Legogal

A cool build! Dance studio/dj club is a scream! Way to go!

Plastic: You forgot sticks and dirt! We made most things out of dirt and sticks when I was a kid back in the real Dark Ages. Some of our favorite "toys" were dams made of sticks along curbs causing streets to flood in West Texas, deep pits of quicksand to drown meannie neighbors (who deserved it,) and ripe, red tomatoes for beaning the houses of other mean kids (ditto.) It was war. Period. We owned few store bought toys and had to make our own artillery for the most part. We scavenged construction sites for leftover scraps of wood with which we built all kinds of amazing things using just a hammer, nails and a saw. My brothers and I built a big fort attached to our back fence, and used mud pies for ammo. We had armies that fought with handmade stick swords and guns. And rarely did anyone get seriously injured. We ate so much dirt in the process that we had to get dewormed once a year just like most folks' dogs. Our immunity must have been astounding with our exposure to so many germs. So please don't forget the "dirt" in "older than dirt!" Thanks! Never saw a LEGO until I was 25 or so. Not widely available in the US until the late 80's.

What a cutie pie! Love the bowtie and front paws in red Converse for the holidays! Pugface is so lovable! Keep on designing nice stuff and WE WILL BUY IT!

Andy just became the first Old Timer badgee and proudly wears that one. Now that we have more than five people with this badge, let's hear from those aged fifty and over about the LEGO themes they collect. Duplo, Modulars, Friends, Architecture and Winter Village get most of my attention. Which themes do you favor?

Andy, Congratulations on retiring BEFORE you die! I turned in my final grades ten years ago after twenty years as a marketing professor. The feeling great can continue for many years after you finish. I still work part time running a small company we own, but it is nothing like having to put up with the requirements of teaching. Good luck with your LEGO plans and thanks for getting us the Old Fart badge! There are a lot more of us around than you would expect on a "toy" forum. Just wait til others start popping out of the woodwork. We need a few contests for the AARP crowd of those 50 and over. It would be interesting to hear which themes we Aged collect…mark me down mainly for Duplo, Friends, and Modulars. Which themes do you collect?

Very cute and timely! Are the elves getting paid overtime while working for that slave driver Santa?

Wow, Mikey! That is enough info (about injection molds) to kill a cow!

Yup, it looks fantastic! Too bad it is sold out everywhere, incl. in Singapore acc to WhiteFang. TLG seems awfully dense in making so few of this set. Have they list their marbles, or are there more on the way? Hummmm

Lots of great ideas floating around here. I like the one that says do whatever works for you. Shay nailed this on the head by describing above how your storing needs can change as your collection grows. What tends to work for a small collection usually does not cut it for a huge collection. For me it is a combination of ziploc bags in many sizes and the Rubbermaid 13 gal Roughneck containers (very hard to find now). The first sort is by color. Then the next sort is by bricks, plates, slopes or anything else. These four groups go into separate ziploc bags of different sizes. Where there are a lot of misc parts in the anything else bag, those get sorted into smaller baggies. When I need a part in a specific color, this limits the chase to the bins of that color. Some of the rarer colors (pink, purple, etc.) are combined in one Roughneck, but everything is sorted by color into ziplocs. For a few specialized parts in small quantities, I may mix colors. Ex: flagpoles, lightposts, flags, bicycles, etc., often with the same color in very small bags. If there are too few, they go in a snack or sandwich bag. All of my tiles are in one Roughneck sorted by color. And all of my son's old Technic pieces are in one or two Roughnecks because some of his sets are still built and the number of parts is manageable. My minifigs are mostly taken apart and sorted by torso color in transparent Sterilite 1716 containers for 6.2 quarts/5.9 liters from Target. These are my favorite brand of medium sized containers because you can see what is in them, and they fit well in the Rubbermaid Roughnecks. Minifig heads are stored separately by sex and color. Sterilite makes a lot of smaller sized containers that are wonderful for expensive parts you don't want scratched up by moving around in ziplocs. Ziplocs work well for parts because it is easy to place a lot of them on the table when you are building and you can quickly see what you have and don't have. And you can push the air out when sealing them saving lots of wasted space in a Rubbermaid Roughneck or Sterilite. For larger parts and my Duplo collection, they tend to get built into stacks and placed directly in the Roughnecks. I bag the pieces that don't stack (vehicles, animals, etc.) The built sets such as the modulars, Architecture, and Friends are displayed on shelves. The only builds we permanently display are the Taj Mahal and my son's own MOC of Petronas Towers. He also has several aquariums containing LEGO and fish. We now make a conscious effort to keep everything off our cherry dining table because it can't hold much weight and it looks terrible covered with anything but placemats. And I can no longer get away with LEGO containers all over the floor everywhere! The few extra boxed sets go high in the closet. All other boxes are discarded after new sets and their instructions are placed in ziploc bags. In summary ziplocs, Sterilite containers, and Rubbermaid Roughnecks do the trick for most of our LEGO. It is so easy for LEGO to overrun your living spaces that a good storage system is a necessity, especially if you live with others who demand non-cluttered common rooms. Good luck as it takes much time and effort to create a storage system that works for you.

Darkdragon, Congratulations! So glad you found a Mr. Gold! What wonderful news at the holidays! Were you especially good this year, or what caused Santa to put that figure in your talented hands? Our WM doesn't even cary CMS. Can't believe that you got the last new one left in the whole world...most likely!!! Enjoy it as you have earned it!

Answer to why not….maybe you will freeze your big behind off! That Eskimo looking guy in the parka may be frozen stiff! Anyhoo, this is a very creative build. Nice design. Congratulations! And your second post in over a year!

Yup, your eyes are not the only part that goes....just wait! Badge looks great to me! Count me in....many, many years ago! First grandchild on the way for next year, so my Duplos will come out of the closet for sure!

Thanks for putting this together….can't wait til May! Please let us know what we can bring that is nearly weightless….like our brains!

Lukewarmtea, You should be proud of the fact that you spend time building LEGO with your daughter! You could just park her in front of a TV or an iPad 15 hours a day and ignore her like lots of the parents in the US. I, too, began playing with LEGO when my son turned 3, and we have had many good times building things. The TV was there for a movie now and then, but never hooked up to stations and used as a babysitter for more than an hour or two. By the time he was four, my son could build most sets following instructions, and developed excellent motor skills. The LEGO were an investment in his future as well as a hobby for both of us. We have all of his sets from the Nineties, and he is still fond of what he built back then and recently. At 25 he still builds sometimes and is welcome to use the LEGO we have collected as a family. We all are looking forward to building LEGO with his children when that time comes. About five years ago I began collecting for myself....mostly pastel colors and female figures. My favorite themes are Friends, Duplo and Architecture. I have seen amazing adult builds with Duplo and don't feel that they are just for children. It is nice that we can view our collections as investments in well made products, which last several generations unlike most "toys." So please hold your head up high and enjoy spending time building with your daughter. She is recording everything you do and learning all of the time. You are setting a great example for her showing how building things is fun. And continue building for yourself....everyone deserves some time off for creative play. Wish I had begun collecting for myself 30 years earlier!

This looks wonderful! Congratulations on a home for your collection!

OtW, Amazon is killing the resellers at these prices. And everyone else. I hate to see who is still standing in January. I am trying to support our local LEGO store as much as possible because they have the best service in Raleigh.

Very nice rocks...give you a vertical feel for sure!

Piggy, Love your avatar! Oink Oink…he is a little too heavy to be a razorback, the mascot of my home state, Arkansas, and the University of Arkansas. But I bet that Oink Oink is a big seller in Arkansas! US list prices of polybags tend to run around 5.00 for the smaller polybags like 30185 Little Eagle. Larger ones like TRU's Geoffrey go for about 6.00. Sometimes there will be an even smaller bag with a 4.00 price. They are quite hard to find in the US except for a few that seem to be all over in Target, etc. Good luck!

Fae: Hahaha! love when you said that the AFOL overlords are LEGO fans!

WF: The details of your reviews are amazing and quite helpful when we are trying to decide which figs to buy. Thanks for dedicating so much time and effort to your reviews. And thanks to Kim as well for her support. This series has some fantastic figs, espec. the Panda and mermaid. And the new parts are outstanding, especially the hair pieces. Keep up the great reviews!

WF, Thanks for another superb review! The details you have provided are really helpful for making decisions about which figs to feel for in the bags and how they might feel. This is an attractive series because it has so much variety and plenty of interesting parts, especially hair pieces. And of course the adorable Mr. Panda with his baby. The cat granny and other females and Mr. Pantless are my favorites. I don't understand why there has to be a difference in the number of each figure produced. It seems that the best ones are the rarest in each box. This makes it difficult to find the ones you like, and keeps many folks from buying more than a few. Why not let the customers decide which ones they like? Look at how popular the Saxman was and how few there were. And it makes resellers ask more for those limited quantity figs. Hmmmm…. Again thanks for all the info provided and the effort you put into each review….and please thank your wonderful wife Kim for her patience and understanding while you do these reviews. She deserves a medal, too! Now we await the arrival of SIngapore's Marina Bay set knowing that y'all are proud of being chosen next in the Architecture line. Let's hope that you get to review it and include some nice photos of the building as well. Cheers!

Wonderful Florida colors make this one pop! Way to go!

I have not been in a Legoland Hotel yet…it was not yet open in Malaysia, I was too busy to see the one in California while in the Park, and I don't remember one at Gunzburg. There is one in the FL park, but we think that the prices are too high for one or two adults. Next comes number four on my bucket list, FL in January I hope. Any tips for visiting that Park? I will make it a point to go inside the Hotel at the FL Park just to see what it looks like.

Marina Bay Sands looks wonderful as a set…can't wait to get it! The real building looked so scary to me that I did not even walk near it much less go into the building. But I would love to build it. And it is great having another building from Asia. And a reviewer WhiteFang from Singapore to tell us all about it…how appropriate!

Andy D, Great ideas! I agree! Extra contests and raffles, etc., could add value for the premium site leaving the reviews and some contests for all. Your idea of paying once or twice a year sounds good…like a magazine subscription. Cheers and thanks to all for the open discussion of how to keep EB financially healthy.