i want one! man, i miss legos.

Don't let society say you're "too old" for Legos! They are just trying to murder your inner child.

Ah the memories.

I'd build a lego army just to raid your castle!

I'd watch all the little people with swords in their badly shaped hands, go right up to your gate and knock it down, then they'd kill your lego king man!

For some reason that reminds me of Lord of the Rings!

Oh by the way, in Australia the word 'ring' is also a slang term for anus!! So for example, if somone farts you could say "ooow that sounded like a ring burner". Anyway my point is that the first time i herd the name of that movie 'Lord of the Rings' i was quite shocked and the images it brought to mind are not suitable for this forum!! hehehe yea well it was just totally hillarious to hear that name for a movie.

ps fellowship of the ring is quie funny as well along that same line of thought!

When I was a kid we used to make functioning Lego Guns. Built a reinforced gun frame with a slot near the front to hold one end of those industrial strength rubber bands, looped the other end around a 2x4 block that was half attached to the top rear of the gun. The longer your "barrel", the more powerful they were, but you had to seriously reinforce your structure to keep the gun from exploding in your hands, the longer it got. Flicked the lego piece off with your thumb to fire it, and they effing hurt when you got hit. We generally aimed for the eyes.


This was well before video games, unless you count "Pong". Honestly, I dont know what parents are complaining about with video games now a days. When I was a kid, or pastimes always included *real* weapons, *real* fire, and direct physical violence so intense it would involve lawsuits today. You parents should be happy for video games.

Never too old for lego, hey i am 30 and i have all the collectors edition star wars models...minus the Death star.

They have pride of place in my cabinet. I tell ya though, the Star Destroyer was certainly a mission to build....finished product is cool though, 3 feet long and 2 feet wide...it is a sight to see.

As for real life VS video games, our past time was throwing rocks at fast moving freight trains and lighting fires, not the best pastime to do in Australia. I couldn't agree more that video games VS my mis-spent childhood would win out. If video games can keep my 5yr old from throwing rocks and lighting bush fires then something is right with the world after all.

If they do sell one, i will buy it for sure!

Yeah, the castles were great. Last year I came across a website (www.classic-castle.com) with pictures and info on all the old sets. At the time I just put the things together and played with it, knowing nothing about the background. With websites like these you can find out when particular sets were designed and why and when new pieces were introduced and so on. For instance when the first lego castle was introduced, when the theme didn't even exist (of course I couldn't care less about this at the time).

Now looking back, it's sometimes funny when you realize where your inspiration for lego designs came from. The other day I bought an Alien collectors dvd box and when watching the first movie again I was amazed at how the spaceship/structures in the movie looked perfect to me, exactly how I used to (try to) draw them or build them in lego's. Then I realized that my idea of a perfect starship was created by movies like Starwars and Aliens in the first place..

that website is awesome! man i always used to dream about being able to build stuff that elaborate (the classic castle cities).

Well i dunno what kids can do outdoors in Australia these days? I mean just about everything i used to enjoy doing as a kid is illegal nowdays. No i don't mean malicious things, just things that are a bit dangerous. Since today's Australia is getting so obsessed with safety and preserving lives that life is becomming hardly worth living! It is a big fat catch 22 - by banning everything for safeties sake, you destroy that very thing you were trying to save - life!

Whenever i see that running of the bulls event in spain, the news reports are usually sarcastic towards it as if they are stupid. Well of course their stupid, but the whole point is that they are FREE to choose to be stupid, and that is the big lesson Australia has failed miserably to get through it's big fat dumb head.

PS i actually admire spain and its running of the bulls event, because i am just sooo fed up with all this safety bulshit in Australia i just want to scream!!

lawn darts, anyone?



this is by no means only happening in Australia. i call it 'cultural hypochondria.' here in the states at least, it's not just about safety in the sense you seem to mean. sure, children's playgrounds are now these low-to-the-ground, all-plastic jokes that look more like doll houses than anything you'd play on. it's not just kids, either. disposable coffee lids are invariably emblazened with "WARNING: CONTENTS HOT". but it's also a cultural neurosis about being sanitary. everything gets santized 20 times per use in 13 different ways. cops wear latex gloves now. and it's no longer good enough for a kitchen to look clean: now the jobs not done until you've committed mass germocide.

i don't think at its heart it's about safety as an end in itself. not in the U.S. at least. i think it's an outgrowth of living in what one of my sociology professors called a "litigious society." no one wants to get sued, and it's not even about winning or losing a lawsuit so much as maintaining a public image.

and since businesses and public institutions invest so much into safety as a means of avoiding unpleasent lawsuits, the companies that grew up around these needs have branched into "providing service to" (i.e., advertising to the point of creating a 'need' that wasn't there before) - to consumers, as well as institutions.