What else could bring the blog out of hibernation? LEGO! (Yes, all caps.) I didn't know about their U.S. stores and there's a LEGO Store in Natick.
When I was a kid, one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up was a LEGO Master Builder. I would have passed out at the site of Wall of LEGO found in these stores.
Like many from the LOS (LEGO Old School), I'm not happy with the proliferation of custom pieces in sets these days. However, some of the Star Wars sets are cool. This RotJ Death Star set looks amazing! Sure, it's ~$300.00 but it's 3449 pieces! That's less than 9 cents per piece! The Jawa Sandcrawler looks pretty great and comes with 11 minifigs.
Another cool development is the LEGO Digital Designer software. This is a free program that lets you design, in 3D, your own models using dozens of different virtual bricks. You can then save your design, take screenshots and share them, which is nice, but you can also order a custom set with all the bricks you need to make the model you designed! I'm sure the cost is significant but I think designing a model then being shipped the kit would be great for a kid.
Yes, I qualified that with "for a kid." While I'm still fascinated by LEGO, I don't feel that desire to build and play with them. All my bricks are at my parent's house and even when I had easier access to them, I didn't touch them (not that it would be okay to get rid of them!) I've moved on to other interests, including building things out of ones and zeros. But I don't have a good creative outlet, I need to find something that invokes the joy of creation as LEGO did.
