The Beansprout just received his first Legos this weekend–a set of the big Legos–African Adventure. They are loads of fun! I can’t stop playing with them.
My husband has a humongous Lego collection. I can’t wait until the Sprout is old enough for them.
Am I the only one who prefers the generic type blocks? I’m talking the simple squares and rectangles… give me a bunch of those over the little make-a-tie-fighter kits anyday! q;}
While in Denmark, I perused the large Lego collection of my cousin’s adopted son. My cousin had built this huge, faceless monolithic skyscraper and used most of the regular bricks in doing so.
Confronted with massive quantities of red roof tiles and odd little windows, I constructed mosque and pagoda-like structures that blew everybodys’ minds. I have a photo of one somewhere. I sent one of the snapshots into Lego world headquarters with a job application. I have many different ideas they’ve yet to use.
It turns out that if you want to work for Lego, you had better intern for several years at the Danish Legoland. They are hyper-protective of the few new ideas they come up with and have a morbid fear of industrial espionage.
And that was the end of my innovative Lego aspirations.
Hah… Legos are great. Lost most of mine a while ago, was always partial to castle sets and making my own castles. One of my weirdest memories involves them too… I think it was my brother peeing into the lego box. Just so you know.
guess what this legomaniac got for xmas? the all-new ultimate collectors’ series Imperial Star Destroyer!
i have just begun to put it together…over 3000 pieces. spent an hour and a half on it yesterday, and now have a triangle 3 feet x 2 1/2 feet. it will be very impressive when done. even comes with a scaled down Tantive IV.
i am also working on a mini fleet of tie fighters and other starships.
I love my wife. between the legos and ps2…well, at least i’m not a sportsman, hunter, or golfer. 
anyway, the kids enjoy the toys, though they can not help me on my model (god help them if they lose any pieces!). they have a lot of the SW sets, harry potter, jungle, space, you name it. we have all the instructions bound in a large 3" binder so we don’t lose them. they especially like the bionicle series, though i like plain bricks, myself.
there are great resources on the net if you’re interested.
www.brickshelf.com has a gallery of people’s creations.
www.bricklink.com is like an ebay sie for lego parts. i shit you not. thousands of sellers and buyers online. i use it a lot for special pieces.
lego.com is pretty good as well… they also have certain pieces in bulk if you want them (like gray bricks and plates for spaceships).
and www.adequate.com has a lot of reviews of old sets, www.lugnet.com is sort of like a newsgroup for lego.
anyway, i’m addicted. can you tell?
god, how long have i waited to talk about my LEGOS!
yay!
Ya’ know what, welby? I want to be jealous, but I really can’t be.
I loved me my Legos. My brother and I built castles, moon bases, secret Army bases, any kind of fixed installation you want to name. Then we built airplanes, flying tanks, and super death-ray carrying spaceships to attack the installations with.
We did it all from the “Big Box O’ Legos.” That wasn’t what it was actually called, but that’s what it was. You bought Legos, they came in a big box.
You had so many wide brick pieces, so many square brick pieces, so many “strip” pieces of varying length, a few hinges, a few heads and body parts (we used to have to build the little people, you danged kids), and some other dinguses that we didn’t know what to do with.
We just made stuff up and built it, like we did with the Erector sets. A couple of boys with creative minds and a well-developed sense mischief could get through a rainy afternoon easily.
The kits just ruined Legos for me.
Lego has always been an expensive toy. But I got a few of them when I was really young, and took a liking to them. My parents clued in, but couldn’t affort to go buy sets as a habit. Instead, my mother would scour the local yard sales and buy little bits here and there.
As a result, my collection has very few large sets, but a whole mess of random bricks.
I used to get lost in them for days on end. I’d find a theme; this time boats, next time spaceships, next time a bridge. And then I’d build until the carpet in my room was covered with little creations. Or big creations. They were my favourite toys. I’d lay awake at night, when my parents had insisted I go to bed, daydreaming of what I would build the next day.
None of the other kids were into it, and I pretty well kept quiet about it. But now I’m away at school, my collection back at my parents’ place. I made a good friend this year, who, it turns out, was and is really into Lego too. We’ve spent some nice hours reminiscing about the stuff, and even a solid day playing with his collection.
And I miss it. I miss the carefree days of sitting on the floor, building and imagining, all by myself. I miss the wonder, the the excitement, the deep thought that went into it. I miss how it used to let me clear my head and think about things while I played. I miss how it was one of the very few things that could cause me to just plain relax and be me. And I miss the work, the thought, the accomplishment, and the satisfaction all wrapped up in a creation that few knew about and no one appreciated but me.
I found some Lego on the side of the road the other day. Three little bricks that had been thrown out with the trash- I actually had to pick at a ripped-open garbage back to retrieve two of them. I washed them up, and now they sit on top of my computer. Every now and then I take them down and pull them apart and put them together in a differnet arrangement. They’re still relaxing, still good for dissolving my distractions and letting me think.
Thanks Mom, Dad, and Grandma for introducing me to those bricks way back when. Thanks for noticing how much I liked them. And thanks, too, to my new friend here at school. It’s nice when you can share your interests with someone. You fit the bill marvelously.
-wolfstu, who is sometimes grateful for the anonymity the Board affords.
I’m just going to sit here and drool over the Star Destroyer for a while.
My only problem with Legos is what to do with them when I’m finished. I don’t care about playing with them or anything like that; I just like building them, the more intricate the better. In that respect the “Big Box O’ Legos” is better for me, since I can deconstruct my creations without feeling guilty.
I’m still trying to justify getting Mindstorms (R or TM). (best reason to have a kid I’ve come up with)
I got a varius kits, acouple of the Expert Builder sets (Tractor, Bulldozer, motor, and extra gears), plus hand-me-downs. I usualkly built the thing first, play with a bit, then made my own stuff combining what I had.
count me amoung those who thinks there are too many special purpose pieces in most of the newer sets.
Brian
I love a man with a big Lego set.
I’m going to Legoland Billund for the fifth time this summer. Envy me? 
KCSuze sorry, I’m taken.
Barbarian, the generic station is an Amoco, specifically the Amoco on the corner of Braddock Road and Patriot Circle in the University Mall shopping center.
I have to agree about the kits. I remember the good old days when you had to build it all yourself (even the guys, like Ex said) and invention was far more fun that just putting it together. Counting the four Lego things I got yesterday, I can probably count on one hand the number of lego “kits” I put together properly out of the box.
Usually I would buy a kit because there was a piece that I thought would look cool on something I already built. I’ve got a friend in Daytona Beach who has two entire rooms filled with lego creations. His whole little world goes from the castle and knight sets to the space stuff and everything in between. I’ts bad ass! It also makes him easy to shop for.
My biggest Lego collection I had when I was a kid. My mom sold it during a garage sale when I was in college. I might forgive her. Someday. Maybe. Acutally, NEVER. I hope she stubs her toe.
Issues? What issues?
Oh I want the Star Destroyer. I want I want I want I want. I’ll sell my body for it. I’d sell Exgineer’s soul for a night with it. I want.
welby, me too! I thought the Corellian Corvette was impressive when I saw that … but an Impstar???
GOD!!! 3,000 pieces!!!
Iiiiieeeeeeeee!!!
By the way, if anyone is looking to get on my good side, the Star Destroyer would be an EXCELLENT start.
BTW, is Lego blocks…not “Legos” plural. The company doesn’t like the plural Legos.
Lego.
Lego blocks.
Which is correct as the plural of LEGO: ‘Lego’ or ‘Legos’? Neither, actually. The word ‘LEGO’, when used as a noun, should only refer to the company that makes the product. Otherwise ‘LEGO’ is supposed to be used as an adjective. Thus, when referring to the pieces, neither ‘lego’ nor ‘legos’ is correct… rather one should say: ‘LEGO bricks’ or ‘LEGO pieces’ or whatever (using LEGO as an adjective – and one should really capitalize all of the letters, and put the little ‘circle-R’ symbol after it (®)). This is all a matter of protecting the trademark of ‘LEGO’ for the company (using it otherwise degenerates the strength of the trademark)
i have to say that my one pet peeve about the LEGO company is that they no longer sell their signature 1200 piece bucket of bricks. THAT was a great deal. now, they sell smaller assortments in the same size buckets with more specialty prieces (who wants to build a friggin’ giraffe?). i underdtand that they lost money on them, though…they were more a way to get people into the stores and started on lego building.
on the upside, logo shop at home has bulk bricks for sale at pretty good prices.
Yup…that impstar is pretty sweet. not that i play with the things, you understand, but it would make a heck of a playset for micro-fig scale fighters and ships (looks at the squadron of mini-ties he’s put together, along with plans for a mini falcon, z-95 headhunters, skipray blastboats, imperial shuttle, and dreadnought cruiser)
Kits? ya bunch a posers. Real men use the basic sets and their imagination. You know the big green, or the huge grey sheet and then colored retanular blocks.
When I was a kid I had so many damn legos, my mom made me give some away to my lego deprived cousins. 
Like 50 pounds of legos was to many, it was barely enough. The hardest part of going on vacaton as a kid was deciding which peices to put in my official lego carrying case, cause that’s all my parents would let me take along. For years my only carry-on luggage was that red case.
For those who don’t remember, the cases looked like this.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3128190204&category=19000
Um, you guys know you can buy legos by bulk in 10 gallon or more tubs?
Lost the link sorry.