LeStorigo

End of Winter Break

2007-01-07T17:42:00.000-08:00

Just came back from Whistler. A jolly great trip for me, a disaster for LeStorigo. Predictably, the visitor count and visit length both plunged due to lack of update and promotion.

Jason came and took away his Lego that I borrowed for the winter. I asked him for 2 last hours for me to take the last pictures and say goodbye.

The worst news for LeStorigo: the start of term 2 tomorrow. I will frankly tell everyone that I study the most when a term starts, because everything is still fresh and new and exciting. Hence, I think my beloved Lego will be put to rest for some time until they seduce me again.

But! I think I will try to finish The Story with a Kick-Ass Ending soon, because someone (hopefully) might be looking forward to its completion.

SKAE Chapter Four

2006-12-31T15:46:00.000-08:00

Chapter One: Castle of Desires
Chapter Two: Death of Seven Pirates
Chapter Three: Face of the Faceless Guard

Chapter Four: Knocking on the Castle's Door

The mysterious statue spoke: "Hello, Thef."
Thef: "How do you know my name? Who are you?"
The statue: "I am the Statue of Fulfillment.
You've entered the Castle of Desires, and now your desires shall be fulfilled."

Thef: "Who were those faceless guards? Why didn't they kill me?"
The statue: "You had no intention to exploit the Castle, so the Castle held no guard against you."
Thef: "Well, I have only one desire now..."
The statue: "And it is fulfilled."

And miraculously, a giant aircraft appeared before Thef's feet!

built by Charlie
The statue: "Your desire of escape will be fulfilled with this aircraft. It can take you to any place you could possibly want to go."
Thef: "Whoa..."
He dropped his weapons, and took flight.

Thef: "Hahahahaha! Huhoo!"

As the aircraft is cruising at ultrasonic speed, a man hopped onto its nose.
Thef: "!?" How is that possible?
The spaceman said: "Please slow down your aircraft. I have a favor to ask."
Thef accelerated to near light speed, but the spaceman still stood there casually.
"Or I could destroy your aircraft."
Thef landed immediately. "What do you want?"
"I want no harm. I just want to know where I can find the Castle of Desires."
"Oh! Well, that way."
"May the force be with you!" The spaceman flew away before his voice could reach Thef's ears.
"What's with all these people?" Thef scratched his head.

A minute later,
two spacemen arrived at the Castle of Desires.
This time, the guards were already waiting in high alert. They knew these spacemen were unlike any other enemies they have faced.
The spacemen said: "Please grant us entry to your Castle. We do not wish to harm you."
The guards didn't lower their weapons.

With a flash, the entire Castle was lit by countless torches!
The Left and Right Guards stepped up cautiously to the spacemen.
For the first time in history, they spoke, in a hoarse voice: "Leave at once."

"Well, if you have the power to drive us out, you would already be doing so, wouldn't you?" The spacemen smiled.
The Left Guard launched his attack, but the spaceman was so much faster.
That's a speed foreign to the entire world!

And sure enough, the spacemen are foreigners from another world.

They revealed their real look.
"Jajajajaja!"
What hideous two-legged-scorpion-looking aliens!
"Jajajajaja... it's too late now, foolish guards!"

The three guards simultaneously attacked the two intruders,
but the aliens disappeared before Guards' swords could even point to them!

"Jajajaja! What are you pointing at?"
"We are here!"
The tail of the thin alien almost stabbed the Middle Guard in the throat,
but the other Guards disrupted the alien's attack.
"Aw... I'm hit..." the fat alien lied flat.
"... or not!"
"Jajajajaja!"
The Guard took a direct hit and dropped his helmet and weapons.

"This is going to get interesting..."
the Guards said in a chilling voice.

The weapons and helmet were not for attack nor defense, they were in place as training tools to slow down the Guards!
Facing these aliens, the Guards now dropped their burdens and prepared for a real fight.

With incomprehensible speed,
[animation]
the aliens were knocked down.

"Ja...!"

But the fat alien wasn't critically injured.
Rather, it was merely excited!

"Jajajaja! How's this?"
He flew right into the guards, and
opened fire on top of Middle Guard.
"Jajajajaja!"
"Wait, where are you going?"
The fat alien watched the Middle Guard fly into the Castle.

He was going to get his desires fulfilled!
"Foul! Cheater!" The fat alien screamed, but it was too late.

A gigantic dragon appeared!
built by Charlie
"HAARRGGHH!!!"

The dragon circled over the area awesomely,

and the ground shook as it landed.
"!?"
"That's... not fair." The fat alien was awe-struck.
HHAAAAARRRGHHHHH!!!

to be continued...

First eBay selling

2006-12-27T11:34:00.000-08:00

1226
We found a bracelet in a chaotic shopping mall, and we (or I) decided to sell it on eBay. Jason said it would sell for $1, Jenny $.50, Charlie $2, Sophia $6-7, and Harvey $0.
And I just wanted to have some fun selling a random thing on eBay. This will be a practice run for selling Lego in the future, if I really get into it.

And it's listed!

SKAE Chapter Three

2006-12-26T11:26:00.000-08:00

Chapter One: Castle of Desires
Chapter Two: Death of Seven Pirates

Chapter Three: Face of the Faceless Guard

One hundred years later...

"Hu hoo..."
Are they still after me?
I must find a place to hide...
An exhausted man ran into view with immense paranoia.

What's this?
He saw something parculiar under a pile of leaves.
A pirate's hat?
Aha! Weapons!
The man quickly removed some leaves. Several ancient abandoned weapons revealed.
"Yargh! Run for mercy!" The man put on the hat and picked up a sword.
Only if these fire arms were 100 years newer... he thought to himself.
As he played around with the new weapons, a row of headless bodies appeared!

"Argh!" the man screamed.
"Don't fear us, but fear the place you are about to go..." the headless Captain said in a gloomy voice.

"Stay back!" The man swung the sword at the headless Captain. Air was all that he hit.
"Holy ****!!" The man screamed even louder than before, and he took off in a flight.
"... poor soul..." the headless Captain said with a sigh.

A few minutes later.

A team of sharp-looking cops arrived after the escaped man.
"Wow, he's quite a runner!" A cop said.
"How's everyone doing?"
"Ha ha... what now, do you want a coffee break again?"
The cops laughed.
"Nah, let's catch this filth and go home."
"Agreed. Been playing with this one too long."
Zoom!
The cops drove pass the pirates' weapons, heading towards...?

"Ha... ha... hoo... hoo..." The man's adrenaline surge died down after some vigorous running.
Where am I? A building. A Castle?
Who cares, it's a good place to hide.
The man went in...
without taking time to notice the heads...
...of the ancient preys of Castle of Desires.

After some loud screeches of breaking,
the cops arrived at the Castle soon after the man.
"Well, gentlemen, I think this is it."
"Hold down guys, I can't get the helmet off my hand."
"Hmm, this Castle looks funny..."

And out of nowhere, three Faceless Guards appeared!
"What the...!?" A cop was taken aback, and then
he started to laugh.
"Ha, ha, ha...! The Castle of Desires! How long have we been trying to find you!"

These aren't ordinary cops; they are the Price Hunters.
They pursue the most wanted criminals, fight the most dangerous battles as mercenaries, but their ultimate goal, is the legendary treasures like the Castle of Desires.

"Let me show you my toy..." The Price Hunter smiled as he pulled out a massive hand-held cannon.
His smile and his cannon were equally menacing!
The other Price Hunters pulled out their weapons as well.
What an excitement for them to finally find the legendary Castle of Desires!
"Ha, ha, ha... rock 'n' roll!"
"Oh, I got it! Stupid helmet..."
"Behold, the Sword of Fire..."

"Wahahaha! Play time!"

And the stage is set for a timeless battle!

Facing these professional enemies, both of the Left Guard and the Right Guard launched their attack with lightening speed.
But this time, the high-power machine guns proved to be fast enough to stop the Right Guard.
"Chongchongchongchongchongchong!!!"
The Price Hunter pointed his spears at the weakest spots of the Left Guard, forcing the Guard to abruptly freeze his attack.
Both Guards had their attack disrupted, and they knew it was time for some real fights!

"I guess it's three on one here, too bad for you."
The two monster cannons fired at the same time.
Two blinding neon laser beams stroke the Middle Guard square in the chest!
"Huh?" "Where's...?"
Was he evaporated by the ultra cannons?

No!
"What the hell!?"
"Arghh!!!"
[animation]
With countless spiraling slices, the Hunters were hunted.

"Chongchongchongchong!!!" The machine guns spit out thousands of deadly bullets per second.
"Why don't you die!?" The Hunter shouted.
Suddenly, a circle of Guards appeared above the Hunter's head, and attacks seemed to descend from every direction!
[animation]
And then the bullets stopped.

The Left Guard miraculously stopped his attack in mid-air to avoid an attack on his weak spots, but he didn't expect the Hunter to fire his spears like bullets!
"Puuuu-sh!"
"Chiang!"
The helmet of the Guard was stroke off!
The Faceless Left Guard did a 360 spin, and, oh Lord, he showed his concealed face!
!?
Oh, what face did I see!
The Hunter fell to the ground.
That face... that face...
The Hunter kept thinking, until the world in front of his eyes went black.

The Left Guard picked up his helmet. The three guards looked at the bodies of their enemy in silence.And the Castle of Desires was kept untouched.

Or was it?

"What in the world just happened?!" The escaped man watch the entire fight behind the Castle's gate."And what is this?"

... to be continued

Ron & Poodle VS. A story with kick-ass ending

2006-12-25T23:15:00.000-08:00

A question
So I've started this new story that I called "A Story with kick-ass ending" which may or may not have a kick-ass ending depending on how much faith you have in me as a story teller.

A major difference between the style that I am presenting this story is how little effort I put into editing the pictures compared to the extensive photoshopping in Ron & Poodle. The results: fast and sweet production of SKAE, and quality but painful progress of R&P.

So the question is: should I stay with the photoshops for R&P at all? Because after I tasted the sweetness in SKAE, it's somewhat dragging and bogging to go back to so much computer cranking.

Photo Resizing
The most computer cranking that I had to do during the production of the first 2 chapters of SKAE was resizing all the huge (1600x1200) pictures to an economic 640x480. I could have just been smarter and set my camera to that resolution, but no, I was in my Lego mode (ie. 10-year-old).

It was quite painful to resize every picture using photoshop, so after I finished chapter two, I googled for a better solution. And I found this!

A story with kick-ass ending Chapter 2

2006-12-25T16:52:00.000-08:00

Chapter One: Castle of Desires

Chapter Two: Death of Seven Pirates

The seven pirates got off the boat and shouted at the guards.
"Surrender, and we will make your death painless!"
"Yargh!"
Twin-knife Twinniff jumped into midair, eager to make the first kill.
He has heard much about the skills of the guards of Castle of Desire, so right off the bat he launched his most deadly attack.
"Which of you wants to die first?" Twinniff yelled.
Without a word, the Middle Guard rose his spear.
Suddenly, the Left Guard jumped forward with such a great speed that it seemed like he flew!
"What...!?"
Twinniff has never seen an enemy move so fast, and before he can react......the Guard has gone pass him.
"... the..."
"... bloody..."
The Guard landed,
and Twinniff was killed with one strike!

The Guard turned to face the remaining pirates.
He rose his sword, and all of the pirates' spines went numb.
The best fighter among them was killed, and they didn't even know how!
"Just blow his head off!"
Long-gun Logan had enough courage to shout.
Every pirate with a fire arm fired at once.
"Baaaaaaaaaaaam!" Poisonous smoke. Deafening bangs.
But the Guard remained standing.
The Guard slowly rose his sword in response to the intruders' fire, and the pirates barely had time to blink before what was about to happen happened!

[click to see animation]

Everyone but the Captain was killed.
The Captain didn't even have time to fear! The Guard turned around slowly.
Captain Goghtee was now so overwhelmed with fear, he couldn't put his weapons down.
Experience told him that it was too late to escape.
Too late to even beg for mercy.
So he stood there, and watched the Guard fly pass him.
No pain?
It must be because the cut was so fast and so clean.
The Captain thought as he fell onto the ground.

The Guard went back to his post in front of Castle of Desires.
All the while, the other two Guards didn't even move a finger.
[Fade out.]

... to be continued

This story has a kick-ass ending

2006-12-25T10:32:00.000-08:00

The sole purpose of this story is to show-case the Creation that took place in the past few weeks. Hence, it may seem completely pointless and random, but it has a kick-ass ending.

Chapter One: Castle of Desires

Once upon a time, the mysterious Castle of Desires stood majestically in the Plain of All Hopes.

built by Billy
Since the beginning of time, as legends went, the Castle was guarded by three faceless knights.
Behind the three knights, no one knew what was in the castle. People believed that who ever set foot into the Castle would find his deepest desires come true.

Such temptation attracted much ill-meaning visitors. Among which came a ship full of ruthless pirates.
built by Billy
This is the "Twin-knife" Twinniff, the best and most arrogant fighter of them all.
The "Long-gun" Logan, who takes pride in his weapon of brute force.
And of course, Captain Goghtee, the merciless leader of the pirates.

The seven pirates arrived at the foot of the Castle of Desires. The pirates shouted in excitement.
"They are out-numbered three to seven!"
"Captain Goghtee does not even have to get off the boat!"
"I alone can handle three guards," said Twinniff.
"Watch me blow their heads off from here!" said Logan. The faceless knights watched the approaching pirates in silence.

A gory blood shed was about to take place...

... to be continued (not kick-ass yet)

Blogger layout

2006-12-24T22:15:00.000-08:00

1224 Better part of the day

I was quite frustrated with the Layout and additional functionality of Blogger.

The Blogger help site provides users with tons of good hacks, like recent comments in sidebar, listing commenters of a post - stuff that can help make the blog so much better.
But no, can't get it to work unless I switch back to the "classic template", otherwise the code provided by the help site seems to work as well as garbage. And classic template is crap, because I need to do crazy CSS coding every time I want to do any tiny thing, like changing the order of or even removing some sidebar items. Gah!
Hopefully I can find some stuff that can actually work with the new templates...

I did add the "Search by Label" and "Dunno where to start?" widgets that will hopefully improve the reading flow of the website, and my precious readers will be less lost and actually come back in the future.

Week 1 traffic report

2006-12-22T23:54:00.000-08:00

Figure: The week-one traffic record of lestorigo.blogspot.com as recorded by sitemeter.com. "Visits" represents the number of unique visitors on that day, and "Page Views" indicates how many times the blog is entered by these visitors. In other words, a visitor can only increase the "Visit" count once per day, but s/he can increase the "Page Views" count as many times as s/he refreshes the browser.

As shown in the figure, there are two significant peaks over the past week. The first one occurred on Monday, December 18th, and the second one occurred on Friday, December 22nd.
The first peak is believed to be due to my efforts in advertising for this blog on Saturday, which coincides the conclusion of most of my friends' exams. The combined effect is the steady increase over the 2-day period. Note that the number on Friday and Saturday are not accurate, because the site meter was installed on late Saturday night, so the seemingly steady increase of visitor traffic from Friday to Sunday is misleading.

After the peak of 20 visitors on Monday and three days after the public announcement of LeStorigo, the visitor traffic diminished. Some half a dozen regular visitors (one of which is me) maintained the traffic flow.

On Thursday, Tina joined as a co-author and publicized LeStorigo on Friday, which leads to the second peak of 25 visitors and a staggering 85 page views. From the observation of the first peak, I predict that there will still be a large volume of traffic over the weekend, and the traffic will die down again after Sunday.

Yay!! A second author!!

2006-12-22T11:16:00.000-08:00

1221 Night
Tina took pictures of her house, photoshopped them, and posted her first Lego post as a co-author of this blog! Now we just need some kind person to leave her a comment so that she will work on some more pictures.

Later that night
Tina built the interior of the house while I made some random stuff with the Lego. Till 1:30am. Now she's really looking forward to getting some audience attention. I think she finally understands why most bloggers like visitor traffic.

On a side note, here's an idea that I've been kicking around for awhile: a story rally on the website that gets implemented with Lego pictures. Meaning someone can start a few lines of a story, and someone else can take those few lines and continue it anyway they like. Meanwhile, I get to go crazy on the Lego's trying to play out the who-knows-where-this-is-going story.
You in?

La Maison du LeStorigo For Sale

2006-12-21T21:34:00.000-08:00

Perfect views of Monc du Borb from this fully furnished three bedroom and three bathroom to mansion at LeStorigo. This is a luxury three bedroom home with garage that's just a stones throw from Villa du Nord. Leave a comment for more photographs and details.

Lego story 03

2006-12-21T14:37:00.000-08:00

A big pile!

2006-12-20T10:55:00.000-08:00

1219 Met up with long-time-no-see friends Jason and Harvey

Tried to secure a tutoring job with Harvey's sister, since I just found out that I spent almost every penny earned in tutoring in the past month on Lego. In need to secure more funding sources. Thinking about starting a tutoring business that will make more bucks, whose profit will go into my other ventures. A tutoring business is a much more secure, traditional, and reliable source of income than say Lego dealing.
Talked to Jason, and it turned out that he had loads of Lego sitting around in the garage for many years. Too bad his mom is also a Lego lover who wouldn't give or even sell me their Lego. So I just borrowed a box full of Lego and promised to return after winter break.
Spent the remaining of the night playing massive Lego with mom, Tina, and Charlie. Pretty neat outcome after some 6 hours of Legoing. Perhaps we can use it in the next Lego story.

1220 Harvey and Jason joined the Lego party

Afternoon, Jason came and played with his childhood toys that we diligently categorized last night. "Why did you do that? I always play like this," he said, and dig randomly into the big pile.
With this much Lego, we were able to build some pretty cool-looking stuff. Jason liked my robot monster the best, and surprisingly, Charlie's flat aircraft the least. I thought Charlie's little bird was pretty darn cool.
Charlie took Jason's criticism and made his little bird even better.
And I started to have some ideas kicking around again...

eBay Lego market report

2006-12-17T23:25:00.000-08:00

1217
Ladies and gentlemen, I. Spent. Again. But wait! Hear me out. This time I was seriously just doing my eBay Lego market research, and I stumbled across this amazing deal of 10 lb of Lego for $26US. Remember that I spent $9.99 on the first pound of lego.

Let's let the graph speak. If you would kindly examine the first figure, you will quickly see the expected positive correlation between Lego weight and total price. More Lego cost more money. Note that the seemingly ripped-off-ness of my first Lego purchase at $9.99 per pound follows the trend at the lighter-weight Lego packages, meaning I wasn't ripped off after all.

But please take a closer look at my most recent purchase at $26 for 10 pounds. Note how much lower it is compared to the neighboring dots. As my seller pointed out, I had a lucky win because the other 10lb shipment that he sold, was bidded at $56. Notice how this price fits the trend much more closely than my abnormally low $26.

Please take a look at the second figure. This graph shows the negative correlation between the unit price of Lego and the total weight. This is also expected, because as we buy larger packages, we usually get more discount. However, note that my abnormal $26 purchase is even lower than the 50lb purchase, which was sold at close to $180. This says that my more recent purchase was more economical than even the super size purchases.

Hence, my overspending after vowing not to overspend is justified.
Thank you for your attention.

Big day for LeStorigo

2006-12-16T23:26:00.000-08:00

1216 Morning before o-chem final
I talked to Tina and David about announcing the existence of this Lego blog of mine, and Tina, the week-long exclusive audience, was quick in posting a message on (almost) every post on this blog.
The announcement was smooth, spanning my Facebook, MSN messenger, MySpace, and my Wretch.

Afternoon after o-chem final
Excitedly checked for new visitors. No new comments. Oh well, you guys are either all busy studying or busy partying. Nothing to feel so disappointed about.
Tried a thing called AutionSniper or something. This thing works as follows: At the last seconds of bidding, this tool automatically bids for me. Whoever was waiting to win the auction, assuming that my bid is higher than his, of course, will watch me win at the final seconds and not have time to outbid me again. So to try out this new toy, I set it to snipe an auction of 12 minifigs and an alligator at $15 US.

Same night
After a celebration dinner and movie, I checked and found out that the sniper worked. At the last 3 seconds of bidding, I outbid that whoever by 50 cents and won the auction at $13.50. Now I don't know whether to celebrate for winning or not, because that means I am overspending. AGAIN!
Still no new comments. Added a site counter thing that records the statistics of this blog. To measure my new-found publicity, you see.

Lego story 01 (redo)

2006-12-15T23:44:00.000-08:00

Lego story 02

2006-12-15T23:31:00.000-08:00

Overspent

2006-12-14T12:35:00.000-08:00

1214
So I officially overspent this week, buying that samurai collection along with a mummy, Hermione, peeves, that self-loving showy professor that turned up in HP2, and a bunch of orange/blue/green fires. These amounted to $30 CAD. So I overspent about $10 this week. (Deng deng deng!!)
I should really stop eBaying for a while, perhaps a week or something. But there are still a few good deals coming up in a couple of days. eBay is evil in that it allows users to "watch" items that they are interested in, and once they watched it, they can't ignore the temptation. Shivers. Perhaps I will just turn into a Lego hobbyist and do professional Lego dealing for life. That way I can spend money on random "pieces of plastic junk" according to Tina without feeling guilty.
The success of my Lego dealing business will depend on where I get my Lego from. Not from eBay of course. I need to find ways to buy cheap cheap Lego in large quantities. Garage sale is the obvious way to go. Perhaps there are some auctions of illegal Lego import too, like those ones with jewelry. Nah, I will probably have to stick to the garage sales of families with grown-up kids or cruel parents who want their kids to grow up.

Lego story 01 (old)

2006-12-13T14:11:00.000-08:00

I was attempting to use this comic-book-page-like format, but formatting itself proved to be a very difficult part of the creation process that doesn't appeal to me particularly. So I decided to stop spending so much time and ruin the pictures and get so little enjoyment in return. Hence the new frame-by-frame format. I hope you'd like it.

Oh uh...

2006-12-13T11:29:00.000-08:00

1212
I am getting more and more addicted to eBay. This is not necessarily a good thing. I keep seeing the cutest Lego stuff, like Dumbledore and spacemen and an oh-my-god collection of werewolf, Dracula, mummy, and ghost. I didn't win these bids, sigh.

1213
I think I've exceeded the $30/week limit this morning when I bid on 3 Japanese Lego figures. A samurai, a ninja, and a cool looking dude. Spent $10 on these, with $4 shipping. The catch is, the shipping cost of each additional item is only $0.50! How can I stop here?
So I told myself, calm down, it's ok. Just one or two more small items of less than $10, then you will not exceed your limit too much. And take a break next week and don't bid on any more things. Cuz really, I should visit garage sales and buy Lego by the boxes, not by the pound on eBay.
But there are still so many seemingly good deals out there! I keep telling myself, the price I buy these things at will be the price that I can sell these things at too. And perhaps with a little business tweaking, I can even sell them at a higher price. That's it, this is just an investment, not a crazy big-boy spending spree. Right? Ha ha ha, I had to laugh at myself.

Meet Poodle and Ron

2006-12-12T00:10:00.000-08:00

Poodle.

Ron.

Now you've met the main characters of the story. You are welcome.

Let the story begin

2006-12-10T17:39:00.000-08:00

The morning after package arrived 1208
I took out the Lego and played with it. By the time I looked at the clock again, it was 3 hours later. I was shocked and guilty, so I went down for a late lunch. I came back and attempted unsuccessfully at studying for the 2 finals next week. I ended up using up the rest of the 1-pound package and built a few more characters.
Then it was time to start the story. I went home, found a sketch book, and the story of Ron and Poodle began...

1209
5 pages of Ron and Poodle evolved into 11 pages with help from Tina and input from Charlie.

1210
Rebuilt a few things, and now I'm happy with the cast. Their roles and intertwined stories are forming rapidly in my head... hm... I love this part.

Something starting...

2006-12-08T10:51:00.000-08:00

Mid-November, late, late night.
I was lying in bed, and an untraceable random sequence of thought led me to eBay looking up Lego sales.

The next day. 1124.
I got an eBay account.

That weekend. 1126.
I won the first Lego bid. A pound of Lego was making their way through the North American continent from a seller in the States.

Last night. 1207.
It arrived! A whole pound of it!
I dug in for over an hour, despite the fact that I was exhausted and it was midnight. And this blog was created before I slept.

Perhaps something is starting... we will have to wait and see.