I was a child of Lego.  Lego was my favorite toy ever when I was a kid.  I would constantly be building spaceships, robots, rockets and cars out of the brightly colored plastic bricks.  I would keep some models together for a long time and would horde my favorite pieces.

Well, Imagine walking into a vault and finding every one of the over 4000 sets of Lego ever made.  From the train set that activated when you whistled to the 1970-1980 time I lived through with space men and more.  The video Gizmodo shot is amazing!  Take a trip down memory lane over at Gizmodo and figure out how many of these sets you actually had!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released recently, but I have yet to see the movie. Some of the people I know who have seen seen it said it was good, but some did not like it; I think I will wait until the movie is released via Cablevisions On-demand. Until then, this YouTube video will serve as a reminder of the movie which started the whole Indiana Jones saga…

A couple of months back, I asked my LEGO friends Beetle and Maynard with their girlfriends Sunshine and Faith to check out the new Fingertip Mini Cube Speaker that Thomas at USB Fever sent from overseas. (see the review: Make Some Music)

Sunshine: “We were looking for an upgrade to a dual speaker setup. It was then that Judie from GearDiary told us about the Stereo Mini Portable Sound Box from USB Fever. That Judie girl ROCKS, because it as exactly what we were looking for!”

(L to R) Beetle, Maynard, Faith and Sunshine with the Stereo Mini Portable Sound Box

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Good things do come in small packages.

I asked my LEGO friends Beetle and Maynard with their girlfriends Sunshine and Faith to check out the new Fingertip Mini Cube Speaker that Thomas at USB Fever sent from overseas.

Beetle: “As sound technicians for the Best Little LEGO Band from Nashville, we got frustrated with the round speakers that came with our Apple Shuffle.”

Sunshine: “Then Kerry and Judie from GearDiary told us about these speakers from USB Fever.”

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When one thinks about the massive undertaking it takes to set up a concert tour and the amount of gear that a band takes on the road, it boggles the mind. Besides the band of musicians and a drummer, it takes lots of hands to pull off a concert every night. There are tour and production managers, roadies, sound and video engineers, production crews, technicians, tour drivers, merchandisers and tag alongs. Tractor trailers are filled with concert sound and light equipment, merchandise, and much more.

For some bands, it can mean endless days on the highway, playing seedy bars from coast to coast, with each night wishing and hoping for a lucky break to hit the big time.

When a band goes on tour, it may or may not have the financial backing of its label. An artist receives a fixed fee or a percentage of the tickets sold by the venue owner or promoter. Touring is an expensive process. A moderate estimate of touring costs with a bus and small crew can easily reach $15,000 a week. If an artist tours with the support of their label, the expenses are all recoupable, thus potentially increasing a band’s debt. Many successful bands tour without the support of their label so that they can keep all of their touring revenue. An independent band would have more difficulty than a highly successful one in being self-sufficient on tour.

Source: Wikipedia

This Christmas, the Best Lil’ Lego Band from Nashville caught a big break with some new sound equipment and a new stage!

In case you missed it, here are some 2006 archive photos from the Best Lil’ Lego Band from Nashville practicing on their old stage set at Kerry Woo’s Kitchen Table Sound Studios in West Nashville (Tennessee).

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I ran across this earlier today and I had to share - and this should make Kerry’s day!

Meet Nathan Sawaya. He is a Lego Artist. He’s not a Lego Builder. He is a Lego Artist. What is the difference you ask? Ah, well take a look at some of his work and you will understand exactly what I mean!

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I was looking around for a charging cradle that would allow me to store my Palm Treo 650 or 680 in an upright position. Most of the ones that I’ve seen advertised range in price from $29 to $49 USD.

While esthetically useful, the practicality of obtaining a cradle meant having yet another spare power cable and sync cable stored away in a shoebox of miscellaneous wires and USB cables.

The ancient Greek phillospher Plato is quoted as saying Necessity is the mother of invention, which means that a need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem.

I’ve heard of and seen Apple iPods cradles made using wood, cardboard and LEGO bricks. Ah LEGO - those wonderful and versatile studded interlocking plastic bricks!

I began to sketch out a design of a cradle made of LEGO. I went out to my garage and began to rummage around through my collection of LEGO in zipped locked bags.

Here’s what my imagination came up with (play along) :

A Palm Treo LEGO cradle…

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