
Here, we had none of that. They seemingly came in packs to facilitate the process, labeled 1B, 2B, 3B, etc. The book calls the packs Kit 2, Kit 2, Kit 3, etc. and of course the numbers do not correspond. The first bit that was maddening is that the #60 bolt from the first pack was one of the last bolts used. I found no discernable rhyme or reason to the contents relationship in packaging to each other at some points.
The backboard parts list shows an ¹¹/₆₄ drill bit. We’ll get to that in a bit (𝘱𝘶𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥).
The list of tools required did include sand, a garden hose, a sawhorse, a “scrap wood board,” and “2 capable adults.” While we won’t pause to question if the authors at Spalding were calling me and my wife tools, I will ask you to note the distinct lack of a drill in the tool list.
The first indication that this whole project was, as the young people say “shady AF,” was the fact that to assemble the main pole, I had to measure and mark 3½” down from the top of 2 of the 3 pieces. There was no pencil, chalk, crayon or Sharpie mentioned in the tool list. OK. I have a pencil & a tape measure. The next step was the head-scratcher. The actual instructions are to jam the tubes together and 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 (on top of your scrap of wood) until they’re properly seated at the mark you hopefully measured correctly and marked, perhaps scratching with the drill bit?
I mean, this could have been made exponentially easier and fail-proof by maybe marking it at the factory, or having the joints fitted and maybe lock together with a pin or bolt? I mean, the Christmas tree people have had that figured out since what, the 50’s or 60’s?
Throughout the process, I was repeatedly measuring the bolts… because while it said things like #18 or #12, nothing on the bolt or packaging indicated that number.
After most of the assembly, it was time to attach to board pads/edge guards to the backboard. There were no holes in the frame around the backboard for this. Odd. They did, however, include self-tapping screws and suggested that you try to use a ⁵/₁₆” socket wrench to break though the metal frame. 🤣 Here is the first time a portable drill is mentioned. It doesn’t even note using the inexplicably included drill bit, that conveniently is the exact right size. I know I didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes there, but I did manage to figure that one out.
The rest of the assemble went as expected. I did get a sawhorse/work bench thing out of the deal from Harbor Freight. I mean, it was in the list, so I 𝘩𝘢𝘥 to get it, right?
I will say I made a layman’s error in building that I had to rectify after the initial assembly. When I attached to lower elevator tubes to the backboard brackets, I neglected to be sure that I had went through the screw-jack, and only went through the sleeve. You can imagine my f̶i̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶l̶a̶u̶g̶h̶t̶e̶r̶ absolute fury at discovering my error. 🤬 This, my friends, was all on me.
At the end, I had to literally use a tape measure to check hoop height. It does indeed go above 10′. I suspect that you expect me to measure the heights of the hoop to match of all the provided poorly-screened stickers and place them neatly on the screw-jack to be displayed by the conveniently placed hole in the sleeve at each of the 6 suggested settings? For what I paid for the hoop… those increments should have been stamped into or printed on the screw jack already. This takes me back to the argument that there is probably a better way to build the main tube for more efficient assembly.
If you, dear potential purchaser, have stayed with me this long, then you are brave, resilient, persistent and you may just be a masochist. If you have read all of this and still add it to your cart without selecting professional assembly, then may whatever higher power you ascribe to have mercy on your soul.
I may even email the address in the manual, and try to reach out directly to Spalding somehow either via email or social media.
I don’t want or need anything, other than for them to re-think their entire process.
Oh well. I am off to play basketball, poorly.
I know I posted about this before, but a lot has changed since then.
(-o-)
So, if you were going to try to watch it ALL in chronological order, except the Lego cartoons, would it go like this?
Forces of Destiny and Galaxy of Adventures are messing with me by jumping all over the place. Does Blips belong there too?
Shut up about canon.
|-o-| [-o-] |-o-|
Also, would be fun to see in the mix:
Light it up in the comments. Maybe someday we’ll continue Star Wars movie nights. Peep all my Star Wars related posts.
I saw this graphic online through Guitar Fail the other day, & again through Guitar Squid:
Stratocaster Evolution / Everything Changes but Guitars (I wish I knew the original source.)
At first, it made me laugh and think “humph, yeah…” in agreement. The more I thought about it though… it’s wrong. How is it wrong?
Well as far as concept cars go, it’s a whole different world from everyday-use practical cars. Nothing has gone all that far from 4 wheels, 2 headlights, gasoline powered. (Yes, there are hybrids and flex-fuel all over the market… but arguably people don’t like them unless they look like “normal” cars.) But, this blog isn’t about cars. I’m sure you knew I was going to talk guitars, because that’s what I do.
There are a ridiculous amounts of varying styles of guitars & guitar innovations out there. Some of them may not be “reinventing the wheel” exactly, but there is always some great stuff happening, and there has been since the inception of the stringed instrument. How do you think we got so many varieties?
Krank Amplification | Evolution Of The Electric Guitar
I agree that too many axe-slingers fall into the Stratocaster or Les Paul shape trap. For years I held a disdain for both shapes… but I come back to them. Why? Perhaps they’re good designs. Perhaps they’re iconic. Perhaps they sound incredible. Perhaps they work. There are many other options out there. If you find yourself chuckling to and agreeing with this graphic, I challenge you to help me to add to my list of innovative guitars.
Any fans of the Guitarz Blog, Tone Fiend, Guitar WTF?, or gUitarREN should be into this. (Any cool guitar blogs I’m missing?)
Let’s talk about how the guitar is ever-evolving… Shape, materials, string count, innovation, & general insanity.
Indy Custom Flycaster (or Tele-V?)
There are lots of shapes out there past the Stratocaster or Les Paul, whether it’s somewhat normal or custom insanity. There’s the SG, the Telecaster, V’s (Flying, Jackson & more), hollowbodies like the Artcore or Gretsch models, the Explorer, the Ravelle, all the crazy B.C. Rich shapes, the Airline, even the Flycaster. Are there really not enough guitar design shapes out there to satisfy you? The Stratocaster doesn’t need to change shape, because there are plenty of other options out there! I’m barely hitting the tip of the iceberg here. I didn’t even touch on my B.B. Stone, FlipOut, or Batman axes. How many distinct guitar shapes can you name in the comments? (Actual produced shapes, not one-offs!) Bonus for posting or linking to photos.
There’s also material. Certainly guitars are mostly made of all types of wood, but there’s also plastic, graphite, Res-O-Glass (fiberglass), the Lucite / plexiglass / acrylic transparent guitars, aluminum necks, and so much more.
Once we get past the plethora of guitar makes, models, & shapes available… there are so many other innovations. Some are great, some not-so great. Just off the top of my head I can think of: Synthesizer & MIDI Guitars, Fretlights, 7/8/12 strings, double neck guitars, the chord buddy, the Coral Sitar, built-in-wireless, the robot guitar, 3D printed guitars, Evertune… but none of them have really busted the mold (yet). They’re all niche stuff. This doesn’t even get into the many styles of bridges, tuners, tremolos, locks, and other parts that have been refined… or wiring. You can get CRAZY with wiring.
World’s Largest Playable Guitar being set up at the Carnegie Science Center – Pittsburgh, PA (Photo Credit: Kara / @ohidontthinkso)
The traveling guitar exhibit is at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh right now. I can’t wait to check it out. It’s got the world’s largest playable guitar. I was lucky enough to get a preview the other day via Twitter. Tell me that’s not an innovation? It will no doubt inspire many to pick up the guitar, or dust off the one they already have. The entire exhibit displays guitars, how they work, their history, & all kinds of fun interaction.
So, next time you think that the guitar has become stagnant, I ask you to go get your hands one one of the many non Strat options above… or even a non-standard Strat option… like a Fat Strat, hot-rodded wiring, or a backwards one. There are plenty of different, innovative, and goofy guitars out there. Rock out on something original!
World (and Lunar) Domination 