TomLego

I've learned a lot through current/previous hobbies. I collect old radios. I know some people who have 500 tube (valve) radios. They are stacked on top of each other, most are of little or no value. They don't know the difference between an accumulation and a coherent collection. Their display room looks like it belongs to someone with hoarding/OCD issues. I collect specific Lego sets. Modulars, large landmarks like the TB and SOH and the architecture series. I am temped to buy some of the technic series, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. I did buy the large sopwith camel airplane. As soon as I finished it I realized that it really didn't fit in. So, off it went to a friend and it now 'flies' from the ceiling of a seven year olds bedroom. His dad said the little kids eyes lit up when he showed him the airplane. There is also a rule against 'Lego sprawl' in my house. There are a couple of Frank Lloyd Wright Lego buildings in the office, but the rest of the collection is confined to tables and shelving in one room in the basement. One exception, the a Tower Bridge does look good in the exercise room on a table under the wall mounted TV. I keep all of the boxes and instruction books. I only buy Lego that I am going to build, keep and/or give away to a friend. No 'investment grade' Lego sets that remain unopened in my house. I don't have a lot of extra parts, they all fit easily into one drawer in a file cabinet. No key chains, watches, magazines or other Lego paraphernalia.

Great review....thanks. Completed construction yesterday. This is the best of the large piece count Lego products. Due to the unique nature and size of many of the pieces, I think that cost per piece is largely irrelevant when evaluating this product.

Clearly, TLG has decided adults will buy AFOL targeted products without the discount. Ouch! Won't impact my purchasing decisions, but a discount would be nice.

All of the modulars are a fun build. I suppose I'd put Pet Shop at the top of the list. With that said and if you can afford it, get Tower Bridge while its still available. Lots of pieces and when finished its quite impressive.

I offered to ship the expat some Lego sets from the USA. However, they said that by the time their host country got done inspecting and collecting taxes on what I shipped to them, it really wouldn't be that much of a savings for them.

The Robie House was my second lego build, seems like it was well over a year ago. No problems during the build or afterwards. Maybe I have set the bar too low, but I just completed my 40th Lego project in the past couple of years. That encompasses over 50,000 pieces. I haven't had any quality issues.

Being one who's grown up in the American driven entertainment culture, I can do without TLG licensing any more stuff from TV land and Hollywood. I think the DC3 is a great idea. I also like the Starbucks/Barnes and Noble modular building. Any product where a kid starts with a pile of bricks, some electronic components and his own imagination, well, that also gets my vote.

Great story on HK. Was in Europe and an American expat was saying their Lego hobby was on hold until they got back to the USA in a couple of years. The country they're living in has made the Lego hobby cost prohibitive, as least in comparison to what it costs in the USA.

Welcome! Keep us posted on how those EV3 experiments are going.

Done. Great build. As you may know, I'm playing 'catch up' with many of you AFOLs because I just recently became afflicted with the Lego addiction. Gotta say, the SOH is a winner. Forget about cost per piece. Not as relevant here. Many, many large, unique pieces that I'm sure raised the production cost on this particular set. The set is very stable once built. And, there are not any construction techniques/methods that result in a portion of the build collapsing when you breath too hard or look at it the wrong way. The Lego designer really got it right with this one. I didn't find it to be much of a challenge because the construction techniques were so well thought out. There are also a lot of large pieces, giving a well deserved break to an old geezer like me. I don't even like how the real SOH looks. I find it more of an oddity that an architectural masterpiece. However, the Lego presentation is a lot of fun to build even if the final product isn't of a design that I'm crazy about.

I think the moderators should shut down any thread that degenerates into a discussion of Kansas City Chiefs football. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. :-)

Okay. So I've complete the first three instruction books. This is by far the easiest build of the large Lego sets, IMHO. None of the repetitiveness of Tower Bridge and none of the questionable construction techniques that caused such instability in the Eiffel Tower. Really enjoying this one despite the fact that I'm not a big fan of the SOH. As far as a parts set goes, it would take someone a lot more creative than me to figure out how to utilize all of the curved pieces. Nice job by the designer of this Lego product. Great representation of the actual SOH and a straight up, fair build. I hope to finish tomorrow.

Well, I got fed up with all of the American pro sports leagues for a variety of reasons that I won't mention here. And, Monday night football from the BPL starts at 245 PM here in ATL so it gives me something to watch during the afternoon. Anyway, I chose Stoke because who can't like a team whose nickname is the 'Potters' and their sponsor is a gambling company? Wouldn't it be great if pro teams in the NFL, NBA and MLB could get relegated?

Wow. Spectacular. Thanks for sharing this wonderful work of art. The original Girl With a Pearl Earring is on display at the High Museum in Atlanta through September 29th. That's only about 20 minutes from my house. May have to make the trip into town to see it.

Welcome! Exciting times ahead in your part of the world! World Cup, Olympics.....enjoy!

Tomdobs55 Well, I did look at the rosters. On one of the teams, the computer gave me the top ranked RB and the top ranked QB. I also know that Payton Manning was the QB on a few of them, so I know they got off to a good start. But, like I said, now that the season has started I won't be checking on them until the fantasy season is over. Besides, my real interest is in the BPL over in England. Stoke City rules!!!!!! HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.....

I have 48 Yahoo teams in fantasy. Just as an experiment, I let the computer draft them. The only change I made was to bench Gronkowski TE for New England because of his injury problem. I'm not going to look at any of the teams until the season is over. Does anyone think that a computer drafted team that's left alone for the entire season can win a championship? I'll let you know. I've played Yahoo fantasy football since its inception and just wanted to try something different this year. SixYahoo Ids and 8 teams per ID.

Another copy of the Pet Shop modular building, the Fall Scene and got the mini VW van and shipping thrown in for free. The Lego store is less than two miles from my house, but I hate shopping malls. Ordered from Lego.com.

'There Goes My Baby, by the Drifters.

Ritz crackers with peanut butter. I tried Cheetos when I was new to Lego. I still have some orange tinted white bricks. Maybe I can use them on the horizon express, eh?

The hotdog stand. Fits in nicely on modular building street.

I have one rule for all of my internet postings: would I say this to someone if they were standing in front of me and I didn't have the anonymity of the Internet?

21002 Empire State Building is a good nominee. Under 100 pieces for the Empire State Building? Why not a 75 piece Taj Mahal offering? Some things just demand a grander scale. The Empire State Building is one of those.

Welcome!

Well, you got me thinking. So I started an excel spreadsheet and it adds up to 50,799. That's just for competed sets, I'm sure I probably have a couple of thousand additional bricks stored away for a rainy day.