As an operator of an 80’s video arcade, sometimes you run into small snafus, mostly because my main job is to repair and maintenance 30+ year old machines that were only designed to last 6 months. Some days are a breeze, but others I have to spend a lot of overtime making sure that Frogger will be still hoping around for another day.
So the other day, after hours of checking fuses, voltages, and such I finally called it quits for the night. Once there, though, I just couldn’t relax. Usually working on a new LEGO set does the trick and after a week of not having bought a set and I was going through brick withdrawals. I played around with my blue box of miscellaneous bricks, but it just wasn’t doing the trick. So, at 3am in the morning I said f*ck it and went down to my local Wal-Mart, walked past the Christmas decorations (*sigh*) and headed down my familiar toy isle.
The goal was to find a Lego set that A) would be cheap, B) have a lot parts and C) be a lot of fun (DUH!). I went though the isle… Star Wars? Too big, too much, and I’m more of a Star Trek guy. Spongebob? Meh, too kiddie and I already bought the only kit that I wanted (Hunger Game vs. Flying Dutchman) from that line. Crap! Sold out of DC Batman sets.. what’s a Rube to do? I had to hurry before my wife woke up wondering why the trip to get a “soda” was taking so long. Oh wait, here we go… Lord of the Rings Gandalf Arrives! it’s 12 bucks, has a cool wizard, a carriage with neat hinge thingies and a little horsey (we’ll name you Thunder), comes with quite a few accessories AND I get to build a carrot?! Screw it, I’m sold!
Even though it only took me to the part of Land of the Dead (when the zombie-bitten newbie shoots himself in the head) to build this thing, it cured my LEGO urge for the night/morning. I really like how they made Gandalf, especially the beard and hat. Even though I’m not a fan of the “One who walks with hairy feet” movies (I plan on using Frodo for parts), I was still happy to add a wizard to my LEGO collection. The carriage is really fun to build and I very much enjoy building LEGO items with unique pieces (hinges) that let you do more than stack bricks.
All of the accessories are really neat (I love the carrot and the Snake firework), but I wish that it came with one or two more items and that there was a little bit more detail with the other two fireworks. “Thunder the Wonderhorse” has movable parts, but it would have been better if he had been a constructible item rather then prebuilt. Overall, my minor nitpicking aside, I was able to enjoy myself and go to bed happy knowing that I accomplished something worth personal value.
