Oof. Just looked up the daily contents on Bricklink. This sets a pretty low bar for the next 24 days.

Huwbot is sending a not-so-subtle signal about where his Advent Calendar sympathies lie. Harry Potter--ugghh; Star Wars--ugghh; Friends--ugghh; Marvel--uggh; City--yes indeed, says the Huwbot!

@Norikins:
Another minifig has a heart tile.

@SpoonTree said:
"this was deliberate, right? if not then this is an amazing coincidence! but rsotd does have a history of being tampered with..."

What game is your profile pic from?

I've never gotten a LEGO Advent Calendar but they seem interesting, I still don't know what this one had in it since I was 3 when it came out lol.

@Trigger_:
Click on the Bricklink link at the bottom of the post. Then click on the link for the 24 included sub-sets. Finally, prepare to be underwhelmed.

While it's 5 till ten here, it's tomorrow by GMT. So, it's on the first day of Advent. What a coincidence!

@Brickbuilder0937 said:
"So, no random part today?"
Yeah, what's up with that? I saw people mourning the death of RPotD on the previous article, I feel out of the loop?

Has to be deliberate.

@TheOtherMike said:
"Robot99 & Brickbuilder0937: They're not doing RPOTD until after Christmas because the front page will be so busy with five Advent Calendar countdowns."
That makes sense, but where did you hear this?

Not a bot.

That guy on the left in overalls looks familiar... he looks nice but that black hat... I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere... I got it! I saw it on a lot of people carrying a whole lot of money... near a bank... and there were police... Huh, must have been a dream.

@Robot99 said:
" @TheOtherMike said:
"Robot99 & Brickbuilder0937: They're not doing RPOTD until after Christmas because the front page will be so busy with five Advent Calendar countdowns."
That makes sense, but where did you hear this?"
Wait, nevermind, just found it. From the article announcing the commencement of the Advent Calendars:

"To make room on the home page for all of this we are going to cease publishing the Random Part of the Day articles. They might return next year if we are able to address their shortcomings."

Aw, darn. I understand a temporary suspension to prevent the front page from becoming hilariously clogged, but I do hope they return. Even with all the glitches and oversights, they could be really fun on some days.

Hunh, I just came across the dumpster and tree from this set while sorting last week

@Trigger_ said:
"What game is your profile pic from?"

Ace Attorney!

I have this one in my closet haha, bought for a larger build. Still sealed...

Ha ha, this will get the tin foil hat brigade going.

Or those who can’t cope with the concept of random.

The cover gives no clue as to what is inside apart from the 8 featured mini-figs, including a sanitary engineer (street cleaner) unique to this set. I like the way there are 2 accompanying mini-fig sized builds relevant for each mini-fig shown at https://www.toysperiod.com/lego-set-reference/holiday/advent/city/lego-7907-1-advent-calendar-2007-city/ so by Christmas you would have the equivalent of 8 old-fashioned mini-fig box sets.

@Huw said:
"Honestly, this is a total coincidence, I have not tweaked Huwbot's algorithm!"
(=_= ) Hmmm...

For this year I bought 7324 from Bricklink.

Well. This looks like Huwbot's way of saying "forget the current advent calendars, this is the one I want to open this year instead!" I mean, personally, I sort of feel that way about 75023, so I can relate to that... xD

You know, in hindsight one thing I don't think I like about this calendar is that, out of the eight minifigures here, they're all male; not a single girl minifigure in sight. Granted though, this was also the case in much of the mid-2000s-era Lego world; as best I can tell from a quick browse of the database, it wasn't until 2009 that lady minifigures started becoming more common in City sets once more.

On another note, I'm always surprised to see that the Octan Oil torso lasted as a used part for so long. I had it from 2849, which wasn't even its first appearance, and it never ceases to surprise me that it was still in use by 2013's 60026.

...according to Bricklink, granted, the font changed somewhere along the way. But still, I don't think there were many 90s-era torsos that remained in use, even with slight variations, for the nearly two decades.

Strange coincidences aside, the contents of this calender are weird.

On the one hand there's far more volume of stuff to each window. Nowadays the parts chosen are often 1x1 sized whilst this one has some nicely big parts.
But on the other hand, it's all stuff from the subthemes that were in other sets at the time, just multiple mini builds in one box. To me the contents are a bit boring knowing later calenders sometimes provided christmas staples like a sleigh, a tree, a fireplace, santa, snowmen, etc. This one only has a christmas tree.

The best thing about the Advent calendars of this period were the beautiful scene pictures printed across the entire inside of the box. (Search the web if you don't know what I'm talking about!) They were like reliving the days of catalogs before Photoshop, with elaborate displays of sets, custom creations, and minifigures in all sorts of interesting or humorous situations. Sometimes they had some cheats—CGI for parts that didn't exist, that sort of thing—but for the most part, they were invitations to build and buy it ALL, just like the catalogs of my youth. I enjoyed getting the Advent calendars even when the contents were lackluster just because of how fun it was to look at these scenes. I miss these. Lego should never underestimate the marketing power of just showing off its product. The Photoshop artwork on the playmats in the modern calendars looks so cheesy compared to simple brickscaping.

I love these old 2000s City Advent Calendars!

@Robot99 said:
""To make room on the home page for all of this we are going to cease publishing the Random Part of the Day articles. They might return next year if we are able to address their shortcomings."

Aw, darn. I understand a temporary suspension to prevent the front page from becoming hilariously clogged, but I do hope they return. Even with all the glitches and oversights, they could be really fun on some days."

The ONLY shortcoming I see (other than the one part that got posted with no working image) is that there are no parts from 20+ years ago. I understand why, but still wish we could see some classic 80s parts.