LEGO Mania

I have always been a huge LEGO fan.

Growing up, that was probably my favorite toy. I was a member of the LEGO club for several years. Back home, between my siblings and myself, we filled plastic crates full with our assorted sets. We had sets from all categories, but favored the castle, space, and pirate brands. Back in my day, the types were literally called Town, Space, Castle, and Pirates. And there were few (if any!) custom parts. Yessir, I watched as LEGO diversified, and started calling their lines "Space Police," "Wolfpack," "M:Tron," "Black Tron," "Black Knights," "Dragon Masters," "Ice Planet," "Space Police II," and started doing movie tie-ins with "Star Wars," "Jurassic Park," "Harry Potter," and "Spider-Man."

I built hundreds of custom sets... recreating the suggestions on the backs of the boxes, doing my own ideas, working with my siblings and friends to build larger concepts. My shining achievement was "Mount Dragon," a name ripped right out of Lloyd Alexander's "Prydain Chronicles." It was a completely original castle shaped like a dragon, with large wings, an opening mouth, a dungeon, and catapults.

It was awesome.

LEGOs were the first thing I ever took money out of the bank for. I remember my mother making sure it was something I wanted to do, me saying "yes," and then she took me to take $100 out to go and buy... I think it was an "Ice Planet" ship set.* Ian got some at the same time. We both used to spend a lot of time at a store called, fittingly enough, "Ask Your Mother." Long gone now, it was on Pleasant Street in Brunswick and had the best LEGO selection. I still look at Target, Wal-Mart, and Kmart, and wonder where a kid can go to see the full range of LEGO toys I remember...

I still collect and build LEGOs these days, although at a much smaller scale. A few "Star Wars" sets here and there, the occasional nostalgia purchase on eBay, sometimes building old sets from my youth that I've dug up during trips back home.

In that spirit, here are three LEGO-themed bits of news...

First, check this out; this is the kind of building I didn't do very often, but I salivate while thinking about it now. I wish I had the time to spend on exploits such as this; I think I'd be good at it, as well as love it.

Secondly, David H. pointed this out to me last week: "Forbidden LEGO."

Talk about awesome. This book is the ultimate guide to mischief: take a favorite (and in my life, common) toy, mix in adolescence with a touch of knavishness, and bring to boil with solid instructional material. Catapults, rubber-band guns, fast cars, this book has it all. I've pre-ordered it already, and look forward to showing it to Ashby someday.

Thirdly... I lied earlier. When I said I only collected on a small scale. Because every once and a while, LEGO history is made. Just like with the iPhone, I can't just let that pass me by.

So, several months ago, I took steps to ensure my place on the cutting edge, the front line of the mature LEGO collector.

And Tuesday, earlier than expected, I found this waiting for me at work:

You'd better believe I'm excited now! (And yes, I know I need a haircut) The "Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon" is, at over 5,000 pieces, LEGO's biggest set. EVER. And looking at the end result, it looks like it's low on custom pieces.

That's right, good old fashioned generic pieces seems to be the majority here.

I plan on updating as I go through the building process. I haven't started yet... part of me wants to leave the box untouched and pristine, but that part of me will lose out to the part of me that will always want to build LEGOs. The whole process will (hopefully) have a Flickr set devoted to it, and I'll post whenever it's updated.

Wish me luck...


[* Thanks Mom!]