Since this morning, social networks have been swarming with dripping congratulations and for good reason, LEGO is celebrating its 80 years ...

80 years for this company that started from (almost) nothing in 1932, with its glory days and dark years, its current 10.000 employees, its world-famous ABS plastic, its status as the 3rd largest toy manufacturer in the world, its loyal customers and its licenses profitable that allowed him to save the furniture and bounce back.

So LEGO is celebrating all that, with the tools of our century like facebook (more than 2 million fans, after that we don't count any more) or Twitter (more than 31000 subscribers @LEGO_Group) ....

The advantage with the fans is that you just have to motivate them, and the buzz is launched. And in addition it costs nothing. When LEGO tells them: "Wish us a happy birthday!", the fans do so without flinching ... And it's the orgy of thanks and congratulations for all these good childhood memories, these superb products that make our children creative and intelligent, this inimitable quality of service, etc., etc...

LEGO is a rockstar who is 80 years old, but who knows that myth is about worship and admiration. TFOLs, KFOLs, AFOLs, thing-FOLs, children, their parents, their grandparents, the poor, the rich, everyone loves LEGO.

Everyone loves this brand which has crossed the generations, which continues to innovate, to offer products always at the heart of trends and fashion and which cultivates a high-end, almost elitist image, so that each customer feels almost privileged to have the right (and the means) to be part of the big toy family.

So, all in heart, Happy Birthday Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), uh, LEGO !!!. Excuse me, I got the wrong rockstar ....

Peer Kreuger aka mahjqa pushes the limits of staging MOCs even further with this extremely well produced video.

There he stages his Tumblers (I was telling you about a few days ago) and adds his version of the Bat for a stunning result.

It's filmed like in the cinema, it sounds like vroum, bing, bang, crash, and after watching the mini-film, do not deprive yourself of the making off just below, you will discover all the tricks used to achieve such a level of realism.

Fans of Power Functions, cinema and special effects of all kinds, this is for you ....

Brief visit this morning on Cuusoo to verify that marshal_banana's Sandcrawler is still doing just as well and should quickly reach the 10.000 supporters required to hope to move on to stage 2: the review by the LEGO staff.

The LEGO team's comments on this project speak for themselves: ''... As you can see from our Exclusive line, we're always open for a new challenge to produce big models ...'' or ''... Though we'd love to have one of these things to drive around the office, we'll wait to produce a concept model during the Review process ... '' which is to say in summary that they love, that LEGO loves to produce UCS, but that if the project goes into phase 2, the designers will come up with a model adapted from this MOC of more than 20kg and which brings together more than 10.000 bricks, with undoubtedly a little less parts ...

Obviously, one would have to be naive to believe that this project could end at Toys R Us as it is. I don't even dare to imagine the retail price of the thing, let alone the motorization and lighting functions integrated by marshal_banana ... but I'm curious to see how the LEGO team will approach this project and what they will do. be the conclusions of the review phase. This is a device from the Star Wars universe, and the LEGO Star Wars range being the most popular from the manufacturer, this Sandcrawler should have the chance to be considered with at least some benevolence.

For the rest, I do not feel any enthusiasm in front of the projects of the type Portal 2, Zelda and Company. These projects are not representative of the wishes of the LEGO community. They were worn, as was the case for the set Minecraft, by communities of fans, some of whom have probably never touched a single brick, just because the buzz generated had a snowball effect. Buzz who fell back as dry as soon as each of these projects reached the threshold of 10.000 supporters, which means that very long months will pass before LEGO gives its opinion. And in the meantime, the fans move on.

I'm like most of you, I love cinema and video games, I'm nostalgic for some good movies or games that kept me busy for many hours in my youth, but I'm not a hysterical fan who dreams of seeing everything that mattered in his life converted into LEGO bricks ...

By the way, one question, who among you bought the Minecraft set?

I will again attract the wrath of all those who do not particularly appreciate the mixture of genres, but I take the risk ...

At the bend of a MOCpages space, I came across this rather delirious creation: A Bat-Slave I or a Slave-Bat or whatever you actually want ...  

The concept is original, it is well done, and even if the mixture of two universes with a well-asserted identity may pose a problem for some of you, the MOCeur has been able to retain the most significant attributes of both worlds and maintain here a very interesting balance.

To see and discover the other variations of Slave I proposed by Giovanni & Lennaert Seynhaeve, visit the MOCpages space in question.

This year again flickr should suffer with the hundreds of photos posted when opening the daily box of the LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar.

Worse still with the massive use of Instagram which allows smartphone owners to think of themselves as Arthus Bertrand on LSD with pseudo-artistic effects applied to micro-vessels unwrapped with relish on D-Day ....

No joke, it's 40 ° C and we already know everything about the very wintery upcoming Star Wars Calendar, the fault of LEGO for leaving its images lying around, and what we already remember is the Darth Maul in his coat of Santa Claus accompanied hard R2-D2 in snowman mode. Minifig collectors will be in heaven and the rest of the content of the set will quickly end up in everyone's memory or in their bulk.

The and 9509 LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar is obviously already in pre-order on amazon.de at a rate of 29.99 € for availability announced on September 29, 2012. It makes sense. But the existential question that torments me this morning is: Why is Maul equipped with a shovel? To collect the snow? To dig a hole and bury itself in it for fear of ridicule?

I don't have the answer, but GRogall has some high resolution photos for you to enjoy on his Brickshelf space.