Tag Archives: BrickNerd

Festival of Mundanity | The Winners!

It’s Winners time in BrickNerd and TLCB’s Festival of Mundanity!

Over the past two months we’ve been looking for the delightfully dull, brilliantly bland and monumentally mundane; no supercars, monster trucks or powerboats this time!

Across both the Object and Vehicle categories almost one hundred entries were submitted, with BrickNerd looking after your boring Objects and The Lego Car Blog your soporific vehicles.

You can check out the fantastic winning entries within the Object category via BrickNerd’s Winners Announcement, whilst here at TLCB we’re delighted to announce the Vehicle category winners!

Four key criteria were considered by the judges:

  1. Mundanity – Does the MOC represent something you wouldn’t really think about in real life?

  2. Concept – Does the topic matter show creativity in its idea and overall execution?

  3. Quality – Is the MOC built well, feature any NPU (nice parts usage), and make you look twice?

  4. Presentation – Is the MOC photographed/presented and composed in a way that compliments the subject matter?


Honourable Mentions

It was really close, with vehicles or all types, sizes and functionality entered. Three entries scoop the prizes, but lots caught our eye, so before we move on to the winners here are few honourable mentions!

Caleb Flutur‘s ‘3x Upscale 6654’ recreated both a mundane vehicle and object in one go, whilst iBrickedItUp spanned both categories too with his Cozy Coupe parked by the bins on a grey Tuesday, which came seriously close to a prize spot! IBrickedItUp also entered a slew of boring vehicles, with the ‘Hurtz’ Rental car lot making us chuckle the most. Thomas Gion captured the height of dreary ’90s econo-SUVs, whilst Zsolt Nagy and Saberwing007 impressed with excellent technical functionality packaged with vehicles of utmost tedium.

There are plenty of other entries that scored highly too; from lawn-mowers to removal vans we can’t mention them all, but a big boring thank you to everyone who entered!


Winners!

1st Place | Toyota Corolla Sedan (1saac W.)

Scoring highly in every category, it’s the most default, boring, and unimaginative vehicle in existence, looking for a parking spot and finding only a loading zone. 1saac W. is the, um… lucky owner of a mid-’00s Toyota Corolla Sedan in real life, and has captured one of life’s most mundane tasks in brick-form. Keep looking 1ssac, there’ll be a space around the corner. Probably.

1saac W. wins a Golden Nerdly Trophy & BrickNerd Swag Box, a $50 LEGO Gift Card (or local equivalent) from BrickNerd, an awesome BuWizz 3.0 or 2.0 Bluetooth Brick, an iDisplayIt case/stand bundle for LEGO models, and a Game of Bricks lighting kit of their choice!

2nd Place | Hyundai Venue (Tim Inman)

In second place is what will undoubtedly overtake the Corolla Sedan as the most dreary vehicle on the roads; the Korean crossover. Bought to give an impression of adventure and dynamism, crossover SUVs instead portray nothing more than an imagination deficit created by the force-feeding of endless marketing drivel. Tim Inman‘s Model Team Hyundai Venue captures the segment brilliantly, being about as interesting as your Aunt’s Facebook feed. We’re bored just thinking about it.

Tim Inman wins a $25 LEGO Gift Card (or local equivalent) from BrickNerd, and a Game of Bricks lighting kit of their choice!

3rd Place | Er… Shopping Cart (Nikolaus Lowe)

Yes it is a vehicle. We’ve all driven one, they’re all crap, and if you do try to extract fun from one it immediately veers towards the watermelons and your parents / security / other shoppers shout at you. There is nothing more disappointing than a shopping trolley. They even make you put a coin in to gain access to the trundling misery. Nikolaus Lowe takes third spot (and very nearly earned a podium over at BrickNerd too) with his inspired homage to modern-day mundanity.

Nikolaus Lowe wins a Game of Bricks lighting kit of their choice!


And so concludes The Festival of Mundanity. Thank you to our amazing prize sponsors, BrickNerd for choosing to partner with us idiots here at TLCB, and to all of you who participated! Winners; we’ll be in touch via your online channels to discuss your prizes!

The Festival of Mundanity is Closed!

Like all the best mundane things, like heading to the shop for milk and finding it shut, BrickNerd and TLCB’s Festival of Mundanity is now closed!

Around one hundred creations have been entered across the two categories (Objects and Vehicles, with a few cunningly spanning both!), many of which can be viewed at the Flickr Group of Mundanity here.

We’ll be rounding up some of the recent vehicular entries shortly, before judging begins (and some really rather excellent prizes are handed out).

Until then, thank you to each and every brilliantly boring, delightfully dull, and magnificently mundane entry, and best of luck!

Prizes of Mundanity!

BrickNerd & The Lego Car Blog’s

Festival of Mundanity Competition is Go!

That right, enough Lamborghinis, monster trucks and fighter jets for a bit, we want to see the most boring creations. The tedious. The unexceptional. The bland. White Toyota Corollas. A suburban street filled with identical grey crossovers. A tired minivan in a Wallmart parking lot.

But why build boring? Well firstly because boring can actually be very interesting (we’ve published more Ferrari’s here than we have Hondas), and secondly because there are some awesome prizes on offer for the winners, and they’re not mundane at all!

The Prizes!

Yup, the incredible BuWizz 3.0 Pro bluetooth battery (or a 2.0 if preferred) is up for grabs! Able to control up to six motors, whilst delivering much more power, there is no way to make your Lego creations faster.

Programmable and controllable through your phone, the BuWizz 3.0 Pro can measure G-Force, acceleration and altitude, and enables full bluetooth remote control from up to 100m away.

We’ll let you know just how good the new BuWizz 3.0 Pro is in a full review due here soon, but even the original BuWizz 1.0’s ‘ludicrous mode’ blew our minds.

Find full BuWizz details here

Now you can display your LEGO sets (or your own creations) with purpose-built clear acrylic angled stands designed to perfectly support Lego vehicles, with the winner collecting an iDisplayit bundle for a multitude of Technic and Creator-sized models. You could even proudly display your Festival of Mundanity winning creation!

Check out the extensive range of iDisplayit purpose-built LEGO stands and cases here

The awesome guys over at Game of Bricks are giving not just the Festival of Mundanity winners, but the runners up too, the choice of any Game of Bricks lighting kit! And there are hundreds to choose from.

Architecture, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Modular Buildings, and – of course – Technic, Creator and Speed Champions vehicles, there are lighting kits for a huge variety of official LEGO sets, all of which are seamlessly integrated to spectacular effect.

See the full range of Game of Bricks lighting kits here

And that’s not all!

BrickNerd will be adding a swag bag and LEGO gift cards into the prize pot, so the winner will be able to buy a new LEGO set, supercharge it with BuWizz, light it with Game of Bricks, and then showcase it courtesy of iDisplayit.

Remember that there are similar prizes over at BrickNerd too, who are eagerly waiting to see mundane objects built in brick, whilst we’ll be brining you the best mundane vehicular entries here at The Lego Car Blog.

Get boring, er… building, and Good Luck!

Festival of Mundanity | Building Competition!

LEGO contests bring out the best in builders. You see entries with amazing castles, sleek cars, gorgeous flora, and fantastical locales. Well, this contest is different. This contest, from one of the best Lego blogs around (and The Lego Car Blog) is here to celebrate the mundane.

Welcome to the Festival of Mundanity!

You heard right! This time we don’t want to see Bugattis, monster trucks, racing stripes, or models combining all three. We want to see the vehicles that have been too boring to be built out of LEGO until now. We’re looking for the most ordinary, mundane, and uninspiring transportation methods you can think of.


Mundanity at Its Finest

There are two boring categories: objects and vehicles. Here at The Lego Car Blog we’ll be dealing in the latter, whilst our pals at BrickNerd will be looking for tedious objects. And if you’re cleverer than us you might be able to think of way to combine the two!

For vehicles that means 265,000 mile Toyota Corollas. In white. That faded red Rover 45 you saw on holiday in the UK and forgot about immediately. That Chevrolet Express van parked opposite your house for the last few days…

But be careful! There is a difference between ‘mundane’ and ‘bad’. Mundane doesn’t mean rubbish. It means common and uninteresting. So no Reliant Robins, no AMC Gremlins, and no concepts, invented vehicles, or indeed anything that in real-life would make you look twice.

However we do want you to make us look twice when it is built out of LEGO! Mundane doesn’t mean presented poorly;  your creations should still be built well, of course (NPU is still NPU!)

Entries will be judged on mundane concept, build quality, overall presentation, photo composition, and how uninspiring each is.

So get building! You have until the end of March!


Prizes!

In contrast to the boring nature of this contest, we have some flashy prizes for the top three creations in each category. These prizes may change (or be added to) at any time so keep an eye out for periodic updates, and we owe a big thank you to our prize sponsors for donating some really awesome stuff to the prize pool (more on them soon)!


Vehicle Category Prizes

1st Place

  • Golden Nerdly Trophy & BrickNerd Swag Box

  • $50 LEGO Gift Card (or local equivalent) from BrickNerd

  • BuWizz 3.0 or 2.0 Bluetooth Brick

  • iDisplayIt case/stand bundle for LEGO models

  • Game of Bricks lighting kit of your choice

2nd Place

  • $25 LEGO Gift Card (or local equivalent) from BrickNerd

  • Game of Bricks lighting kit of your choice

3rd Place


Object Category Prizes

Check out the equally awesome prizes that can be won in the Object Category at BrickNerd here, and remember that if you can build something boring that spans both categories, you qualify for both too!


Festival of Mundanity Rules

  • All entries must be new creations. Entries may be updated as long as the contest is still open.

  • Entries can be posted either on Flickr or Instagram. A link to your entry should be posted in the Festival of Mundanity Flickr group using the hashtags #FestivalofMundanity, #BrickNerd and #TheLEGOCarBlog. If you do not have a Flickr account, you can use the hashtags and tag BrickNerd on Instagram, who will post a link to your entry for you.

  • Please only add one photo/submission of each entry to the group (extras will be removed), but you may enter as many times as you want with unique creations.

  • Entries must be either a vehicle or an object (settings are welcome too). If you can figure out how to combine the two and still make it uninteresting, you could win prizes in both categories.

  • Digital renders are allowed, though the creation must be structurally sound and all the pieces must be available physically. Custom or modified parts are not allowed this time around though unique prints/stickers are acceptable.

  • These rules or the prizes may be modified at any point.

  • The contest ends on March 31st, 2021 at 11:59 pm PT (7:59 am GMT on March 31st for the Europeans). Winners will be announced a few weeks after.

  • The contest will be judged by both BrickNerd and The Lego Car Blog contributors who will evaluate entries based on mundanity concept, quality, presentation, composition, and how uninspiring the build is.

Get Building, Be Boring, and Good Luck!

Something Boring is Coming…

Huh? A building contest celebrating the unexceptional? A collaboration between one of the best Lego blogs around and, er… this smoking hole in the ground. Stay tuned for more imminent mundanity! Let’s start 2022 with a yawn.

GrilleNerd

We don’t think the previous management of BrickNerd thought much of us here at TLCB. And they’d be right not to, because we’re idiots.

However despite us not being with the ‘in’ crowd of famous Lego-y types, we did rather like BrickNerd’s little mascot Nerdly, contrasting with our utter hatred of that bloody lemur over at The Brothers Brick.

Now under new management, BrickNerd’s bespectacled brick Nerdly is popping up all over the place, including here, mounted to the front of Martin Harris‘ ‘Space City Cruiser’.

We’ve thought about doing something similar to a number of our Elves over the years, although that particular plan involved the front of a bin lorry, but so far we’ve refrained. So far…

Whilst this TLCB Writer dreams of tying Elves to bin lorries you can see more of Martin’s ‘Nerdly Strikes Back!’ at his photostream via the link above.

BrickNerd’s Back!

Good news for the online Lego community! BrickNerd, one of the Lego sites that used to do this whole blogging thing properly (unlike this smoking hole in the ground) is back, and under new management!

After spending several months as silent as Donald Trump’s conscience, a band of illustrious fans of Lego have resuscitated the dead website. We think BrickNerd’s return is good for the whole Lego community, and particularly for the team here at TLCB as it enables us to take the piss out of them constantly again for their almost fanatical devotion to a certain sci-fi movie franchise.

Here at TLCB we wish BrickNerd’s new management the best of luck, which – coming from this shower of ineptitude – means absolutely nothing. Go and and check them out via the link above, and then come back here for more pointless bickering, incompetent writing, and occasional political slurs.

Now if only someone could do the same with MOCpages