| Name | Lego |
|---|---|
| Type | Construction set |
| Inventor | Ole Kirk Christiansen |
| Country | Denmark |
| Company | Lego Group |
| From | 1949 |
| To | present |
| Website | http://www.lego.com/ |
Lego (trademarked in capitals as LEGO) is a line of construction toys manufactured by the Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures and various other parts. Lego bricks can be assembled and connected in many ways, to construct such objects as vehicles, buildings, and even working robots. Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects. The toys were originally designed in the 1940s in Europe and have achieved an international appeal, with an extensive subculture that supports Lego movies, games, video games, competitions, and four Lego themed amusement parks.
The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932. In 1934 his company came to be called Lego. It expanded to producing plastic toys in 1947. In 1949 Lego began producing the now famous interlocking bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks". These bricks were based largely on the patent As of September 2008, the engineers use the NX CAD/CAM/CAE PLM software suite to model the elements. The software allows the parts to be optimized by way of mold flow and stress analysis. Prototype molds are sometimes built before the design is committed to mass production. The ABS plastic is heated to until at a dough-like consistency. It is then injected into the molds at pressures between 25 and 150 tons, and takes approximately 15 seconds to cool. The molds are permitted a tolerance of up to two micrometres, to ensure the bricks remain connected. Human inspectors check the output of the molds, to eliminate significant variations in color or thickness. According to the Lego Group, about eighteen bricks out of every million fail to meet the standard required. Lego factories recycle all but about 1 percent of their plastic waste from the manufacturing process every year. If the plastic cannot be re-used in Lego bricks, it is processed and sold on to industries that can make use of it.
Six people, in North America, Europe and Asia, have become Lego Certified Professionals, certified artists that use Lego bricks as their medium. The Lego Group recognizes their efforts and they have the ability to not only use the Lego name and copyrighted logo, but have earned a special, in-depth relationship with the company. They are Robin Sather, Dan Parker, Sean Kenney, Nathan Sawaya, Rene Hoffmeister and Nicholas Foo.
An episode of The Simpsons, "Hungry, Hungry Homer" involved the Simpsons family going to Blockoland, a parody of Legoland, which is completely made of blocks. Bart buys a T-Shirt made of bricks, accidentally calling it a "Lego shirt" before Marge corrects him.
The search engine Google paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of the Lego patent by replacing its usual logo on the Google homepage with one made from Lego bricks, along with the Lego figure on one of the letters. Some of the hardware Google's founders had used during their early research was housed in custom-made enclosures constructed from Lego bricks.
There are also several online webcomics that feature art illustrated with Lego, such as the Irregular Webcomic!.Brick House, Tranquility base and Bricks of the dead are also major hits.
Category:1949 introductions Category:Construction toys Category:Danish brands Category:Danish design Category:Toy train manufacturers Category:Toy companies of Denmark
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| Birthname | Stuart Stone |
|---|---|
| Birthdate | November 17 |
| Birthplace | Thornhill, Ontario, Canada |
| Occupation | Actor, comedian, rapper, producer |
On July 27, 2001, the band debuted on stage at the world-famous Whisky a Go Go in Hollywood and had been playing to sold-out audiences on the California club scene ever since. Stone was a lead vocalist in the band and they mixed "a little rock and pop and hip-hop and underground" to create a whole new brand of music.
Stone has been known to tour off and on with Kennedy on his stand up tours, performing songs from the Blowin' Up album, as well as the song "The Left One", featured on Kennedy's album. Shows on these variety are routinely opened by comedian Bill Dawes, and at times have had guests, such as Saget at a November 17, 2006 Las Vegas show.
Stone recently completed a tour of Iraq and Kuwait with Kennedy, Dawes, B Boy Casper, DJ Joey Nicks and Paul Wall. "Circle Circle Dot Dot" recently went to #1 on YouTube. The Lego-themed video sparked new life into the Blowin' Up project. As of summer 2008, it is the one of the most viewed videos ever on the site, with over 10 million views.
As featured performer Kaz James, Sony BMG, 2008 (from James' debut solo album If They Knew)
Category:Canadian film actors Category:Canadian Jews Category:Jewish actors Category:Living people Category:People from Toronto Category:1977 births Category:Place of birth missing (living people) Category:Jewish hip hop groups
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| Caption | Jamie Kennedy at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego. |
|---|---|
| Birth date | May 25, 1970 |
| Birth name | James Harvey Kennedy |
| Birth place | Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Medium | Stand-up, film, television, music |
| Website | http://www.jamiekennedyworld.com/ |
| Active | 1989–present |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Observational comedy, Character comedy | domesticpartner = Jennifer Love Hewitt (2009-2010) |
Kennedy formed a production company called Wannabe Producers, alongside Josh Etting, through which he has produced the shows The Jamie Kennedy Experiment, Blowin' Up, The Starlet, and Living with Fran. Following Malibu's Most Wanted (2003), which he both wrote and starred in, Kennedy co-wrote the MTV show Blowin' Up (2006) featuring his friend Stu Stone.
Kennedy lent his voice as a celebrity in the videogame ESPN NFL 2K5 as a celebrity adversary with his own football team, the Upper Darby Cheesesteaks and he is also unlockable as a Free Agent tight end in season mode. His stint as Activision's emcee at E3 2007, however, drew criticism.
While working on his film Malibu's Most Wanted, Kennedy had ghostwriter Ellen Rapaport write a comic pseudo-autobiography entitled, Wannabe: A Hollywood Experiment. The book chronicles his life in Hollywood as he attempts to become a star. It gives background on his life and family, and quickly dives into his adventures. It tells of such things as Kennedy's living conditions in the Hollywood slums, his beat up car, his kidney issues, and funky characters throughout the story.
As a performer of stand-up comedy, he is best known for his sketch performances on his television reality show, The Jamie Kennedy Experiment, which became the WB Network's highest ranking new show in 2002, but which was cancelled in April 2004 due to falling viewership. In 2006, Jizzy Entertainment released . In 2008, Kennedy released the documentary Heckler, about the plight of stand-up comics vs their often-aggressive audience. In 2007 he appeared in Criminal Minds as a cannibal satanist serial killer.
Since 2008, Kennedy has played psychology professor Eli James in the CBS drama Ghost Whisperer, and in real life Kennedy was dating the show's star, Jennifer Love Hewitt but has recently split. He is also active in California's tourism campaign, having appeared in several commercials with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Since 2009, he has been in the TV series, The Cleveland Show, playing Roberta Tubbs' boyfriend.
He has also starred in the new Nicktoon Fanboy and Chum Chum as Kyle, a pre-teen who controls magic and has braces. He has garnered generally favorable criticism for his voice, with ToonGuys ultimately saying that "The Show is decent, but Seth Green and Jamie Kennedy lending their voices as two friends in the show makes it even more interesting." In April 2010, sources reported that Kennedy would very likely return to the Scream franchise to star in the upcoming fourth installment; however, according to Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson there were never plans for him to rejoin the franchise, attributing the misinformation to a misunderstanding or fabrication.
Category:1970 births Category:American comedians Category:American film actors Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:Living people Category:Actors from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Category:American people of Irish descent Category:People from Delaware County, Pennsylvania Category:Rappers from Pennsylvania
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Izzard speaks French and has performed stand up in French during his shows. He also speaks German and used it in the 2001 film All the Queen's Men.
During the 1999 television special It's... the Monty Python Story, which Izzard hosted, John Cleese said Izzard was the "Lost Python"; Izzard furthered that idea via his substitution for Graham Chapman in public performance of Python material with the rest of the original members of the troupe. He also made a cameo appearance in the Python reunion interview Monty Python Live At Aspen.
In 2008, Izzard received the James Joyce Award of the Literary and Historical Society of UCD, Dublin, Ireland. In March 2010, the Students Union of the University of Sheffield overwhelmingly elected him their honorary President.
Category:1962 births Category:People from Aden Category:Drama Desk Award winners Category:English atheists Category:English buskers Category:English comedians Category:English film actors Category:English voice actors Category:English television actors Category:English stand-up comedians Category:Cross-dressers Category:Living people Category:Old Eastbournians Category:Emmy Award winners
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