And Vote Again!

Chris has now finished his next installment of the Time Machine. Now you need to vote on where you think he should go next! Oh and the time period might be nice too... Anyway just vote in the poll to the left!

Vote

Hey Guys
Vote on when and where you want Chris to go in his Time Machine story.

Hello everyone! For communication purposes, if everyone could get a Skype and then email me that you have, along with your Skype name, that would be great! Skype is a free IM, telephone, and video calling service that is awesome! Here is where you can get it:

www.Skype.com

Please remember that it is free and fun. You can email us at:

www.petsbigboy@gmail.com
www.edwardgobuddie@gmail.com
www.edwardgobud@aol.com

Thanks everyone! Have a good day,

The Editors

The Lego and Cat Crazy Weekly Issue #2

In this issue:

5 fantastic facts About Cats
Interview with Lego Master Builder Curtis Mishleau
Crazy Captions
NXT Programing
How 2 build...
Lego Creation Challenge
Fabulous Lego Creations
Lego New

Interview With Curtis Mishleau

Andrew: Hey Curtis, welcome to the Lego and Cat Crazy Weekly. First off lets start with a relatively easy
question... whats your name?
Curtis: Curtis
Andrew: ok about how long have you been “into Lego”?
Curtis: Um.. about 11-12 years
Andrew: Ok what was your first Lego set?
Curtis: I can't remember the name but it was a Technic go cart.
I got it for free...
Andrew: What! For free! I wish I could get some free Lego...
Anyway what is your favorite official Lego set?
Curtis: My favorite official Lego set... that's hard to decide... it would have to be the millennium falcon.
Andrew: The old $100 one, the new $100 one, the $500 one, or the $30 one coming out this summer?
Curtis: Defiantly the $500 one.
Andrew: what is your favorite Lego theme?
Curtis: it would be hard to decide between city and star wars
Andrew: what do you think is the greatest single Lego creation you have
ever made?

Curtis: The sparrow wing phantom
Andrew: Awesome name. do you have any pictures of it?
Curtis: there are a few on my blog.
Andrew: I understand you have younger brothers, how do they effect your
Lego hobby?
Curtis: They are awesome to trade with. They spend all the money and I
trade for all the cool pieces...
Andrew: Have you ever built anything that scared your sister?
Curtis: um... yeah I built a fighter plane once and she wondered about my spirituality...
Andrew: Do you have any good advise or tips for all the other Lego builders out there?
Curtis: um... yeah, you should try to to make your Lego creations as round as possible...
It looks bad when people
make things blocky and square.
Andrew: Thanks for the interview Curtis!

Five Fantastic Facts You never knew you didn't want to know About Cats

By Andrew Zimmerly

● Ailurophilia is the "love of cats."
● A cat's heart beats twice as fast
as a human heart, at 110 to 140
beats per minute.
● A cat's normal body
temperature is 101.5 degrees.
This is slightly warmer than a
humans.
● The Giraffe, Camel and Cat are
the only animals that walk by
moving both their left feet, then
both their right feet, when
walking.
● Cats wag their tails when it is in
a stage of conflict. The cat
wants to do two things at once,
but each impulse blocks the
other. For example: If your cat
is in the doorway wanting to go
outside, and you open the door
to find it raining, the cat's tail will
wag because of internal conflict.
The cat wants to go outside,
but doesn't want to go into the
rain. Once the cat makes a
decision and either returns to
the house or leaves into the
rain, the tail will immediately
stop wagging.

Fabulous Lego Creations

Awesome Base and ships by Curtis Mishleau

Cool Space Ship and crew by Mel Ico

NXT: Whack-A-Brick 1.0

By Edward Drescher

NXT: Whack-A-Brick 1.0
By Edward Drescher
This is the beginning of a program called Whack-A-Brick. It is a game for your NXT that is a lot like whack-a-mole.
The NXT waits for the user to press the orange button, and then it starts the game. A brick will appear above the
left, right, or orange button and then waits for the user to press it. If the user doesn’t press the button before the
time is up (about 1.2 seconds at the start) then the game is over. If the user does press it in time, then the user
gets a point, the brick explodes, and then another one appears. As each brick appears, it makes a low sound to
get the user’s attention. During the next few issues the LCCW, I am going to go step-by-step through this program.
When you finish, you will have learned about more of the NXT programming blocks. There is a challenge section at
the end for you to try... Have fun! There are four different sections to this program and the first section is shown below.

Making the program:

The first 6 bricks tell the user how to play the game by displaying a message. You should use the Display blocks
for these. Each of these starts on a new line of the screen to make it all fit. Block 1’s Action should be Text. The
display should be cleared (Clear checked), and for the actual text type in, “Whack-a-Brick”. This should be on Line
1. Block 2’s Action should also be Text. Clear should be unchecked, and for Text type in, “Press the button”. This
should be on line three. For Block 3, Action-Text, don’t Clear, and text-“Under the bricks” should be on line four.
Keep going! There are only five more blocks to do! Block 4 Action-Text, don’t Clear, and text-“to whack them”. This
should be on line five. Block 5 should be the same as 4, but the text should be “when they appear” on line six.
Block 6 should also be the same as 5, but the text should be, “Orange to start” on line 8. Good going, you have all
the instructions done! Now there are only two more blocks left! Block 7 should be a Wait block, and the Control
should Sensor, the Sensor should be NXT Buttons, and the Button should be Enter Button. The Action should be
Bumped. So far, you’ve told the NXT to display the instructions and now you’ve told it to wait for the start button to
be pressed. The last block in Section 1 is a Display block, Action should be Reset. That’s it! You’re done with
Section 1! The last block told the NXT to clear the display so the user could play the game. That wasn’t too bad,
now was it? When you are done with everything (Sections 1-4) you will have a fun game to play and show your
buddies. You also should learn more and be able to do more with NXT programming!

Crazy Cat Captions

How 2 Build... A SHIP Well, more like a SHIP garage door opener

By Andrew Zimmerly

This is a SHIP( Seriously Huge Investment in Parts) model I have been working on close to 9
months. That does not mean I was working on it all of those 9 months. Anyway the picture on
the upper right is of the SHIP at the end of last year. And the one beside/below it is a recent(as
in taken today) picture of it. As you can see( with
a magnifying glass) there is not much of the original structure remaining. That is because Brian keeps giving me great but almost impossible ideas, like the automatic garage door openers. Your thinking “garage door openers in space?” I know, sounds weird, but it is incredibly cool! The door is four-way opening and is opened by gears on both sides of the shuttle bay(the largest part of the SHIP).Here is a close-up picture of mechanism. The axles sticking out at the top and bottom are the knobs to open the doors.
The picture below shows exactly how I was able the gears to work properly(took me two days of building to get it to work).

Whats New in Lego

By Andrew Zimmerly

● Lego Brick are in the new Toy Story trailer(watch it on youtube.com).
● All Summer Lego sets are now available at lego.com and toys-r-us.
● Lego has confirmed at least 4 more video games to be released in 2009 and 1010. Lego Rock Band(uh... ok...), Lego Battles(sounds cool but doesn't look that great), Lego Indiana Jones 2(will probably do well), and Lego Harry Potter(no comment).
● Lego has signed a deal with Cartoon
Network to create construction toys based
on the huge-selling Ben 10 franchise.
(something I'm not very thrilled about)
● New awesome Lego set: Grand Carousel
$250, 3,263 pieces, available July 1st.
The platform rotates clockwise/counter
clockwise and the music plays. The swing
boats and galloping jumper horses move
up and down!

Lego Creation Challenge

● Attention All Lego Builders. Your Lego creation challenge is to... Build a better brick-built Rock Monster.

You see the Lego Company made a brick-built monster... but I don't theirs. It has a lot of cool pieces but it just doesn't look right. So I want YOU to build a better Monster... And send me a Picture.












Lego's version of a brick-built rock monster

Credits

● Creator, Producer, and Editor in Chief: Andrew Zimmerly
● Producer, and Editor of the NXT Section: Edward Drescher
● Photos:
● Slide 3, Curtis Mishleau
● Slide 4, Jon Mundall
● Slide 5, Left; Mel Ico, Right; Curtis Mishleau,
● Slide 6, Edward Dresher
● Slide 8, both photos - Jon Mundall
● Slide 9, upper left-hand - Jon Mundall. Other three - Edward Drescher
● Slide 12, The Lego Group
● Slide 13, The Lego Group

By the way, if you have any suggestions, comments, questions or anything else please contact the editors! This e-zine is for you guys, our subscribers! Drop us a line/email/chat if something in particular interests you! Have a good week everyone, and enjoy the magazine!-The Editors

The Lego and Cat Crazy Weekly Issue #1

IN THIS ISSUE:

Interview with Lego Expert Chris Vance
Crazy Cat Captions.
How to build…
And not much more!


Interview With Chris Vance(otherwise known as “the Donut”):

Andrew: so Chris what’s your name?
Chris: I’m sir Chris the magnificent lord of the donuts!
Andrew: Well Sir Chris how long have you been into Lego?
Sir Chris: Since before I was born… since before you were born… Since before Abraham Lincoln was born.
Andrew: And how many Lego’s/Lego sets do you have?
Sir Chris: About 5 in my room… but I have a secrete underground room that has every Lego set in existence!
Andrew: And I thought I had a lot of Lego’s…
What was the first Lego set you ever got, do you remember?
Sir Chris: My first Lego set was Duplo… does that count?
Andrew: Yes I think it counts, do you remember what it was?
Sir Chris: It was large bricks with plastic explosives… I found it was plastic explosives when I tried eating one. Plastic explosives are a clay until they harden, then if you apply enough force they go BOOM!!!
Andrew: I want some of those!
What is you first Real Lego set?
Sir Chris: It was an extreme team buggy with an antenna that I used to talk to Martians…
Andrew: I think my brother has that set…
Sir Chris: Did he use it to talk to Martians?
Andrew: Only once…
What is your favorite official Lego set?
Sir Chris: The Millennium Falcon.
Andrew: Which one? The $500 one, the $100 one, the older $100 one, or the $30 one coming out this summer.
Sir Chris: Uh… what did you say?
Andrew: The $500 one, the $100…
Sir Chris: The $500 one of course.
Andrew: Ok.
What do you think is the best Lego creation you have ever built?
Sir Chris: A turret that shot rubber bullets.
Andrew: Do you have any pictures?
Sir Chris: No, I didn’t want to get in trouble with the Feds for attempted murder with rubber bullets.
Andrew: yeah of course…
One more favorite, what is your favorite Lego game?
Sir Chris: Uh… lets see here… I don’t know… let me think. Oh I know, shooting my dog with my NXT.
Andrew: Your poor dog… uh… Don’t tell Ashley that I just felt sympathy for a dog.
Sir Chris: Don’t worry… Now I can blackmail you!!!
Andrew: Now I’m scared.
Sir Chris: waahahaha you should be scared.
Andrew: Have you ever built anything that scared your sister?
Sir Chris: uh no… But I’ve scared my dog, does that count?
Andrew: With your NXT?
Sir Chris: Yeah.
Andrew: how?
Sir Chris: Um, the NXT would stop when it heard any strange noises and would fire a cannon.
Andrew: Did Ashley get upset when you did that to her dog?
Sir Chris: She turned into a violent monster and threw me out a window… But I landed on a bunch of marshmallows.
Andrew: Wow!
Sir Chris: Yeah, weird things happen to me daily.
Andrew: One last question and I think we should be done.
Sir Chris: Name your question.
Andrew: Do you have any advise for any of the other NXT or regular Lego builders out there?
Sir Chris: Make sure you put the round pegs in the square holes and the square pegs in the round holes.
Thank you Sir Chris for the interview.

CRAZY CAT CAPTIONS:

By Andrew Zimmerly

HOW TO BUILD… A LEGO SPHINX

By Andrew Zimmerly

Building a Lego sphinx is much, much, much harder then a building a pyramid. Though my pyramid did take longer to build and used a lot more pieces, there was hardly anything that was actually complicated about the build. But a sphinx is… much more complicated.
First you have to get the head right, it doesn’t look good if your sphinxes head doesn’t look good. Really. Second you have to get all the proportions right, the head has to be the right size compared to the body compared to the legs. And what makes it even harder is, if you are trying to copy the “Great Sphinx”, that the proportions are already messed up.
If you look at a picture of the “Great Sphinx” you will notice that the head looks awfully small compared with the body, and that the front two feet look way to long. Add that to the fact that if you want it to look right you have to knock the nose off the face and make it look like it is falling apart. Put it all together and you have a four week project.
I recommend starting with the head, first, because it is the hardest to build. Second, you are really limited with how you can proportion the head using Lego bricks. You can create the entire body and then build the head and realize that with the way you want the head the body is too small or too big. The head is so complicated that it will probably take you the first week and a half to get just right( it took me about 5 minor and 3 major rebuilding’s to get something I was satisfied with)
Then you should work on the front two legs, because you need to get them to look right with the head. This is probably the easiest part of the build. Since the legs are smallish and not very complicated they should not take long to finish at all.
After completing the legs you need to move on to the body. This can be a little tricky but if you have the head and the legs done you can refer to them to get the proportions just right. This will take the longest by far. And though it is not as complicated as the head it is far from easy. Getting the falling apart ruin look is not quite as easy as it looks. But once you finish everything and put it together you should get something like this:


Oops wrong picture… There we go… the finished product!!!