My dad recently sold his house
and before he handed the keys over he asked me to clear all of my junk out of the loft.
There was a lot of it; dozens upon dozens of books, a working Megadrive with 20-odd games, old issues of FHM in surprisingly unwanky condition, CDs, cassette tapes, a minidisk player, old school projects and, to get back on topic, a pretty big box of Lego Technic. 1x1x2 feet, full to the brim.
A tiny voice at the back of my mind said "Kerching! There's probably a couple of hundred quids worth there!", but sadly the tiny voice didn't point out that it would be a pretty big operation to get it into a sellable condition.
Thus what I thought would be a couple of hours works ended up stretching over several days, as I sorted it into colour-coded beams and panels. There were bowls of gears and axles all over the living room, a coffee table full of tiny pieces that would go missing if I left them on the floor, a completed test car, a half completed black hawk plane and a general feeling of "I wish I hadn't fucking started this".
About four days into the carnage the wife finally pipes up (yes I'm married, it could happen to you too one day if you stop trolling on internet forums and go out into the big wide world):
"I hope you finish sorting all of this out soon..."
"I know, I'm sorry" I reply, "this is all taking longer than"-
"...because I want to build a digger..."

She's a keeper.
(Paolo Nutini's Bikini Better than Frederick Fleet's optometrist, Sat 26 Oct 2013, 17:01, Reply)

Lego is great
There was a kid at my school called Daniel. Daniel (never Dan) was a good friend of mine, but didn't have a lot of friends as he was a shy lad who kept himself to himself. As his friend, I used to be invited around his house for dinner sometimes.

Now, we were about 12 at the time. Around the time this set came out: lego.wikia.com/wiki/6973_Deep_Freeze_Defender

Daniel had saved up all his pocket money and got his grandad to chip in so that he could buy it and loads of other sets in the range. Added to his already large collection of Lego, he now had the means to build something absolutely massive. He asked me what I was doing on Saturday. I wasn't busy.

When I arrived on Saturday, I found that Daniel had done technical drawings across several sheets of paper, along with inventories of all the parts needed. We spent several hours assembling a gigantic ship worthy of the Star Wars universe. It used the outline of the original ship, but added a cargo bay large enough to hold two large tanks. It also had two detachable fighters attached to the side wings. On top of this, he had added totally unnecessary (aesthetically speaking) space inside set aside for fuel tanks, cooling apparatus for the engines, fuel lines, etc. He had really thought this through.

At about half-five, shortly before I was going to have to head home for my tea, we had got the thing finished to Daniel's satisfaction. We (very gingerly) picked it up and carried it downstairs to show to his family. Mum, Dad, and younger brother Chris were watching TV in the lounge, and were slightly bemused by Daniel and I entering holding a massive spaceship. Daniel began to explain it and Chris chipped in "Lego is for kids. I don't even play with Lego! Why have you got to be so weird?". Dad said "Well, he does have a point son. You're twelve. Why aren't the two of you out playing football or riding bikes or something?". Mum just looked a bit embarrassed.

Daniel was moody for the rest of the week, and never invited me around to play with Lego again. Instead, we did go out on bike rides and play football with other kids. A few years later, we went our separate ways to Sixth Form College and then University, but we always kept in touch, and I know that Daniel still kept all his Lego, and even found some like-minded people at University who liked building stuff in their spare time. Now with beer and pizza and computer-aided-design.

Daniel is now a PhD in Engineering and gets paid large amount of money to mess around building cool things on a much larger scale, when not teaching. No one ever takes the piss out of him for being too old to play with Lego.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 25 Oct 2013, 10:08, 1 reply)

Lego
I must admit to being a bit addicted to Lego during my teenage years. I even took on a shitty washer upper job in a nearby restaurant to fund my shocking habit. In the end I had quite a collection that would bring me hours of joy.

I can remember clearly the hazy summer days spent slaving away putting dishes in the gigantic washer, anticipating the end of day when I got paid my paltry £5.50 (this was before minimum wage).

I'd rush to the nearest shop and spend ages appreciating any new stock and weighing up my options. With stealth and practised precision I would quickly buy my prized possession and run home with haste.

Finally, in the solitude of my bedroom and with my newly acquired Lego I would wank myself blind.

No, hang on, not Lego. The other one. Porn mags.
(plant rolls out of bed like a fat wobbly tub of lard, Wed 30 Oct 2013, 8:45, 6 replies)

( Fucking hell Jeff I am not a robot, Thu 24 Oct 2013, 15:19, 7 replies)

I have created a shoe made out of Lego
So when you step on it it doesn't hurt, you just get taller.
( spanishfly is so fucking sexy people impersonate him, Tue 29 Oct 2013, 22:23, 4 replies)

I once slept with a girl who was obsessed with lego.
It's all she shouted as I dragged her into the bushes.
( Muns, Wed 30 Oct 2013, 16:46, Reply)

Somewhat put off by the cost of real dolls
I decided that I would construct one from Lego. I used faint white bricks for the body and face, yellow bricks for the hair and red bricks for the inner parts and nipples. She really was a sight to behold, although the lack of bricks meant she was only four feet tall.

Having watched Pinocchio during the project for inspiration, that night I wished on a shooting star that she would come to life. She did, but at a price. She was effectively a sex toy made from Lego and was into some rather strange things. Eventually she decided that a different lifestyle was in order and used the Lego that I had created her breasts with to create herself a penis and balls.

He also found a group of other small people who shared similar lifestyle interests, took up archery and would often head out for weeks at a time, expressing his intentions of "having his ring destroyed" to me.

I really do regret building that Lego lass.
( Muns, Fri 25 Oct 2013, 16:36, 6 replies)

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Thu 24 Oct 2013, 15:34, Reply)

They say that psychopaths start by torturing bugs
And this is how my brother started out. Aged about 11, he built a Lego gas chamber. On the outside it looked like a normal police station. On the inside however the cells area had been expanded to comprise a large "shower" area, about 6"x8" and 6" high. 3 of the walls were made of the Lego windows. Facing into the chamber was a viewing gallery filled with Lego people.

Creepy enough so far? The difference between this Lego model and most other Lego models was that this one was real. It was actually used for a purpose. He used it to terminate bugs, flies, spiders and even a field mouse.

The 4th wall was where the magic happened. It contained shower heads that were plumbed-in to the technic pneumatic system. At the heart of it was a magazine in which was loaded the household chemical aerosol of choice. Fly spray, bug killer and various insecticides. The pipes would connect straight to the nozzle of the can (sans button thing) and it was sprayed using a leaver that collared the pipe and nozzle with a technic piece. The live subjects would be caught and placed into a separate Lego box that connected to the chamber via a little walk way. he would open the door from the outside and the subject would walk or fly through. Door closed, leaver thrown he would watch it die. He even gave orders in a German accent.

He's 27 now, and currently sectioned.
(sunray18, Wed 30 Oct 2013, 20:16, 24 replies)

When I was young, I chose to use all my leftover pieces to wage war on reality with my Psychedelic Battleship

(retroboy, Sat 26 Oct 2013, 13:48, 4 replies)

This blind man, an old friend of my wife's, he was on his way to spend the night.
His wife had died. So he was visiting the dead wife's relatives in Kidderminster. He called my wife from his in-laws'. Arrangements were made. He would come by train, a five-hour trip, and my wife would meet him at the station. She hadn't seen him since she worked for him one summer in Tooting Bec ten years ago. But she and the blind man had kept in touch. They made lego and mailed them back and forth. I wasn't enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.

That summer in Basildon she had needed a job. She didn't have any money. The man she was going to marry at the end of the summer was in officers' training school. He didn't have any money, either. But she was in love with the guy, and he was in love with her, etc. She'd seen something in the paper: HELP WANTED--Reading to Blind Man, and a telephone number. She phoned and went over, was hired on the spot. She'd worked with this blind man all summer. She read stuff to him, case studies, reports, that sort of thing. She helped him organise his little office in the county social-service department. They'd become good friends, my wife and the blind man. How do I know these things? She told me. And she told me something else. On her last day in the office, the blind man asked if he could touch her face. She agreed to this. She told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose--even her neck! She never forgot it. She even tried to build lego about it. She was always trying to build lego. She built lego or two every year, usually after something really important had happened to her.

When we first started going out together, she showed me her lego. In the lego, she recalled his fingers and the way they had moved around over her face. In the lego, she talked about what she had felt at the time, about what went through her mind when the blind man touched her nose and lips. I can remember I didn't think much of the lego. Of course, I didn't tell her that. Maybe I just don't understand lego. I admit it's not the first thing I reach for when I pick up something to play with.

Anyway, this man who'd first enjoyed her favors, the officer-to-be, he'd been her childhood sweetheart. So okay. I'm saying that at the end of the summer she let the blind man run his hands over her face, said goodbye to him, married her childhood etc., who was now a commissioned officer, and she moved away from Grimsby. But they'd kept in touch, she and the blind man. She made the first contact after a year or so. She called him up one night from an Air Force base in Cheshire. She wanted to talk. They talked. He asked her to send him lego and tell him about her life. She did this. She sent the lego. On the lego, she told the blind man about her husband and about their life together in the military. She told the blind man she loved her husband but she didn't like it where they lived and she didn't like it that he was a part of the military-industrial thing. She told the blind man she'd built lego and he was in it. She told him that she was building lego about what it was like to be an Air Force officer's wife. The lego wasn't finished yet. She was still writing it. The blind man made lego. He sent her the lego. She made lego. This went on for years. My wife's officer was posted to one base and then another. She sent lego from Moody AFB, McGuire, McConnell, and finally Travis, near Northampton, where one night she got to feeling lonely and cut off from people she kept losing in that moving-around life. She got to feeling she couldn't go it another step. She went in and swallowed all the lego in the play chest and washed them down with a bottle of gin. Then she got into a hot bath and passed out.

But instead of dying, she got sick. She threw up. Her officer--why should he have a name? he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?--came home from somewhere, found her, and called the ambulance. In time, she put it all in lego and sent the lego to the blind man. Over the years, she put all kinds of stuff in lego and sent the lego off lickety-split. Next to building lego every year, I think it was her chief means of recreation. On one lego, she told the blind man she'd decided to live away from her officer for a time. On another lego, she told him about her divorce. She and I began going out, and of course she told her blind man about it. She told him everything, or so it seemed to me. Once she asked me if I'd like to see the latest lego from the blind man. This was a year ago. I was on the lego, she said. So I said okay, I'd listen to it. I got us drinks and we settled down in the living room. We made ready to listen. First she inserted the lego into the player and adjusted a couple of dials. Then she pushed a lever. The lego squeaked and someone began to talk in this loud voice. She lowered the volume. After a few minutes of harmless chitchat, I heard my own name in the mouth of this stranger, this blind man I didn't even know! And then this: "From all you've said about him, I can only conclude--" But we were interrupted, a knock at the door, something, and we didn't ever get back to the lego. Maybe it was just as well. I'd heard all I wanted to.
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 28 Oct 2013, 19:25, 14 replies)

Lego car -- on the cheap
[Adopts Yorkshire accent]In my day, we were that poor...

Anyway, my parents couldn't afford to buy me the Technical Lego that I lusted after -- cogs and axles that you could fit together to make awesome machines that actually did things. But then along came Weetabix, with a special offer: collect some tokens and get a free (very small) box of the stuff. I ate Weetabix for breakfast every day anyway, so it was win-win!

I duly stuffed myself with wheaty goodness at every opportunity and in due course, collected enough tokens for not just one but three whole sets of the stuff -- each set comprising one teeny gear, one medium-size and one large, plus a few axles and the special bricks with the holes in and so on.

I had my heart set on building a working car (with gears, of course), and duly scavenged as many compatible bits as I could. After many hours of toil, I had something that yes, looked a bit like a car (if you stood a long way away and squinted) but more importantly it had a working three-ratio gearbox.

I was so proud, but it wasn't enough. What it really needed was a motor!

Obviously there was no way I was going to be able to buy one of the official Lego motor sets, but I had made up my mind and I was not be defeated. It wasn't long before I had the answer.

What everyday (1980s) household item has a small, battery-driven motor? Why, of course -- a tape machine! I don't own one of those. But my sister does! And she's out of the house!

No sooner thought than stolen, I had at it with a screwdriver and in no time at all I had extracted the motor and -- bonus -- the little rubber band to link it to the gearset. A stack of batteries, a bit of wiring and lots of sticky tape and voila, one self-powered three-gear Lego vehicle.

Sadly, the motor was pretty puny, and while the car did move at low ratio, at higher gearings it barely crawled along.

I needed more power.

Lacking a beefier motor, I hit on the solution -- sod the batteries, I can connect it direct to the mains. I mean, the tape deck had a mains connector, what could possibly go wrong? I'll just connect these two wires to this cable here...

My mum came running when she heard the BANG and found me sat there, shaking slightly and clutching a very much burned-out motor, my face and hands covered in cartoon-style comedy soot.

My sister was incandescent at first, but of course when she realised that it meant she'd get a new tape machine she cheered up.

Me? I never did get any proper Technical Lego sets, and I soon got bored of trying to invent new ways to combine the same pathetically limited set of gears.

Now that's a deprived childhood.
( reallywittyname veraciously conspues lexiphanicism on, Thu 24 Oct 2013, 17:56, 12 replies)

I once built a shed out of lego.
Long story short, I pissed in my own mouth.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Thu 24 Oct 2013, 15:42, 4 replies)

Oh, no! Not again!
b3ta.com/questions/lego/post2134572

I had no mates when I was a nipper.

So I did as many teenagers did and invented an imaginary friend. Trouble was, I don't have much imagination, so my imaginary mate was also called Rob. Can you imagine the confusion? Ma would call out 'Rob, get your fat ass out here now!' and I'd reply, 'Sure thing ma!' and then two seconds later I'd say, 'Sure thing ma!' again, in exactly the same voice. Jeez I had some fun as a little blighter!

Ma hated the other Rob almost as much as she hated me. Even took me to some fancy doctor once to try and see why a 19yr old still had an imaginary friend, the doc didn't do much - but he did say he'd be ma's second signature if she wanted to have me sectioned, but more about another time eh!

Anyhoo, back to the old Lego story! So this one time, I'd spent weeks building a mega-fort using all 20 of my Lego bricks. It took me fucking ages to get it to stand up, until one of ma's mates explained that the bobbly bits go inside the other bricks and that then they'd stay together. That guy was some kind of magician!

So anyhoo, I'd built my megafort and was standing inside it, me and Rob defending it from any possible attackers. I had my plastic pirate sword in my belt and was wearing the police helmet Uncle Jay got me for me 18th birthday. Nobody was getting into MY fort. For about 6hrs me and Rob steadfastly defended Fort Fairholme, even managing to ignore ma's cries of, 'Can't you bloody well do that inside and not on the front lawn?'

But soon I was desperate! Boy, I needed a piss! But I couldn't leave the fort - and the other Rob was too weak to defend it by himself. So, as true soldier and defender of Fort Fairholme, I didn't leave my post. I pulled down me kecks, grabbed my greasy cock and pissed away! I made a perfect moat for my fort! A foul smelling piss-full moat! Now no one would come near us!

But bloody ma appeared. 'Rob!' She yelled. 'Yes' I answered, quickly followed by another 'Yes' from the other Rob. 'Put it away and LET GO OF IT NOW! She screamed. Thing is, I thought she was talking about the LEGO! You know, cos she said 'Let Go' and it kinda sounded like 'Lego' - if you see what I mean.

'Never!' I shouted to the heavens. 'I will NEVER let go. I will never surrender Fort Fairholme!'

Well, cut a long story short, turns out ma was telling me to let go of my greasy cock, not the lego! And by that evening she'd called the fancy doc and me and the other Rob were off to a 'special holiday camp'. But the joke was on ma...as the holiday camp had 1000's of Lego pieces to play with! Well, 1000's of Lego pieces that the other Rob could play with, I found it kinda hard playing with my hands tied and stretched out behind my back in my 'special holiday jacket'.
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Tue 29 Oct 2013, 20:37, Reply)

Sexism! Lego! Bins!
For my boyfriend's (26th) birthday I got him a green bin lorry LEGO set he'd been hankering over. He found it hilarious and ace. Little bins with rubbish! Excellent.

So the day came and he diligently sat down at the dining room table to build his little LEGO lorry. After a while he delightedly announced it was finished and I trotted over to see it. It was pretty cool, with bin tipping action and strange bits of rubbish including a banana, a fish and some sort of strange lamp shade-like things. Not sure what those were...

Now, I'm not usually (as far as I was aware) a sexist person. Even if I have unfair thoughts I make sure not to act on them and be a better person. Equality all the way. But I surprised myself for a split second here.

He was fixing some bits on it when I pushed it about and picked up the bin man. Or so I thought. There was a brief moment when I turned the bin man over and thought, "Huh. This bin man is wearing make up. That's a bit odd." before I realised that I'd just assumed bin man was a man's job. That quick flash in my head was enough, and it tickled me. I rolled with it.

Thus, he now has a little bin lorry on his desk full of fish, lamp shades, bananas and a tough-arsed bin woman named Bitch Tits.

"Pick up the damned fish, Bitch Tits! This a man's job, Bitch Tits!"

We've decided she's in a band with the other bin man.

TL;DR LEGO brought out my sexism.
( vix0r was not Matthew on, Fri 25 Oct 2013, 0:46, 7 replies)

Owen Rudge at my primary school. Totally obsessed with the Danish Plastic Bricks of Joy.
One day, near the the breakup of term before Christmas he was seen getting into a car with a bloke no-one had seen before. It must have been an uncle who was asking him what he wanted as a Christmas present as all he was shouting was 'LEGO! LEGO! LEGO! at the top of his voice and he'd got himself so excited that there were tears on his face and his uncle was having to manually lift him into the car.
He must have moved to a different school after the holidays because we never saw him again after that day.
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Thu 24 Oct 2013, 16:04, 2 replies)

..
... Japanese submarine slammed 2 x 4 brick torpedoes into our side, chief. It was comin' back, from the island of Tinian to Laytee, just delivered the Lego. The Hiro-Chima Lego.
Eleven hundred minifigs went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first plastic shark for about a half an hour. Grey. Thirteen studder. You know how you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail.
What we didn't know... Was our Lego mission had been so secret, no instruction booklet had been sent. They didn't even list us in the catalogues for a week.
Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we clicked ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like ol' 2 x 2 stud squares in battle like a, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo.
And the idea was, the plastic shark comes to the nearest minifigure and that minifig, he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away.
Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a Lego shark, he's got...lifeless eyes, plastic eyes, like a doll's eyes.
When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until some kid snaps the mouth down and those plastic eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns yellow and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and take you all to pieces again.
Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred minifigures! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many minifigs, they averaged six an hour.
On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, boson's mate. Series 3 Minifigure. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... Some kid had pulled off his legs.
Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He's a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat Vacuum cleaner comes down and start to pick us up, brick by brick.
You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn.
I'll never put on a lifejacket again.
So, eleven hundred minifugres went in the water, three hundred and sixteen minifigs come out, the Vacuum cleaner took the rest, June the 29, 1985.
Anyway, we delivered the Lego.
( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Tue 29 Oct 2013, 15:17, 3 replies)

What ever you do, don't wash 'em.
And if you do. Dry them, piece by piece.

I had a housemate at one time named Leonard. Much like myself and probably many of you, Leonard had spent much of his twenties studying and working and living in shared houses.
As most of you may remember - these shared abodes often had kitchens that were eclipsed in their size only by the broom closet.
Which often meant that washing the dishes was a cramped and uncomfortable affair frequently involving more than 1 person. Usually one person washing and at least another grabbing cutlery/crockery off the draining board and hurriedly drying it and putting it away in order to provide more room for the washer to place items.

That's if you could be fucked doing the dishes and didn't simply throw the mounting pile of dirty dishes in the bin to be replaced by some from the local op-shop the following day. Charity begins at home, right?

Well having got married and with his missus growing a genetic composite of the two of them in her womb, Leonard moved into a house with - luxuries of luxuries - a dishwasher!
Around this time Leonard also inherited from his parents his older brothers Lego collection. Amongst many other things that the family had been hoarding over the years and of course with Leonard being the youngest and last to 'move out' - he got dumped with all the left-over detritus.
Leo of course (not quite being a new parent, yet) thought that the Lego would be great for his young son (or daughter) to play with once they were born.
Once his missus and quite a few other people had explained to him just how dangerous Lego could be to a newborn, the issue was also raised that the Lego would have to be cleaned anyway before it was given to a child.
Leonard struck upon an idea!
Why not wash the 3 rectangular lego brick buckets full of Lego in his newly acquired dishwasher?
Which he did.
Dousing them in Miltons and using a "you-beaut" new dishwasher tablet.
On the Pot setting.

Then he chucked them all in a pillow case to dry them, threw them into his shed and promptly forgot about them as he went about learning how to be a new dad.

A few years later he found them. As he picked up the pillow case the bottom fell away and he was left picking up hundreds of mouldy Lego pieces. This was a thick grey-green mould coating most of the pieces that appeared to have grown to the point of almost reaching sentience. Yet Leonard wasn't perturbed.
In this time his families' finances had improved somewhat and altho they were still living in the same place they had replaced much of their whitegoods - including their old dishwasher for a brand new, top of the wozz "Miele" dishwasher.
Despite the strong smell from the Lego, Leo remembered what a good job the last dishwasher had done. And he chucked all of the manky, mouldy Lego into his brand, spanking, new dishwasher.

Despite their attempts (both commercial and old skool - like bicarb, lemon juice etc.) Leonard and his missus never quite got rid of the smell of the mouldy Lego bricks from their dishwasher.
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Sun 27 Oct 2013, 8:22, 11 replies)

repost... Robbed!
In sixth-form I did Physics A-Level and was part of a group asked to take part in a competition at Manchester Science Museum.

Four of us turned up to be told that we had to make a lunar rover out of Lego, capable of carrying Christmas trees(obviously) up a mountain on the moon.
The winning team would get some state of the art personal stereos. Pretty good prizes - this was pre-portable CD players and mp3 was a word not invented yet.

Our rover was immense. Geared to perfection and although slow, would drive up monstrous gradients. It also had a large platform for carrying the aforementioned moon-based Christmas trees.
The other teams were a bit younger and didn't have the Lego skillz that our team possessed and had all made single cogged-elastic band powered go-karts.
The competition began and in each round our magnificent tractor would grind it's way to the top of the ever increasing gradients.

Soon, there were only two rovers left - ours and one of the go-karts that seemed to have the most powerful motor.
The last round started and the gradient was death-defying.
The tiny go-kart tried and failed.
Now it was our turn. Cogs grated and the motor whined as the rover started up the hill... Unfortunately, as the rover was built to spec of transporting trees, it's weight was hampering it's progress and it ground to a halt halfway up, at pretty much the same point as the crappy go-kart.

A draw!

Surely our engineered rover, capable of actually carrying things and having a well designed gear system would be awarded the prize over the five minute cobbled-together go-kart which would barely carry a few twigs, never mind moon Christmas trees...

The teacher adjudicating decided that there was to be a play-off!
Who has the fastest rover over a flat surface?

To be honest, there wasn't much point even running the race as everyone in the room knew who would win.
We argued our case but to no avail - the teacher would not see reason and the kids with the go-kart were smug in the knowledge that we had no chance.

At the prize giving, we stood grinding our teeth, as each £75 stereo was handed over.
As the last kid received his stereo from the adjudicating teacher - two words still haunt me.

"Thanks Dad!"

TLDR: Story about Lego
( scoshi pretending to diet since, Thu 24 Oct 2013, 18:37, 5 replies)

I'm probably going to invite all sorts of comments, but hell...
Lego is brilliant. It helped shaped what I wanted to do in life by designing buildings. Not just the look, but how things 'worked' in buildings.
I can vividly remember my first Lego set. 7th Birthday, and the first Birthday I can remember getting money to spend.
So, off with Mum down to the local Toy Shop, and £8 later came out with this...
www.1000steine.com/brickset/images/6930-1.jpg
Which led, at Christmas, to me getting this...
www.1000steine.com/brickset/images/6980-1.jpg
And that was it, that got me started. It was the perfect toy. Space stations, rockets, alien worlds, you name it, I built it.
Eventually this progressed on to the Castle and City sets and eventually some of the early Technic models.
A shedload of potential plastic tripping hazards.

Then growing up and moving on comes around. Lego gets put away into the roof to collect dust for a number of years, eventually all getting sold when the parents had a big clear out and I moved on.
The Lego sets kept me amused for hours, probably far more than was healthy and as said, eventually led to me doing what I do for a living. It was a natural transition.

Then they brought out the Minifigure sets a few years back. Nostalgia kicked in.

To date, one of the walls in the home office looks like this...

(Please excuse crappy cameraphone shot)
All 11 sets to date, except for that damned 'Mr. Gold' figure. The bastard.

Then they brought out the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit Sets. Currently up to date with those as well (Tower of Orthanc set just arrived in time for Christmas) and occasionally
I'll dabble in various MOCs which have included a 'Masonic Temple' among other things

So yeah, Lego. I love it. And I'm a grown man of 37 who owes his current profession and business to playing with those plastic bricks as a kid.
( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Thu 24 Oct 2013, 17:48, 10 replies)

lego cake

[Mod Edit: It's lovely, but you didn't make it, did you?]

Whilst you're here busy editing, kind Mod.
Maybe you could remove my surname from Albert's post below - I realise my posting a picture is the far greater transgression but if you could find the time to do as I've asked as I vaguely remember it is against the rules. Or something.

USER EDIT: I am also wondering why I'm being singled out for posting stuff that isn't mine - it's not like that's a unique behaviour here is it?
(s0ckpuppet logging out to reply to you if you're not careful, Wed 30 Oct 2013, 2:51, 6 replies)

go sbians

There, this qftw is now 400% better.
( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Tue 29 Oct 2013, 16:53, 8 replies)

I once stood on a piece whilst bending over and kneed myself in the face.
apologies for length
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 28 Oct 2013, 9:34, 5 replies)

It's not so much that lego is for kids (which it is)
Just that it's suited to an image board or possibly a video board.

Nobody wants to read stories about lego.
( Zuowan, Sat 26 Oct 2013, 2:27, 31 replies)

I once built a Lego cable car.
I used fishing wire, attached to a technics based pulley system in my bedroom on the third floor of my rents house, and the bird table at the bottom of the garden. It was about 20 metres long in all.

I was about to build a second, in order to re-enact a certain scene from 'Where Eagles Dare' (most of my creations were based on the film i'd just watched) but our elderly gardener Mr Milton pottered into the existing line and nearly garroted himself.

So that was that.
(magictorch, Fri 25 Oct 2013, 15:28, 9 replies)

I entered a competition in Allders
The remit was to guess how many bricks comprised the Lego castle on display in store - the winner receiving a family holiday to Legoland in Denmark.

I came second - receiving a small Lego refuse truck, which I already had.
(i.charlius *Two Ronnies Theme*, Fri 25 Oct 2013, 15:13, 6 replies)

I used a LEGO brown broomstick to flick droplets of water onto a hot lightbulb
Oh how I giggled with delight as the water fizzed and evaporated, what a satisfying sound it made, not so much fun when said lightbulb explodes, embedding many tiny shards of glass in your face.

Mum - it didn't just miraculously explode, I was being a twat.
( A Rory Borealis here under duress, Fri 25 Oct 2013, 14:42, 4 replies)

There used to be a Lego shop in the Bullring Center in Birmingham
It's gone now though. Broken Britain.

I like to think a giant child came and smashed it to pieces, then the bricks were loaded into a giant bucket somewhere, except for a sharp one which will end up lodged in the foot of another passing giant.
( h3donist tryin' to play me out as if my name is Sega.., Fri 25 Oct 2013, 12:57, Reply)

A slightly different use for them.
Per Wikipedia: According to a legend, an invading Norse army was attempting to sneak up at night upon a Scottish army's encampment. During this operation one barefoot Norseman had the misfortune to step upon a thistle, causing him to cry out in pain, thus alerting Scots to the presence of the Norse invaders.

A guy I knew used to like to go out in the evenings and get a little shitfaced. His wife was not happy about this. She especially hated being awakened by a stumbling drunk getting into bed with her.

So to ensure that if he came into the bedroom she'd at least be awake first she put some Legos on the floor of the hallway. After a time he stopped coming upstairs after a night out.

I don't know if she was Scottish, but she should have been.
( Wanderer, Thu 24 Oct 2013, 19:38, 8 replies)