Dear Diary :

Yes, it was only over one month ago that I began to chronicle my nascent love affair with piles of interlocking plastic bricks, but it’s been a wild month. Things just started moving so fast, and before I knew it… well, let me explain.

It all started when I found some boxed Lego sets in my closet during a spring clean. In a moment of much-needed toy therapy, I tore them open, ruined their inherent mint-in-box collectability, and began to assemble. Sometimes, play just outweighs pay.

After that day of building, I never stopped. As soon as my existing sets had been assembled, I found myself needing more, and I needed it fast. A collection of 100 bricks wasn’t even enough to make a small, rainbow-colored shanty out of. It was late, and the stores were closed, so I tore into a small Mega Bloks lobster that I’d also found in the recesses of the closet, but it wasn’t the same. It kept on falling apart, and it bore only a passing resemblance to a lobster. It was like heading out to a club to find a hot chick and then coming home with one that didn’t have all of her own teeth. And didn’t even bother to replace the ones that had escaped.

When you collect to a degree that you forget about half of what you have, your own residence is a constant wonderful surprise, if it doesn’t kill you first.

I was so dissatisfied with the non-Lego lobster that I decided to create my own. When I see a creative problem, I will inevitably throw all sensibility away and throw my whole life into engineering a near-perfect solution, while I still remain indifferent about balancing my bank account. In this case, a new and improved lobster cost me a few hours of sleep, as I learned my way around the free Lego Digital Designer (which works on both Mac and Windows, and can be downloaded from free from the Lego website). By the time I was finished, I had created a wonderful Lego lobster that was all mine – and best of all, it didn’t take up any physical space! Within the LDD, you have the ability to click on a ‘how much will this cost me?’ button, and the program will calculate your total price based on which bricks you’ve used. While my Mega Blocks lobster was about 7 inches long and $2, my Lego lobster was a far more intricate, detailed, and large $35. My creation, however, was articulated with a curling tail, pinching claws, and 8 moveable legs. Such points of movement are important to an action figure geek like myself. Ol’ Blok lobster didn’t even have any legs.

I contented myself by going out into the real world and picking up a variety of under-$20 Lego sets from the store. I’d put the ‘correct’ items together, look at them for a moment, and break them apart to make them other things. I went on eBay about bought mysterious lots of thousands of mixed, used Legos. I didn’t know where they’d been, but at this point, I didn’t even care. Our love affair was getting dark and kinky, but we both knew what it was.

I lost three days’ worth of free time after I saw a picture of Iron Monger from the new Iron Man movie. With a toy magazine propped up next to my monitor, I dove into the LDD again and built a semi-accurate effigy of the Iron Monger robot, complete with moving parts (including moveable fingers), and space on the inside for an AA battery and a small light, so that he might emit a glow. I estimate that he’s about a foot tall, and has over 500 pieces. The price, after three days of intense e-labor that overtook all of my thoughts and gave me a fun project to look forward to? $95.

It was like giving intellectual birth, and it turned out really nicely. When it was done, I felt empty and directionless. Sure, I had more Lego ideas, but I was still no Nathan Sawaya. Still, visions of being employed by Legoland filled my head, as I skimmed the application process and job openings for possibilities. Unless I wanted to move to Sweden, the options were pretty limited – and the Legoland Master Builder interview process required that the applicant build a both a spontaneous model and a rollable ball of Legos on the spot, under the watchful eyes of Lego Masters. This was a situation that I felt very unprepared for, after my recent three day excursion into Legoblivion. I could traverse the Legobstacle course, but it was at my own speed.

The emptiness persisted, and my local toy store shelves were empty or only filled high-end sets and Bionicles, which are largely incompatible with your standard Lego brick. On a trip to Marshalls with my mother, I wandered over to the toy section while she browsed the pottery and spices, banking on a tip that I heard over in the Lego Facebook group. It was there that I came across my Lego holy grail, and marked at 50% off. I’d always wanted the Lego Ultimate Collectors’ Edition Batmobile, both because it was Lego and it was a batmobile, but the original $60 price tag was too steep. There were three on sale, and I bought them all. I remained awake until 2 AM, being accosted by the horribleness of the Transformers Movie, and assembling the Batmobile.

As the pieces came together, I got a sinking feeling. See, once I’d put together a handful of base plates to serve as the undercarriage of the car, I thought that would be the size of things – but no, the two thick instructional manuals that came with the Batmobile kept on adding more and more baseplates, until the size of the thing completely overtook my who designated assembly table. Bags upon bags of bricks were gently cut open at their corners, to avoid spillage onto the floor. Gears were added, sleek and curvy black bricks were stacked in ziggurat patterns, and 5 hours later (including 2 hours past my bedtime), I had a massive, solid, awesome Batmobile – and no plans on how to safely keep anything this huge. It’s too large for a Lego-sized figure or a 3 3/4 scale figure, and too small for your average 6” figure. Not only is is a masterpiece of smart construction and a testament to the power of Brick, but a handful of Lego Technic pieces cause fiery blasts and visible turbines to spin while the car’s wheels roll, and a turn of the steering wheel causes a bat-symbol on the front of the car to pop up. I’d be happy if it just sat there looking pretty. I don’t require fancy action features for my Legos.

I guess that brings us up to date, Diary. That was Sunday, and I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I think we’ve decided to spend a little time apart so that I can get other parts of my life back in order. You know, eating and sleeping, some painting. The Digital Designer keeps on beckoning to me, though – promising me other buildable sea creatures and cthulhus, and making a mini-model of my dream house. Do I really have $100 to buy a Lego-bot of my own devising? Looks like I’m gonna hafta pull an extra shift at work. Lego, you’re worth it, and I can always rationalize it as a ‘creative expense’, which I set no spending limit on. I know, once you start making excuses for Legos, you know you’re in trouble. But it’s awesome trouble.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 2:00 am and is filed under collecting fyi, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.