the vynsane asylum

so, yeah... i've been bitten by the bug big time (woot! alliteration!)

i've been throwing together some stuff and putting it on flickr, so check it out, why doncha?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43266097@N03/

EDIT: there's also pics of the LEGO store grand opening at the mall in the town where i grew up.

Jedi Starfighter me ass, that design on the last page is clearly a cruisemissile trooper sled of some kind

HAHA, i should totally make one. in fact, LEGO should totally sell one!

also, rollo - seeing your classic space avatar makes me want to make the companion classic space logo t-shirt on blue, to join my blacktron logo t-shirt.

Ha. I got bit by the bug last fall. I was sitting there unemployed with lots of time on my hands, and I started thinking about all the coolio Space Sets from the late 70's and early 80s that I never had. They would show these fucking epic dioramas in the catalogs and I only ever had one or two sets from each year.

So I figured out which ones I was missing and ebayed just about every set, large or small, made between 1977 and 1986. I'm still missing a couple of the giant ships (Galaxy Voyager and such) but the rest of them I tracked down. I also bid on a bunch of the cool landing plates and stuff so that I could build a HUMONGOUS moonbase. The first thing I did when I moved back home was have my kids help assemble all the ones I'd purchased along with all the ones I found in the basement stored for 25 years and when we done we layed it all out on the floor and took tons of pics.

Sadly thats not something you can leave up permanently (it was easily 10x10 ft) so after we took all the pics, I dissassembled everything and packed it away. But one day, I will own a home with a basement that is devoted to Legos much like some people build miniature train sets.

I'll try to upload some shots in a couple days.

sweet! yeah, i'm slowly trying to rebuild my collection - i now have a grand total of two sets that i used to have as a kid - 6890 'Cosmic Cruiser' and 6941 'Blacktron Battrax'.

i hope you didn't buy everything on ebay - you should check out www.bricklink.com - i just bought a bunch of printed pieces to the other small blacktron set, 'Invader'. here's my total collection at this point: http://brickset.com/search/?OwnedBy=vynsane

The only reason I can imagine 10 square feet of Legos is because we went to Legoland a few years back. I'm considering taking the kids there this summer after when I can take some time off. Anyway, it must be a bad ass set-up.

Ever since Christmas, I've been picking up some of the Racers sets. Those mini cars are pretty cool.

Yeah. I've checked out bricklink before, but most of the stuff I eBayed I got for cheaper by sniping in the middle of the afternoon when noone else in online.

Here's my collection...http://brickset.com/search/?OwnedBy=rollo%20tomassi

Nice collection. I had some of those back in the day.

We already acquired a small moving box of Legos that belonged to my wife, her brothers, and nephews. There is a box in my parents' garage that contains all the surviving Legos from my brothers and I after several moves. I had mostly space stuff, one brother had some of the mid-evil sets, and my youngest brother had city sets. Mom said I could take them "for the kids". I'm interested to see what's in there.

Lego was the one thing I was deprived of as a kid.

My dad was the toy department manager at Sears, and got awesome discounts and sometimes freebies. And, back then, returned items and things opened or damaged on the floor weren't returned to the manufacturers, and they let employees buy them at cost or less (depending on the status). He was the only employee for several years to have a kid who played with toys. One time, he brought a huge box home full of Transformers and Gobots who'd been opened on the floor. I got Ratchet and about four Soundwaves that way. Sure, there were missing pieces, but I could cobble together a Soundwave with no problem, and the missing parts on Ratchet weren't as bad as the missing parts on my brother's Sunstreaker that he threw out when he opened it (new) because he was too little to realize there was more than just the car. Sunstreaker never had hands at our house.

But we never got Lego. Sure, we had this thing called Brix Blox, which may have been a Sears exclusive, but they were an inferior knockoff. We could build a lot of shit, but no specialized blocks, no people, no wheels, just rectangles and squares. And they weren't compatible with the Lego blocks my friends had.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loc_Blocs
Looks like "Brix Blox" was the name that Sears sold them under.

In addition to the sets, I bought some "loose" lots with the intent to build a wholely original Space Station type base to be the centerpiece of my "moonbase". I can see it my mind, as a tower similar to an air-traffic control type thing with "landing platforms" jutting off of the sides at different heights on three or maybe four of the four sides of the tower. These platforms would accomodate several of those smaller one-seater spacecraft. Building a playset from the ground up is an interesting challenge, taking variables such as stability, functionality, and playability into the equation. I just don't have anywhere to build it right now.

nice - i see a dearth of blacktron in your collection other than the 'message intercept base' - what up wit dat?

in related news, we were in buffalo again this weekend as my sister-in-law graduated from med school, and we stopped last night in rochester so we could take my daughter to the 'strong museum of play' today. well, they just so happened to have a rather sizable LEGO castle exhibit which i got some good shots of. i'll be posting the pics to flickr tomorrow.

I was buying stuff roughly in chronological order. I lucked into that GIGANTIC Intercept base for a really good price so I couldn't pass it up. (Same with some of the later bases.) Believe me, I fully intend to fill out my Blacktron fleet with multiples of each craft. Bad Guy Legos ROCK.

well, finally got around to posting the pics of the castle exhibit

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43266097@N ... 883393471/

some of them look kinda crappy because the battery was dying. i had to take pics really fast and turn it off really quickly between pics.

LEGO Speed Racer - WANT!