LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle - Yet Another Great Product From LEGO

Right before Christmas 2010, LEGO has launched what's believed to be an iconic collection, the Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle. The moment couldn't be more perfect. In November 2010, Harry Potter and The Deadly Hallows part 1 will hit the theatre all around the world. Ones could predict that the demand for Harry Potter-related items will increase significantly. After all, he has avid fans all over the world.

The LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle, as the name imply, is a LEGO product which developed around the extremely popular Harry Potter (and Hogwarts Castle, of course) story. The package consists of nine nicely designed mini figures which are the main characters in the story, such as Professor Dumbledore, Professor Snape, Lord Voldemort, Argus Filch and Mrs. Norris the cat, Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, and two Dementors.

The castle itself is well-built with highly detail design and has various objects in it. For example, you could find Dumbledore's room to be filled with the Gryffindor sword and sliding stairs to secret basement room. There are more than 1,200 pieces of LEGO bricks included in the box. It is surely the most comprehensive among all Potter series launched in the year. The possibility of creating something new is only limited by your imagination and creativity.

Brick buildings, the main idea in most LEGO products, are believed to be beneficial for kids. Researches showed that construction toys help kids in developing their minds (creativity, imagination, spatial skills, etc). This is one of the reasons why LEGO is very popular among both parents and kids. However, which LEGO products to be chosen? At this moment, Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle is the best choice for you. As the Harry Potter euphoria increase, your kids will cheerfully welcome any toys associated with this character. So, why don't use this opportunity to get them an entertaining, yet educative toys.
This brand new LEGO product is expected to be among the bestselling toys in this Christmas. UK Toy Retailers Association (TRA) even listed it as one of the Games Top 12 Toys for Christmas 2010.

Current data in Amazon.com seems to support that prediction. It is among the bestselling toys in all toys category. Therefore, parents, should you want to get this toy at home for Christmas, place your order now. You don't want to delay your purchase temporarily only to find it out-of-stock and fill the waiting list.

Order LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle now and surprise your little ones with yet another great product from LEGO. Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Chris_Toyrev

By Chris Toyrev

What Is the Secret of the Enduring Popularity of Lego?

Lego is a brand name that is known the world over, synonymous with the classic plastic building bricks that have kept children entertained for generations. After a period of slow sales, Lego has undergone something of a renaissance in the past few years, so much so that Lego toys were among the bestselling Christmas toys of 2010. This article examines in more detail some of the reasons behind the renewed surge in popularity together with a sneaky look at what is in store for 2011.

Lego toys as we know them today have been around for over 50 years, but the company started out in Denmark in 1934 making a successful range of wooden toys. The company were among the pioneers in plastic injection moulding and in 1949 produced the first plastic "Automatic Binding Brick" which paved the way for the modern-day Lego brick. Complete building sets cam onto the market during the 1960s, resulting in Lego becoming the household name it is today. The firm continued to expand and diversify through the years launching the classic Lego sets and themes together with Lego figures also known as minifigures, but came to something of a hiatus during the late 1980s and early 1990s with the advent of electronic toys and computer games.

Against the backdrop of declining sales during this period, the company came up with the idea that has culminated in its huge success today; in 1999 they took the decision to begin using licensed themes to market Lego toys. Star Wars, their first license to be launched and was a record-breaking success for the company. Ever since then, Lego has developed partnerships with several blockbuster movie names to create theme sets including Batman, Harry Potter, Spongebob Squarepants, Indiana Jones, Spiderman, and the most successful of recent years Toy Story 3.

New 2011 Lego toys include another major movie tie-in with Lego Pirates of the Caribbean together with another exciting new theme in Lego Ninjago. The word is the company are also planning to make another attempt to crack the lucrative girls toys market so watch this space!

To keep up to date with the latest toy news and reviews and find out more about the bestselling Christmas toys, click the links below.

To find more up to the minute news and reviews of the hottest toys of the year, click here: Bestselling Christmas Toys. Visit our toys blog to check out the most in-demand Bestselling Christmas Toys Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Keith_R_Scott

By Keith R Scott

Lego Star Wars: Soon to Be Valuable Collector's Items!

Lego Star Wars sets stand out among all the other available Lego playsets for one simple reason: they are the only ones who have militaristic themes and undertones! There's a reason for that! Ole Kirk Christiansen, the founder of the Lego company, was very much opposed to the idea of children being introduced to war through their toys! This is why the majority Lego licensed toys are based on animated shows and kids' movies like Harry Potter, Sponge Bob, Toy Story, Spider-Man and Batman for example!

The Lego company has also stated that they soon intent to abandon licenses altogether and focus on new and original sets completely of their own design! As you can understand, the Lego Star Wars product line is most likely going to be one of the first to be discontinued so if you are a Lego fan, now's the time to purchase these sets because they will become valuable in the future and very expensive collector's items!

The Lego Group came up with the Star Wars line because of the very high demand for Star Wars toys generated by the release of the Phantom Menace, the first Star Wars Prequel! These sets recreate famous moments, spaceships and characters from all the movies in the series!

As with anything made by the Lego company, you can rest assured that the Lego toys are perfectly safe and extremely durable! They'll also help your children develop their creativity by building awesome things like Star Wars space ships, or by using the Lego pieces included in the sets to build things of their own design!

Apart from being completely safe and harmless, you'll also find that the Lego pieces contained in each set are compatible with those contained in others. They're also built from very high quality plastic which means that they're very easy to clean, and will last for ages, in fact some Lego pieces even get handed down from father to son.

These Lego sets have become so popular that there are even video games based on them!

The Lego Star Wars Sets are the most popular Lego playsets ever released and they dominate the best selling toy charts each year! On our site you will all the information and the best prices for the coolest sets including the most popular one, the Star Wars Lego Republic Attack Set! By Dimitris Melis Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Dimitris_Melis

The Lego Foundation of Sales Skills

As a business development professional / sales representative before you can go out into the world and consistently hit million dollar quotas as well as bring home enough commission to be within the $200,000 compensation range, you must build a foundation comprised of the most basic sales skills. Becoming effective at sales, just like anything else, is like building a castle from a Lego set.

For instance, when starting to play with and analyze the toy pieces, you realize that you have no more than the base components. Then, upon configuring the foundation, you can create something truly great; artistic some may say. Many go the opposite route, don't hone the necessary skills prior and almost never achieve true sales success.

Below, you find the main foundations that will lead any business development professional, if done correctly, to a long-lasting, solid amount of success in both the sales and sales management arena. These are the building blocks that make the castle.

1. Friendliness and Approachability
Before you begin to even attempt to sell a particular product or service, you must allow yourself to open up to people and open yourself to the point where you can almost embrace rejection. To morph yourself into a revenue generating salesman or saleswoman, prior to getting in the game, it is quite necessary to learn how to enjoy people and to learn how to maintain an upbeat outlook on life. Once you do this, you will become more approachable and come across as more friendly and upbeat to your target audience.

Friendliness and affability are what draws people to others (both professionally and personally) and these traits are the foundation for leadership skills. Leadership ability, confidence in yourself and openness are the variables that will entice others buy from you. If the skills are not inherent, learn them before diving into the sales cycle and you are quickly building your "sales castle."

2. Inquisitive Mind with An Ability to Leverage Potential Customer Answers
The basics of consultative selling will tell you that you must ask questions to determine the real needs of the customer. However, questions are only questions if they are not leveraged properly and asked in a manner that shows the buyer that you want to learn about your potential client's business and, when appropriate, daily operations. Don't just ask the "fluffy" questions.

To truly lay the sales foundation, become accustomed to asking thought provoking inquires. The tone and level of intelligence that are expressed within your questions will prove to be a big differentiating factor between yourself and your competition. Once this information is obtained, learn how to gain the ability to quickly problem solve and decipher as to how to leverage the information you're receiving to draw / properly persuade the potential client to grasp your outlook on business.

3. Professional and Not Pushy Nor Desperate
As a business development / sales professional, upon preparing to begin a cold-calling campaign, you have to acquire a very professional demeanor when hitting the phones. Additionally, if you can train yourself for the psychological taxing that will come with cold-calling and new business prospecting, you can learn how to remain calm and composed; this is instead of desperate and / or pushy.

When studying remember that many cold-callers come across as desperate and, thus give the sales approach a bad name. Since companies receive inbound sales inquiries quite frequently, before even making that first call, learn how to be professional, confident and effective. This could mean practicing a script over and over again. Despite the fact that you won't hit every account that you reach out to, your odds of success will increase in quite a dramatic fashion.

 

By Ken Sundheim

Showoff Your Engineering Skills - How to Build a Lego Castle

If the inner child comes up and you do not have your good old toys on hand, you can build your own virtual models on LEGO's website. You must download a program called LDD (Lego Digital Designer), the current version is 4. It is free to download and use. It is available for both Windows and MAC OSX, but not all PowerMac. The program requires 1 GB hard disk space, but the file to downloaded is only 120 MB. It requires you have an OpenGL driver installed.

Once you have created a free account on the website and installed the program you are ready to go. There are three groups of designs to choose from.

In DESIGN by ME have free access to any existing Lego bricks and some only existing as virtual blocks. Once you have built a model from your imagination, you can upload it to the Lego website or order it in their web shop. If you want to purchase it you must remove or modify blocks that can not be bought.
In Mindstorms, you can either modify an existing model or build one from scratch. Here is also the possibility of uploading.

In CREATOR you choose an existing Lego construction sets and then have the opportunity to build with bricks found in the selected kit.

It is possible to save your model as a file on your hard disk. You can also make a snapshot in the model viewer and save it as an image.

Right mouse button has a slightly unusual feature compared to Windows. When you hold the button you can rotate the model. At first it seemed odd to use the right mouse button to rotate with, but after a while it appeared that it is practical as you often have to rotate the model to better see where to place new bricks. it is not quite easy to build a 3D model on a flat screen but with a little practice it can be done.

It is possible to order a box of bricks to use for your model, building instructions, and your own design on the box lid. Normal delivery time is 21 days. Lego is not cheap toys and the same applies here. But is gives you a chance to create a unique gift or use it as a nice addition to your display shelf. But as mentioned before, the program is of course free and you can certainly get many hours of fun.

You can download the program for free from the Lego website:

By Anders Kaas Petersen

http://shop.lego.com/Product/Factory/Default.aspx?cn=157

Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Anders_Kaas_Petersen

Legoland Florida officials present plans for new theme park

Thousands of eager residents came out to the Winter Haven Orange Dome one night last week to see what Legoland Florida will bring to Central Florida upon opening in fall 2011.

Legoland Model Citizens, the company’s affectionate term for its employees, revealed renderings of what the new theme park will look like, and how the current landscape of the former Cypress Gardens park will adapt to meet the Legoland target visitor.

Thousands of eager residents came out to the Winter Haven Orange Dome one night last week to see what Legoland Florida will bring to Central Florida upon opening in fall 2011.

Legoland Model Citizens, the company’s affectionate term for its employees, revealed renderings of what the new theme park will look like, and how the current landscape of the former Cypress Gardens park will adapt to meet the Legoland target visitor.

City – featuring a Driving School where children earn their first “driver’s license” and families compete on Fun Town Fire Academy, a competitive ride that challenges families to get a fire truck from one side to another and put out a faux fire.

Imagination Zone – where children can race cars against each other.

Duplo Play Area – an area for toddlers.

Factory Tour – a first hand look at how Lego bricks are made from factory to finish.

Castle Hill – a medieval area featuring an indoor/outdoor rollercoaster taking guests on a ride in and out of a castle where a dragon defends his treasure.

Dino Island – where guests take a trip to prehistoric times and experience their first “thrill” ride.

Retail and dining areas were also introduced including The Big Shop, which will be one of the largest Lego retail stores in the country and the Garden Restaurant where homemade soups and sandwiches will be served.

During the three-hour open house, Legoland executives including Managing Director of Legoland Parks John Jakobsen, General Manager of Legoland Development John Ussher, Sales & Marketing Director Kim Isemann and Human Resources Director Kim Clark answered questions from guests including how to apply for positions and what makes Legoland Florida different from other theme parks in the area.

“We are very excited to be bringing only the second Legoland Park in North America here to Polk County,” said Jakobsen. “Our main goal tonight is to answer questions and build excitement for the most unique theme park ever to come to this area.”

Legoland Florida will offer more than 50 rides, shows and attractions, including thousands of Lego models. The Florida development will be Merlin Entertainments’ second Legoland Park in North America. Providing a full-day, year-round theme park experience geared towards families with children between the ages of 2 and 12, Legoland Florida will mirror the concept of the four existing Legoland Parks in Denmark, Germany, U.K. and California. However, as with the other four, it will also have its own unique “twist” reflecting its location and adding a Florida flavor.

At the open house, children and their families interacted with Lego models of Darth Vader, Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine, a raptor dinosaur, several Lego friends, Rodin’s “The Thinker” and a lady fire fighter. Also on display was a miniature version of the White House made of more than 120,000 Lego bricks which will be the family theme park’s first permanent model.

Attendees also were able to help build a giant Lego mural depicting an artist’s rendering of the front entrance of Legoland Florida. When completed, the mural will be nine feet wide and five feet tall and created out of 35,000 Lego bricks.

Photos from Legoland Open House

Photos by Robert Ashburn of Florida Thrills Network and submitted by Legoland.


by: Matt Roseboom

New Theme Park Adventures For 2010 in Orlando

Orlando, the theme park capital of the world, continues to experience new growth as a number of Central Florida theme parks look to add exciting new attractions in 2010 and beyond.

Leading the charge in spring 2010 is the highly anticipated grand opening of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park. As a result, families from around the world will be descending upon Orlando in search of the perfect theme park vacation getaway!

The popular Orlando theme park's re-creation of Hogwarts, Hogsmeade™ Village and other iconic locations made famous by the Harry Potter series of movies, will truly bring the Potter fantasy to life and fans everywhere are eagerly awaiting their opportunity to be part of the wizardry.

From the towering spires of Hogwarts Castle to some of the most recognizable shops of Hogsmeade Village, this new Harry Potter environment offers something for everyone, including thrilling rides like Dragon Challenge, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey and Flight of the Hippogriff.

Harry Potter isn't the only excitement at Universal Studios Resort. The resort's other major theme park, Universal Studios® Florida, recently opened up its newest roller coaster adventure, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit!

Situated at the very front of the park, Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit is among the most technologically advanced coasters in the world, offering a groundbreaking combination of audio, special effects engineering, on and off-board video and unique personalization. The result is a coaster experience like no other. You'll reach top speeds of 65 mph, soar 17 stories above the ground and experience a record breaking loop - all while listening to your own hand-picked music. And with the entire experience recorded, this exceptional roller coaster ride can also become your very own high intensity music video!

Universal isn't the only park in town with new adventures. SeaWorld® Orlando's sister water park, Aquatica, is preparing to roll out its first new ride since the park's inception.

The Omaka Rocka or "rocking river," set to open in March, pits riders in two-seater tubes and sends them shooting through a set of three funnels designed to replicate the half-pipe experience of extreme sports with near vertical thrills normally associated with skateboarders and snowboarders.

Busch Gardens theme park in nearby Tampa, FL is preparing to open a new Sesame Street Safari of Fun area, featuring a kid-sized roller coaster, water playelements, a playground and lots of opportunities to take your photo with the ever popular Muppets!

Scheduled to open in March, 2010, the new theme park area will boast Air Grover - a new family friendly roller coaster. Geared for children, the coaster will offer big thrills for the little ones, with a 23-foot high hill and hitting speeds up to 23 miles per hour.

Another key attraction to the Sesame Street area includes Bert & Ernie's Water Hole where kids will enjoy a variety of water jets, dumping buckets and geysers designed for some cool, "splash zone" fun on a hot Central Florida day.

Of course, no Sesame Street attraction would be complete without the Muppets and there will be plenty of potential for meeting and greeting your favorite characters from Big Bird and Elmo to The Count, Bert & Ernie, Cookie Monster and more.

Although it won't be open in 2010, Merlin Entertainments Group announced that the world's largest Legoland will be established in Winter Haven, FL on the site of the former Cypress Gardens theme park. The new park is slated to open by the end of 2011.

Located just a short drive from Orlando, the new Legoland complex is expected to include 40 to 50 main attractions ranging from kid-powered rides to their signature giant Lego brick models.

The new theme park will also incorporate some favorites from Cypress Gardens, including the park's magnificent historical gardens, its popular water ski shows and possibly one of the two existing wooden roller coasters.

Another section of the old Cypress Gardens - the Splash Island Waterpark - will also remain in operation, but as a separate ticketed admission.

By Gregory J Nelson Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Gregory_J_Nelson