I Like Legos

But they are very expensive. Sometimes it doesn't feel like you get enough value for the money you spend.

I remember there was this restaurant that served paninis, salads, and soup that was right near the Wendy's that Rish and I used to meet at. One time Rish went there, and was outraged at how small the meal was for the amount of money he spent. I don't know what he ordered, but I'd been to that same restaurant before, and didn't feel the same. I guess maybe it depends on your expectations.

It's funny because I like Legos and Rish doesn't. Just like the paninis. A pretty small Lego set costs a pretty large amount. They're a very small scale too. A Lego minifigure is what, two inches tall? Less? Sometimes things like that can be important to people. A guy might love an action figure at six inches but hate it if it's the exact same thing but twelve inches tall. For toy collectors, there tends to be a scale that you like, and you do most of your collecting in that, and things that aren't in that scale, you turn your nose up to.

I was originally going to include this in my last post about visiting the mall, but that thing ballooned out and took on a life of its own, so I quit while I was ahead, and left this for a different post. While at the mall, I also went to the Lego Store. It was also on the very top floor, hidden away from the Ralph Laurens and the Guccis.

I found that their prices for Legos were about even with what you'd get at Target, and about ten to fifteen percent higher than Walmart's prices. This actually surprised me. I'd assumed that there would be a pretty hefty markup.

What they had that Target and Walmart could never match, however, was this kind of stuff:

This thing was friggin' enormous. It was so neat to look at. If you look in the bottom corner, you can see the price for it. Here, let me help you by enlarging it:

Yeah, they want $800 for it. But the more I've gotten to know about toys, the more I understand stuff like this. This is a picture of the web page for the Sideshow Collectibles Hulkbuster Iron Man.

It's totally friggin' awesome, but they also want $800 for it. On top of that, it's sold out, so as many as they made at that price got bought.

It's not even that big, crazily enough. It's a 1/6 scale figure. Which means that it is at the scale where a person is one foot tall on average instead of six. Hulkbuster is bigger than a person, so it's possibly as big as 18 inches, but still...

What I've come to understand is that you pay for quantity, but especially quality. Something like that Hulkbuster or the Millennium Falcon up above are dripping with both. But especially the quality part. I want them both, but I will certainly never have them. You have to have a certain kind of disposable income for things like that to be within your reach.

There were some other things that I saw there I'd really like to get. Like this Hulkbuster instead:

It's only $120, a veritable steal by comparison. That probably means that it's nowhere near as big as it looks on the box. But it looks awesome, and I have a weird thing for the Hulkbuster.

Then there's this:

I also really love Voltron. That was one of my favorite shows back in my childhood days, and I really love the look of it. I could play Voltron all day long...I mean, look at Voltron all day long. I was happy to see on my way out that they had one of them assembled and on display at the front of the store.

So cool.

Of course putting that together would take a long time. Weeks probably. Is it worth worth the effort it requires to assemble it? I'm old now. I've got to budget my time, because there's only so much of it. It's one of the reasons that I watch less TV than ever, even though there's more great shows available in the genres that I love. I just don't feel good putting all that time into watching them. I feel guilty. Like I should have done something wiser with my time.

Legos, however, is a good way for me to spend time with my boys, so I like to do it. And my oldest son loves Legos, so even if I don't want to take the time assembling it, it doesn't matter, because I've got an oompa loompa to do it for me. Too bad he moved away on me. Won't be so easy to have it shipped back to me after he assembles it. It'd arrive all broken and I'd have to reassemble it anyway. Ah well. He'll be home at Christmas for a while I guess.

One of my favorite things about Legos is how they do their various licensing agreements. I like Legos, and I like Star Wars...or Voltron...or Marvel. I can buy a toy that's just a Marvel guy or a Star Wars guy. But what if I bought something that was both Star Wars and Lego? Two birds with one stone, eh? That's right folks, thanks for reading Big Anklevich, the thinking man's blogger. See you next time.