Pick and mix Lego
Last week I found myself needing—-if you can believe this—-to buy some Lego® for work purposes. I know, sometimes I have an Interesting Job. Anyway, I wandered slightly fruitlessly around several toy shops and department stores, but couldn’t find a simple set of rectangular bricks of various sizes and a baseboard. There were Lego® dinosaurs, knights, Harry Potters and even Death Stars, but nothing as simple as a collection of bricks.
Just when I had resigned myself to going block-less (and had fretted about the future creativity of today’s children in a slightly pompous manner), I found the Lego® shop and its wall of pick and mix blocks. You pick up a cup (small or large) and fill it up with whatever blocks you like, then pay a flat rate. It’s a brilliant idea, and I had more fun than is seemly for a middle-aged woman collecting supplies for work. Of course, because I had the freedom to pick whatever I wanted, I decided that I had to have blocks of complementary colours. So all of my Lego® creations1 will be tasteful combinations of grey and white, with accents of royal blue and orange.
1 Entirely for legitimate work purposes, as I feel I should reiterate… â
1
needing lego blocks for work? i'm green with envy. can you tell us more about what you're doing with them?----- What kind of work do you need it for, if I may ask? and, where do I send an application?
by victor @ 08/11/2005 9:12 am • Permalink •
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My son (8) is obsessed by Lego and drags me to the Lego shop at the slightest pretext. On my last visit I noticed that the staff had all made themselves some rather impressive life size Lego swords and lightsabres. Perhaps this is the job for you victor?
If you haven't already seen this, The Lego models of Escher drawings are pretty cool. More disturbing is this page devoted to the author's interest in religion, Lego, and cats.
by ThoughtBadger @ 08/11/2005 12:12 pm • Permalink •
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There are Bricks and Buckets on the Lego shop as well, although none are quite as good for just-bricks as a box I picked up a good six years ago that's just simple blocks.
by Paul Mison @ 08/11/2005 3:11 pm • Permalink •
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nancy: Well, it's not anything very fancy. I work on animal behaviour, and often need to construct ad hoc bits of apparatus. I could make them out of wood or something, but often you need to try something out first before you get exactly the right dimensions. Lego lets you tinker with it, without a lot of extra work. It's also non-toxic and washable, and since animals are rarely house trained, that's a good thing
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victor: See above. The actual 'building things with Lego' is a tiny fraction of work involved, so might not be very satisfying for you.
ThoughtBadger: Wow. Escher Lego. That's fairly freaky, but incredibly cool. The second link is indeed a bit scary (very cute cats, though). Thanks to your comment, this page currently ranks 9th on a Google search for 'lego religion cats'
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Paul Mison: Excellent, though the experience of picking bricks and putting them in your cup is well worth it in an 'Eeyore-putting-burst-balloon-in-and-out-of-empty-honey-jar' kind of way. They quote the ages as 1 1/2-5 though. What about those of us in the 5+ age range?
by bsag @ 10/11/2005 10:12 pm • Permalink •
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As is probably true with any hobby, there is a huge on-line community of LEGO builders. Check out sites like Brickshelf, Lugnet or LEGOfan for more. You can also buy and sell LEGO from other individuals at BrickLink. I've got tons more links on my blog VignetteBricks. Okay, I'll go away and stop scaring you now.
Bruce
by bruce n h @ 13/11/2005 6:12 pm • Permalink •
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