(no subject)
All this work I have to do, and here I am farting about on the internet.
Speaking of which, remember when I asked if people could think of anything that had actually improved since their childhood? I've come up with something else.
LEGO.
I spent years playing with LEGO. Years. It represents a larger part of my childhood's imaginary landscape even than, say, Tranformers did, because when I had LEGO I could build whatever the hell I wanted, and populate it with whatever characters I liked. In particular, I had tons of Space LEGO, cannibalising all the various themed sets (including the Spyrius stuff, which was awesome beyond reckoning because it had LEGO giant robots) and the generic space into one giant interstellar battle that lasted the best part of eight years, the details of which elude me right now.
As such, LEGO occupies a very happy place in my mind, and top of the list of "things to do when I had more money than I could conceivably spend on useful things" was to have a room full of LEGO, in the same way that other people have giant model train layouts. It would be a massive LEGO town, complete with (funnily enough) network of LEGO trains that ran to the other side of the room, where the LEGO seaside village would be based.
Anyway, this means I occasionally drift over to the LEGO online store and look at City components. They are too expensive to buy on a whim, apart from the odd vehicle, but it's nice to dream. So I was intrigued to spot, when looking in Woolworths for the latest arrival, the police station and police boat bundled together for £35. This seemed such a tempting deal that I ended up picking them up, along with an ambulance for good measure.
I have so far assembled the ambulance, the police boat and the vehicles from the station (the building is waiting until I screw together the courage to take it on, it being quite a daunting and intricate set). And you know what? It's just as fun as it used to be. Perhaps even more so.
See, it's been roughly ten years since I last bought some LEGO, and it seems that certain, refinements have been made. And not the crappy kind of refinements that result in today's Transformers being made of blazing neon plastic and stuff. No, good stuff, like:
Even without the space or money to currently fund the LEGO-town Of Doom, I think they were just about the right price for "nifty things to put on display", and coming from a geek-love subset that had people clamouring to buy the D&D Miniatures Icons Colossal Red Dragon even though they don't play the game, just so they could have one on the mantlepiece, I don't think it was too much of a stretch.
So my suggestion is to pick up some LEGO, even if it's just a little car. You may just use it as an excuse to wallow in nostalgia, but aren't all the best things?
P.S. In response to a recent, totally unrelated thread on RPGnet, you've all just lost the Game.
Speaking of which, remember when I asked if people could think of anything that had actually improved since their childhood? I've come up with something else.
LEGO.
I spent years playing with LEGO. Years. It represents a larger part of my childhood's imaginary landscape even than, say, Tranformers did, because when I had LEGO I could build whatever the hell I wanted, and populate it with whatever characters I liked. In particular, I had tons of Space LEGO, cannibalising all the various themed sets (including the Spyrius stuff, which was awesome beyond reckoning because it had LEGO giant robots) and the generic space into one giant interstellar battle that lasted the best part of eight years, the details of which elude me right now.
As such, LEGO occupies a very happy place in my mind, and top of the list of "things to do when I had more money than I could conceivably spend on useful things" was to have a room full of LEGO, in the same way that other people have giant model train layouts. It would be a massive LEGO town, complete with (funnily enough) network of LEGO trains that ran to the other side of the room, where the LEGO seaside village would be based.
Anyway, this means I occasionally drift over to the LEGO online store and look at City components. They are too expensive to buy on a whim, apart from the odd vehicle, but it's nice to dream. So I was intrigued to spot, when looking in Woolworths for the latest arrival, the police station and police boat bundled together for £35. This seemed such a tempting deal that I ended up picking them up, along with an ambulance for good measure.
I have so far assembled the ambulance, the police boat and the vehicles from the station (the building is waiting until I screw together the courage to take it on, it being quite a daunting and intricate set). And you know what? It's just as fun as it used to be. Perhaps even more so.
See, it's been roughly ten years since I last bought some LEGO, and it seems that certain, refinements have been made. And not the crappy kind of refinements that result in today's Transformers being made of blazing neon plastic and stuff. No, good stuff, like:
- For starters, the instructions are just like you remember them, but they contain a full parts manifest of everything in the kit in the back, including serial numbers. This means that should anything be missing, or you come to reconstruct the model in future years, you can contact LEGO and obtain exact replacement parts.
- The larger models have been broken down into smaller sections (for example, the police station set has been divvied up into the vehicles, and then each separate "tower" of the building). The parts for each segment are bagged separately, so there is no longer hours of fruitless rummaging round in the heap for that last grey 1x4 thin.
- Minifigure headgear has been reengineered so it no longer plugs on as tightly. This always used to be a bone of contention with space helmets (and their City recolours, the motorbike crash helmets), as it was occasionally next to impossible to remove said helmets, resulting instead in a decapitated minifigure and a firmly wedged-up helmet. Now they just slip on and off.
- The vehicle kits have been deliberately designed with breakaway rooves and similar. This lets you pop minifigures into and out of the driver's seat without accidentally tearing the top of the van off as you go.
Even without the space or money to currently fund the LEGO-town Of Doom, I think they were just about the right price for "nifty things to put on display", and coming from a geek-love subset that had people clamouring to buy the D&D Miniatures Icons Colossal Red Dragon even though they don't play the game, just so they could have one on the mantlepiece, I don't think it was too much of a stretch.
So my suggestion is to pick up some LEGO, even if it's just a little car. You may just use it as an excuse to wallow in nostalgia, but aren't all the best things?
P.S. In response to a recent, totally unrelated thread on RPGnet, you've all just lost the Game.