This is a pretty interesting story. Was a huge fan of lego as a kid, but kinda dwindled around the age of 15. I can remember that the last set I got was 7140 (X-Wing). Then I went to college and they released 4504 (Millennium Falcon). I was kinda joking, but I kept talking it up to my then girl friend and what do you know... She pulled through and got that for me for my birthday. But seriously, come on, lego millenium falcon... that pretty much screams quintessential lego nerdom (hence UCS falcon, we'll get to that in a minute).
So 4504 was pretty freaking sweet so I displayed it through out the rest of college. I was still too poor to really get back into lego. Well, Jump forward a few years. Now I have a decent job and i have been keeping up with lego mainly by giving the lego isle a pass every time i went to a brick and mortar store. I started noticing amazing MOC's and lego original sets (green grocer) on some of the technology blogs. I always was in love with the train sets, so once emerald night was released I bought it immediately. This officially reignited my crazy passion for those darned little stubby bricks.
I soon read that cafe corner was discontinued. I had already decided it was only a matter of time before I buy green grocer, and once I started buying these modular sets I knew I wouldn't feel complete without cafe corner. So i pulled the trigger, bought cafe corner from S@H. And then within the past few months I've bought several sets including:
Green Grocer
Winter Toy Shop
Imperial Flagship
UCS Millennium Falcon <-- Saving this build for this weekend
and to round out the string of recent purchases, I just purchased this "semi-legendary" 4999 thing i found on ebay. I've gotta say, lego has hurt my bank account.