Happy New Year

Nuclear Lego Man
Originally uploaded by bixentro

With the new year, I bought a #10193 Medieval Market Village... I haven't had time to put it together yet, but I'm looking forward to it... And from the time images of 2009 sets started to leak onto Eurobricks and Flickr, I'm really looking forward to this year's line up.

It feels like there's been a renaissance of sorts, that we've collectively have emerged from a dark age of product design & bad business decisions by the LEGO group. It seems like new life has been breathed back into themes like Town and Castle, we're seeing the resurrection of Pirate, and with the new year, there's rumors of a new Space line. I just got my new 2009 LEGO catalog; I'm seeing sets in it that I want to buy and build for the sake of the set & not buy because it sucks and I just want the parts -- this is saying something, I haven't felt this way about many sets in a long time.

I only have a few warnings/complaints for the LEGO group, but because the company is turning profitable, I don't see these things changing any time soon: (1) not everyone can afford $200+ sets; make more $3, $7, $12 sets; (2) stop producing sets that cater to the "collectors" market, then frown upon it when you see it's ugly side at LEGO conventions; by making these collector sets, you're feeding the monster; and finally, (3) don't make the mistake of treating all fans and collectors as being the same, we're not!

Anyway, here's to a new year! May this be a better year for you than last!

10 Year Anniversary

So last weekend, I was asked to join James Wadsworth and Tim Courtney on LAML radio episode #43 to talk about LUGNET...

It was a good show... and it's got me thinking... and then I realized that I've been with the on-line LEGO fan community for 10 years now. My anniversary was Feb. 16th, 1998, the date of my first rec.toys.lego post. Pirate LEGO was being clearanced out at my local TRU & offered to buy sets for anyone looking. Steve Jackson ended up taking me up on my offer...

Out of the Dark Ages

Building on yesterday's post, I emerged from my Lego dark ages back in 1998. Shortly after Christmas, I was walking through a Kohl's with my sister and niece. As we happened through the toy section, I noticed pirate Lego sets on clearance and I thought to myself, "hey... wouldn't that be cool to stick up on my desk at work..."

Looking at the Lego pirate sets, I had realized a few things: Lego was no longer just primary colored bricks... there was green, brown, and shades of gray; Lego was no longer about just bricks... there were minifigs (as I later came to know what they were called), cannons, horses, plants of different shapes and sizes, etc.; and Lego was about themes... castle, pirate, space...

I honestly don't remember what the first Lego set that I bought after coming out of my dark ages... I'm thinking it might have been a #6249 Bandit Ambush, but I could be mistaken. Or it might have been some castle set... I can't quite remember... I took to the internet with my new found love of Lego... found rec.toys.lego (RTL) and eBay... worlds opened up to me... found that I missed the 'golden-years' (in my opinion) of Lego (1980~1988) -- most of the sets I found most interesting came out during the '80s. Found out that people had scanned instructions and posted them on-line for others to build from. Found people were hosting part auctions, like AucZILLA. Found people who posted pictures of their own Lego creations called MOCs. It was a whole new strange, wonderful world filled with people like me -- Adult Fans of Lego (AFOLs).

Before the Dark Ages

I started into Lego around the age of 6-7 years old. I remember having something similar to #460 (Rescue Units), maybe the #455 (Learjet), and some generic universal building set from the 70's. And that was it -- Lego was expensive and my parents couldn't afford much more.

I had acquired a Mike Sells potato chip box from my uncle and kept my Lego bricks there, along with some American Plastic Bricks, Tinker Toys, green army guys, dice, jacks, pennies... and kept other hand-me-down toys in it.

The building set had this green 10x20 base brick (there were no row of tubs on the underside, so you could only connect bricks to the top of the base brick). I remember trying to build a house with it, but never seemed to have enough bricks to build it completely.

I remember being frustrated with building: I never seem to have enough bricks to build what I wanted to and I never seem to have enough bricks in the same color I wanted to build in; because the stupid American Bricks would never connect to Lego (but that wasn't Lego's fault), I was frustrated with not having enough windows or doors; and I had lost the instructions and boxes, so I could never figure out how to rebuild the helicopter, ambulance, or jet.

By Christmas a few years later, Star Wars had come out and I became hooked on Star Wars action figures... My Lego affinity was short lived...