2018: A Year in Review

Once upon a time (like... six years ago), I did year-in-review posts for the state of my LEGO collection here. It's getting to be a while since 2018 ended, but not quite so long that I don't want to put one up, having just stumbled on the old ones.

LEGO Set of the Year:

The last time I did one of these, 9472 Attack on Weathertop was brand new and my selection for this honour. A lot of water has swept under the bridge since then. I never did get the big sets in The Lord of the Rings theme.

2018 was not much of a sets-prominent year for me, and most of the sets I bought were somewhat swiftly parted. The most striking set was one that I didn't buy for myself and probably wouldn't have bought for myself: 75952 Newt's Case of Magical Creatures, a Christmas gift from my in-laws.

I'm a Harry Potter fan, but not to the extent I'm a Tolkien fan, and even as a Harry Potter fan, I've never been into Harry Potter LEGO, so Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them as a source of LEGO sets has never been something I've definitely needed. This set is really well-built, however: a dense collection of parts (for its size, the box it came in is one of the heaviest I remember) in an attractive form. Building a playset that folds into an actual case is clever, and I like the animals. Despite having NO prior need to have a Potterverse set built in my collection, this one is actually staying.

LEGO Theme of the Year:

This is a hard category to nominate. In terms of sets purchased, Star Wars and Nexo Knights were far and away the numerical leaders, but Star Wars was mostly battle-packs riding a wave of nostalgia more appropriately alloted to 2017 (when I first, belatedly, watched The Clone Wars and then Rebels), and Nexo Knights is misleading, since it's mostly deeply discounted accessory sets.

Outside of buying new sets, I didn't do much MOCing, excepting temporary things for various webcomics. Even here, Android Files took place largely in the wild, with no clear leader for intervening themes between Adventurers, Wild West, Arctic, and Alpha Team. My other comics and pictures on Flickr reveal no dominant interests.

So, what was new in 2018? Filtering my purchases on my master spreadsheet (because, yeah, I keep track of a LOT of things...), City was the only theme other than Star Wars that I bought multiple 2018 releases in. And these were a bit more substantial than battlepacks.

It's a victor by default, though.

LEGO Minifig of the Year:

It's also hard to name a Minifig of the Year. Though my LEGO time was somewhat sporadic and largely webcomic focusing, there's always some fig-fiddling going on, but if we look at what cropped up on my irregular Flickr account, we don't see a predominant theme or a prominent fig taking centre stage.

If someone must be named, then we'll look at the gentleman on the left: one of many Evil Peachies, his ever-changing nature as torsos, arms, hands, and more get cycled in and out of as new figs are added to the collection has made this former Naboo Royal Guard (he hails from the more recent Flash Speeder set) a much built-and-rebuilt fig over the past year, which was the main way that a fig could hope to achieve attention.

1720 Cactus Canyon

I've alluded in the past (not that I expect anyone to have any readers left, let alone any who remember the particulars of three-year-old posts) that my first true Town set was 1720 Cactus Canyon. It wasn't my first set (it was my seventh), nor was it the first one I would use in the Town world (that would be a Basic set, 525 or a Fabuland set), but it was and remains one of my favourite Town sets. It was also, on a note of trivia, the first set I ever received the same year that it was released, since I got this Christmas 1994.

For those keeping score at home, 1720 Cactus Canyon was released in 1994 and was an amalgam of three other sets: 1740, 1741, and 1742, which were also released in 1994. In that respect, it was much like some of the other sets of the decade, which were released in some countries as polybags under one set number and in others as boxed sets under another. Cactus Canyon has a single instruction book for the three subsets and, growing up, I never really thought of the set as anything other than a complete unit, though I was sort of vaguely aware that it wasn't QUITE a normal set--at the very least, unlike most of my sets, its picture never appeared in the catalogues of the era, a fact it shared with the polybags.


Each unit of the set has a minifigure and a vehicle. Starting with the smallest, we have a kayak (though the paddle is not a kayaker's paddle)--a very simple build indeed, with a grand total of seven elements required.

A little bit larger, certainly in the piece-count department, is the dune-buggy. This subset also includes two natural elements: a grey falcon/hawk piece and a bush--the titular cactus, I always assumed. Growing up in Canada, "dune buggies" weren't exactly a regular part of my lexicon, so this vehicle was generally just referred to as a car or possibly thought of as a four-wheeler or ATV.

Speaking of things with four wheels, the largest of the three subsets has the real highlight of the set, the truck. A fairly standard mid-1990s LEGO truck, this has always been one of my favourite vehicles in my LEGO city. It's looks a bit chunky compared to some more contemporary vehicles--and quite a bit smaller, since it hails from the 4-stud-wide standard era, but it's still pretty vroomable (the driven equivalent of swooshable).

In most sets I'd consider it a fairly minor point to bring up the minifigure accessories, especially in a theme where these are unlikely to be weapons--because who really needs to army-build guys holding walkie-talkies? In this case, however, because of how early Cactus Canyon falls in the timeline of my collection, almost all of the items pictured above were significant. With the exception of the oar (I had two in a Pirate set), each of these were the very first of their kind in my collection. The pickaxes and shovel would remain the only ones until the Adventurers theme in 1998--and it is worth noting as a sidebar that before the Adventurers were released, I did use this set to supply my town with its very first archaeologists or paleontologists, because, clearly, that's why they had picks and shovel, right?

And, of course, there were the minifigs. At this point I'll note that my choice of reviewing this set isn't pure nostalgia; it's nostalgia that's been awakened by the recent drafting of these three minifigs as the main characters in my new webcomic series (coming soon to the Internet near you). The exact characterisation of these three changed over the years, but as the first Town figs in my collection--figs who were, helpfully, not limited by a job-specific uniform, they filled many roles in many games.

From the left we have Carson Smith (who drove a car--note too the facial resemblance to the Smiths of Gator Landing and Speed Trackers), Nick Townson, and Larry, aka "Boaty" Townson. I'll only say this about the "inventiveness" of the names: yes, one guy from a Town set has a boat and was named Boaty Townson. Notably, he and the other Townson here have the same head: it was a convention in my Legoverse and my brothers that Town figs with the same head belonged to the same family. For the longest time, these were my only figs with that head, which a point of some soreness to me, because I thought the head was really cool... and my brother had five of them.

The roles they'll be playing in my upcoming series won't be 100% identical to what they would have been in my youthful LEGO games, which is probably just as well because what appeals to a 12-year-old boy is rarely universally appealling, but it is based on them to an extent. Anyone paying attention will note that nostalgia is a key element in why I create webcomics and why I run this blog. So there was really no competition for main characters when I decided to make a new comic.

In case anyone is wondering, the working title for the series is "Android Files."

2012: A Year in Review

Last January, I made a year-in-review post and today I'm going to do that again. So here was my 2012:

LEGO Set of the Year:

In 2011 the top set that I acquired was unequivocally Medieval Market Village, and in 2012 I acquired its immediate successor, 10223 Kingdoms Joust, which is an equally impressive set, and taken set-by-set was probably the most impressive or iconic set that I acquired in 2012--but I don't think it was the Set of the Year for my collection. That distinction belongs to 9472 Attack on Weathertop.

As I blogged about when I first got it, Attack on Weathertop was my first Lord of the Rings LEGO set, and I was deeply impressed with it--more impressed than I expected to be before I opened it. It's well-designed, has excellent minifigs, a great parts selection, and best of all (from a Tolkien fan standpoint) it's set in Middle-earth. Although if you told me to pick one set only, I would probably take Kingdoms Joust simply because it is so much larger, it would not be without a longing backwards glance at Attack on Weathertop, and within the context of 2012 being the year the Lord of the Rings LEGO was first released, it is a worthy Set of the Year.  

LEGO Theme of the Year:

Last year the Collectible Minifigs were my Theme of the Year and on the basis of simple volume, they would make a compelling case again this year. The Dino and Monster Fighters themes that came out in 2012 were both excellent original themes on LEGO's part, though I have but a single set, with a single minifig, between them. NinjaGo continued to be a major presence in the LEGO world as well, but was barely a blip on my radar. All that I bought this year in any sort of quantity were Collectible Minifigs and Lord of the Rings LEGO. Part of this was due to financial considerations. What with the expenses of getting married and then waiting unemployed to get my green card, I did not have the disposable income for most of the year to spend on LEGO. A Collectible fig here or there, and a few VIP points-fuelled Lord of the Rings sets were all I could afford. (The Kingdoms Joust, referenced above, was a very early purchase indeed--all the way back in last January.) And with that in mind, the clear champion theme this year was the Lord of the Rings.

When LEGO announced that it had acquired the license and was developing sets, I feared the worst, which is to say sets as forgettable as the entire Pirates of the Caribbean line. What I got--and yes, this may have something to do with my status as a Tolkien fan--was another Star Wars line, and I daresay I said enough good things above when talking about Attack on Weathertop to explain my decision for naming the Lord of the Rings my Theme of the Year.

LEGO Minifig of the Year:

 Last year I declined to name a Collectible Minifig as my Fig of the Year, and I'm going to again this year, but it's worth noting that there was no real stand-out minifig addition to my LEGO-verse this year. It did not change drastically this past year due largely to the fact that "REAL LIFE" things kept a focus on the story side of LEGO to a largely background position. Among those that did get some sort of attention was the Black Falcon knight (redux), who comes with Kingdoms Joust.

MOC of the Year:

This is a new category, and one that I think I may not have included last year due (among other things) to the fact that I haven't made a lot of MOCs over the past few years--and certainly haven't posted many online. But I make a few this year, and even managed to post a couple. The one that says "2012!" more than any other was not a complex MOC; indeed it was quite simple... but I made 75 copies of each half.

Other Thoughts...

In general, 2012 was dominated by becoming an adult. I graduated with my Masters degree, I got married, and my wife and I went through the wranglings of getting my Green Card. All of this kept LEGO to the sidelines--but the sidelines are where LEGO has been in my life for years, and it's a comfortable place. LEGO had a chance to be centre-stage as favours. at my wedding and was there as part of solace during the long wait for my work permit. In general it was a Castle/Lord of the Rings sort of year. I've always been a Castle fan first, but this year there was little room for anything else, and the fantasy angle had the opportunity for a lot of attention with the new Middle-earth lines, attention that I foresee persisting into the next year as more Hobbit sets come out and find their way into my collection. That was my 2012 in LEGO... what was yours?

Favourite Sets: 6598 Metro PD Station

I've blogged before about 6598 Metro PD Station, the flagship of Town's Rescue theme from 1996. In that post, I wrote about Metro PD as one of a couple of mid-1990s Police Stations that I wanted as a kid, but never got. It was "one that got away."

But no more! Thanks in no small part to this blog, my brother got me Metro PD for Christmas, and rather than finding myself disappointed with the set as over-hyped now that I'm an adult, it more than lived up to expectations.



Part of the attraction of Metro PD is that it comes with a full range of crime-fighting vehicles: air, sea, and land are all covered. The helicopter is on the smaller side, although it's rather standard for 1990s LEGO copters. I had 1782 Discovery Station and my brother had 6328 Helicopter Transport, both of which had similarly sized copters.

Particularly when compared with these helicopters of a more similar vintage, Metro PD's copter holds up well in terms of design, and it's mostly-black colour scheme is pretty badass. Unfortunately, however, the way the copter is put together is a little bit less stable than what I remember of Discovery Station's. Even though I haven't had it quite a month, and I haven't really played with it anywhere to the extent that I would as a kid, it's shattered on me a couple times.



By way of contrast, though, the boat is really solid. It has one police officer seemingly assigned to--one of the officers in vests with white arms, wearing a white cap, making him match exactly the two officers of 4012 Wave Cops, which came out the same year. It's a two-seat boat and an extra life jacket for whoever else rides along. In contrast to the helicopter, which still holds up well in design, though it is small, after all these years, the boat is quite blocky. My brother got 4641 Speed Boat for Christmas, and the differences between the two were striking. Although Speed Boat was only a one-man boat, it was large and powerful-looking and had rounded pieces. Next to it, this simply looked... clunky, though that was rather nostalgically attractive.



Even more dramatically demonstrative of the changes LEGO's Town scale has gone through was the jail van, particularly since I also got 4441 Police Dog Van for Christmas. Granted, there's roomed in the latter for the dogs, but even so it is a full order of magnitude smaller. Which isn't to say I disliked the older van... but it does feel *very* small.



That takes us out of the vehicles for the set--there are also two motorcycles, but while I love classic LEGO motorcycles, there is little to comment on with them--and back to the station proper.

Well, not quite.

As it happens, there are two separate baseplates in this set, each with their own building. Both baseplates have a dock on the side for the boat, which is presumably the means of transport between the two--hence the backseat and the extra life jacket. The smaller baseplate is a prison cell, with a tunnel already prepared for Jailbreak Joe to break out through.



And that brings us to the *real* Police Station. It's already been a fairly substantial set at this point, and there's still the crown jewel to look at. It's a good size, and had more going on in it than I expected. At the same time, however, it was a more juniorised build than most of the set. The large window pieces didn't bother me, but a lot of the structure is just 1x2x5 bricks. The final result is a well-designed playset that looks pretty good from the front. My main quibbles are the wobbly design caused by the post-brick constructions and the green "carpeting" brought on by the baseplate.

One of the most exciting parts of the police station, for me, was the evidence room at the top, which has a wanted poster... of one of the guys in 6563 Gator Landing. I posted about that set close to a year ago (see here) and I reflected there that these guys were probably supposed to be thieves or something of that nature--something that I'd never cottoned on to at all during my childhood. This poster would seem to confirm that suspicion.



Well, the poster could come from the captain's office too. The copy of the set my brother found did not include the instructions, which he printed off from an online copy instead. This was more than functional, but it means that I couldn't actually see the print on the poster when building the set. It's not a major problem, since it would only mean swapping the tiles. As you can see in the immediately foregoing picture, the alternative is a Jailbreak Joe wanted poster. It makes sense to me, though, that since he's already caught, that the one in the evidence room is the guy living large in the swamp.

Wanted posters aside, the captain's office is my favourite room in the station. This is partly because it's the most finished room in the station and partly because I really like the city map behind the captain's chair. It's an awesome design that I didn't know came with the set.



There are also a few nice details down in the reception area. I always wanted the keyboard and monitor pieces to the computer, and they tended to elude me over the years as a general rule. Now, of course, they're amusing to look back on a "old" technology.

I was also impressed with the coffee-maker. It's a very simple build, but it's strikingly effective, and even with all the new parts that have come out in the last sixteen years, it's not really in need of updating.

All told, I was still impressed with Metro PD Station after fifteen years of it being "one that got away" and even against the best contemporary sets it holds up fairly well, the main exception being the boat, and secondarily the van. It was a lot of fun to open a box and have a whole pile of old grey, and I really appreciated the overall smaller size of pieces. Even with the early-onset juniorisation of the station, there were a lot more pieces in the 1x1 plate range (including 1x1 plates themselves) than in more newer sets. It was an awesome Christmas.

Some Statistics

Unfortunately, Boston has been cloudy since I've been home, so today's post may be a bit more boring than it might have been in the weather had felt cheerier. Of course, I'm talking about statistics today, so it's possible that no amount of pictures would make that better. On the other hand, I don't think I would have decided to talk about some statistics if I had pictures...

Anyway, you've been duly warned.

I've been using Excel to keep a record of my LEGO collection for some years now. I had a paper record ca. 2000 that listed when I acquired all of my older sets, which remained current until about 2003-4ish (just before the Great Take Apart), and the current Excel document was started in 2007, so it's a mostly accurate record of when I acquired my sets, a completely accurate record of what sets I have, and has also developed into a bit of a statistical chart, as I keep track of the "ratings" my sets get.

Each set is evaluated on five criteria (developed on Classic-Castle in the course of reviewing Castle sets on the official review threads): Parts, Playability, Figs and their Accessories, Design, and "Nostalgia." Obviously, these are all open to subjectivity, and since the point of the whole exercise is more or less to figure which sets are my favourites, that's not really problematic. It's been interesting to compare where sets line up with Lugnet's rating system, and it would seem that (for the most part) once you average out my five criteria, you end up with fairly standard assessments. "Nostalgia" is the trickiest of the five, because while the other four aim for objectivity (while admitting it's a biased process), Nostalgia is there specifically to provide a category to account for sets that I really like (or dislike)... and can't give any good reason for.

On the basis of these statistics, I've also calculated the averages for each subtheme. The numbers are less fair here, since I've only evaluated sets that I own, so a theme with two small (and often mediocre) sets in my collection will probably not rate as well as a theme with 15 sets ranging from small to large, which in turn will not rate as well as a set with only one or two of the largest sets (which often get the best ratings from me). However, as a measure of "favourite," I think this list is fairly accurate, and it's as good a way as any of listing them.

Some other day I might go into a discussion of my favourite or least favourite sets, but for today we'll just look at the favourite and least favourite themes in my collection. Starting at the top, my favourite themes according to this criteria are:

1. Adventurers-the Egyptian Subtheme from 1998, with a 9.85 rating
2. Black Knights, ca. 1992, with a 9.3 rating
3. Designer (the large house sets from the 2000s-2010s), with a 9.25 rating
4. Imperial Guards, 1992-5, with a 9.0 rating
5. Legoland Castle, ca. late 1980s, with a 8.94 rating

The interesting thing about this list, is that the only theme from the 3rd Millennium is the Designer line, probably reflecting the fact that the earlier sets have a higher nostalgic quotient. Indeed, both the Black Knight and the Imperial Guards have been looked at as "Ones That Got Away," and Legoland Castle and the Egyptian Adventurer line would have counted as the same if I had not, in fact, caught them.

At the bottom of the list (of 86 distinctly considered themes--not including Bionicle, Technic, or Duplo) are the following:

82. Alpha Team-Mission Deep Sea, from 2002, with a 7.35 rating
83. Soccer, from the early 2000s, with a 7.25 rating
84. Aquasharks, from 1995-8, with a 7.25 rating (technically a tie with Soccer)
85. Xtreme Island Stunts, from the early 2000s, with a 7.15 rating
86. Junior Pirates, also from the early 2000s, with a 6.4 rating

I do not think it is coincidental that the bottom bunch of sets tends to hail from the early part of the 2000s, nor that Junior Pirates is so abysmally below the rest--Jack Stone would probably be there too, if I'd ever got a set from that line. The Aquasharks are perhaps unfairly in the bottom five, mostly due to the fact that I have only got two sets, and one of them is the abysmal Super Sub, also know as The Aquashark Dart, which has a 6.6 rating.

All of this only goes to show, perhaps, that I am either too much of a nerd or have way too much time on my hands... or both. But I doubt I'm the only one out there who has done anything like this.

6879 Blizzard Baron

I believe that I've mentioned before that 6879 Blizzard Baron is tied with 6835 Saucer Scout for my oldest Space set. I acquired both of them for Christmas, back in 1995, and while the two figs are more or less equal in my nostalgic heart, Blizzard Baron has long reigned as favourite among the Space sets in my possession--probably because of a collection that didn't top 6 sets until the Bricklink era, it was the largest. However, I think that although it's not a huge set or even necessarily an impressively inventive set, that it's still a nice set.



As can be seen in the picture, this ship, which I have designated the Baron-class, I.P.S. Blizzard (I.P.S. standing for Iceplanet Ship), is an elegant little spaceship. It's larger than the average "flitter"-sized fighter that comes with a number of Space sets, having an "enclosed" cockpit (one must not be too fussy about what constitutes an enclosed cockpit on a LEGO ship, especially one from an official set), and enough leg-room for the pilot that you can squeeze two minifigs aboard if so desired.



Despite the Blizzard's swooshability, however--and it *is* a swooshable little ship, the Blizzard Baron, as a set, has historically been one of the most solidly planet-side sets in my Space collection. The back end of the ship detaches to form a long-range communications station planetside. In addition, the inclusion of a mighty chainsaw and pair of stylish trans-neon-orange skis practically begs you to land the ship and do some exploration.

What's more, the detachable satellite or communications outpost gives the Blizzard a hint of modularity. It's quite easy to come up with something else to fit onto that Technic-peg at the back of the ship, as the following picture shows:



This picture, it should be noted, does not give a particularly clear image of what the added component is, but that's intentional. As a piece of LEGO construction, it is not especially original or interesting. Instead, the important thing I want to note here is how organically this extra component fits onto the ship. My idea is that the Blizzard is not normally capable of Faster-Than-Light travel, and that this is an optional component that makes it so.

Favourite Sets: 1491 Dual Defender

Rounding out the Black Knight theme that has occupied my thoughts around here of late, is a "favourite" set, 1491 Dual Defender, which was also the fourth LEGO set in my collection, and since it was a Christmas present, it rounds out my first year of LEGO, which began the year before, at Christmas 1992.

Dual Defender is a catapult set, one of MANY the LEGO company has made over the years. I'm not at all sure how realistic it would be considered, but it's more aesthetically pleasing than my most of the catapults that were released in the decade of the 2000s, and because it was my very first catapult, I'm more fond of it than of pretty much any other.



A reader familiar with the set will note from this picture that the minifigs have been slightly modified. That is, instead of having blue legs with black hips, they now have white legs with black hips. This is a post-Great-Take-Apart decision. In light of their honoured status in my LEGO collection as the first two Black Knights--indeed, for close to a decade, they were my *only* Black Knights, and the soldier on the left who does not have a re-glued sword was the first Black Knight king in my collection. The white legs is an honour, because it ties them into the colour-scheme of the knight from 6086 that I've designated the king of the Black Knights.

The set also differs from its original form in that the extra pieces it came with are long, long since gone. It's a pity, too, since those extra pieces were another sword and a light grey clip, like the ones holding the spears to the back of the catapult. However, I suppose I shouldn't complain; presumably the extra pieces served their purpose: that's why I still have two clips and two swords with the set, because I had an extra one of each to lose.

Back around the turn of the millennium, this set would have looked significantly more cluttered, as other elements were added to my Black Knight collection, mostly from 5135 Castle Accessories, including the crown, the dragon plumes, the red flag on short flagpole, and the oval Black Knight shield. They also eventually picked up a black horse and red saddle from 5394, the horse and saddles accessory set. Add to that a homemade cape not unlike the one currently worn by the current Black Knight king, and this set was as suped-up as I could make it, and these two swordsmen were as prepared for battle as any ten-man army I had.

6244 Armada Sentry

If the Armada line had included a second run, or even a larger first run, then my collection of Armada sets, which consists only of 6244 Armada Sentry would be slender enough to have merited the theme a spot on the list of "Ones That Got Away." As things stand, however, LEGO only ever released two sets in the Imperial Armada line, with three distinct figs, and a total of four figs overall. Less than half a dozen other Armada figs would appear in contemporary (1996 and 1997) Pirate sets.

Despite this very limited run, the Imperial Armada was a beautiful line, as LEGO's only foray into the era of the Renaissance--albeit in the Americas, under the auspices of the conquistadors. The minifig heads and torsos are excellent additions to Castle or Pirate collections (and useful elsewhere), and were never used in any other theme.



I got Armada Sentry for Christmas in 1996 from my grandparents, and I would remain the entirety of my Imperial Armada collection until the Bricklink era, when I eventually put together a second fig. In the meantime, I acquired enough of the helms to arm the Jayko Armada figs seen in this post. All told, though, my Armada faction is all of five-men strong, and remains based at the little fortified dock of Armada Sentry.

It's a lovely set, if a little one. For it's size, it contains a wonderful variety of pieces, nearly all of which (if not, in fact, all) are generally useful, including the green doors, which are exclusive to the set, and the 8x16 blue baseplate. Perhaps the least useful pieces one would find in acquiring multiples of the set are the 1x5x5 wall/window pieces, which tend not to be popular with advanced builders, but even those are far from "useless," merely "fewer uses."

10193 Medieval Market Village

As mentioned before, I had a birthday about a week ago, and for the first time in the last few years, I got LEGO as a gift. In fact, I got more LEGO than I've ever received at my birthday.

Thanks to one very awesome girlfriend, I now own 10193 Medieval Market Village.



Although I actually own the set now, I would classify it as One That Got Away otherwise, because this was THE set of the last decade for Castle fans to own, hands down, and until about a week ago, I did not really think I was ever going to quite get around to it. Though it feels substantially cheaper here in the States than it used to in Canada (though I'm told the price came down there recently), somehow it's hard to justify buying such a large set, even though I know I'll end up spending that much in two or three smaller purchases.

In any case, I'm very happy. It's mildly unfortunate that the MMV has such an amazing parts selection, because the design is so stellar that I'm unlikely to part it out any time soon. Even the two soldier figs, which are hardly rare, are unlikely to be sent away to join the rest of my Fantasy Era (Castle 2007) army anytime soon.

525 Basic 5+ Set in Tote Pack

Over the last few days I celebrated my 24th birthday, and for the first time in a few years, I got LEGO for my birthday. Indeed, I got more than "just LEGO"--I got one of the most impressive sets I own. Since I haven't got pictures of that yet, we'll save that for later. In keeping with the birthday theme, however, I want to look at one of my oldest sets, 525. I've referred to this set a few times, for the good reason that it's my second oldest set.

In addition to being the second addition to my LEGO collection, "Dr. Freestyle's" set, as I've called it for the better part of the 18 years I've owned it, was the first LEGO set I got for a birthday--back in 1993. It was also the first brand-new LEGO set I got (my prior set was used), and the first one with a regular minifig (the first was Fabuland), and pretty much every piece but the yellow 2x2 and the flower stems was a first-time experience in this set. What's more, since my earlier set was only a month and a half in my possession, Dr. Freestyle has long had a sort of coëval status as eldest set.



In this picture you can see the set in the basic form it has taken in my collection over the years, almost without exception. The van is slightly modified from the model in the instructions--mostly insofar as its been built a bit taller to more easily accommodate the good doctor. One will also notice the two trans-coloured 1x1 tiles at the front of the van. These were extra pieces with 4012 Wave Cops, which I got during the summer of 1997. They were affixed to the doctor's van probably at the same time I acquired them, turning it into my first (and only, as things have turned out so far) incarnation of an ambulance. Apart from being the only foreign pieces introduced into the doctor's set, this helps demonstrate that it was not later than 1997 before Dr. Freestyle acquired his present job description.

As I said, the models shown above are the main form the set has taken for most of the past eighteen years. Part of the reason for this is that they best accommodate minifigs, but another major reason is that my instructions have been in a very sorry state--although I still have them.



Despite their incomplete and very battered condition, these instructions retain a place in my heart, which by and large doesn't retain a lot of room for instructions, and the major reason for this is no doubt because they're the oldest ones I have.

In addition to the model pictured above, I have an assortment of other pieces that have, since time immemorial, been associated with this set--other pieces that these two models do not utilise, though I'm not at all sure if the aggregate total of all these pieces actually corresponds to the original Tote Bag manifest. In any case, the extra bricks are in a somewhat unsightly pile, so there seemed no point to take a picture of them.

Favourite Sets: 6625 Speed Trackers

In my last "Ones That Got Away" post, I made reference to the fact that I *did* manage to acquire a number of Police sets over the years, just never a police station. One of those sets is today's "favourite set."

6625 Speed Trackers was the first Police set I owned, and it's one of my earliest Town sets (#4, I think). I got it during the summer of 1996 (the year it was released) on a roadtrip to Montana with my parents and one of my brothers. That was a very traumatic LEGO experience for my brother, as he lost the head to the Royal Knight king he purchased, but my policemen made the trip back to Alberta in one piece each, and their vehicles likewise.



Both vehicles are quite lovely. I've always had a thing for the old motorcycles, and this would ultimately prove to be the only one I would ever get in a set. I would manage to get one in the mid-2000s (minus one side of the handlebar), but for most of my formative LEGO years, this was the only two-wheeled motorcycle I owned, making it even cooler than it perhaps deserved. The car was also much appreciated, and I think it is still a nice design, if a bit smaller than a lot of the more recent cars. Its main deficiency is that the driver cannot wear a hat--but, as you can see, LEGO helpfully didn't give him one.

This driver was more than just a mere patrol officer in my Town. Since I never acquired a police station, or even a larger set with a police chief fig, the hat-less man in black with this set became known as Chief Samuel Smith, and his motorcycling partner became his brother, the ace detective Officer Gregory Smith. As the Smith name (which also appeared with a couple of the Gator Landing figs) may tip you off, I wasn't particularly inventive with names, and the fact that these two characters got full names is indicative of the high favour they enjoyed.

I would eventually get a real police chief when I got 9293 Community Workers, but that was the better part of a decade later, and much too late to knock Chief Smith off the top of the totem pole--besides, I had two towns, and someone had to be chief of police in Paridisaville (that would be the new guy's post). Eventually, Chief Smith got a new uniform, while retaining his head, so I'm not sure who's actually in the picture here. Perhaps the Chief still likes to ride the beat now and again, for old time's sake.

Favourite Sets: 6563 Gator Landing

Another of the ongoing topics that I want to visit with this blog is that of my favourite sets. Given my age, and when I started collecting LEGO, these are probably going to be sets from the mid-1990s and later. Anything earlier than that would probably be more appropriate to the Ones That Got Away series--in other words, this series will focus on sets that I actually own.

The first set I will look at in this series is 6563 Gator Landing. Released in 1996, this set is something a precursor to the Outback line of sets that came out the following year. I picked it up in the summer of 1997, when I found it on sale with a couple other sets at the "Real Canadian Superstore." Even before I got it, I thought it was a pretty cool looking set, but the fact that it makes my favourite list now is more a testament to 13 years of ownership nostalgia than anything else.

The main reason I've selected Gator Landing as my first set is because I recently rebuilt it, after having it in pieces for over six years (like much of my LEGO, it is slowly reassuming set-built form). Consequently, it's been on my mind of late, and as I've been hunting down pieces and rereading instructions, I've come to appreciate it all the more.



As a set, Gator Landing seems to be based in a swamp, or at least a lagoon or something of that nature, since it has a hut built on stone (well, grey) pylons, with a swinging rope bridge to a rock promontory. The presence of the lone bush piece suggests that there is land at hand, and the alligator gives the set its moniker.



In addition to the landing proper, the set includes three vehicles: one each from land, sea, and sky. The sea vehicle is this hydrofoil craft, piloted by a stetson-wearing Townlander in that familiar green vest, with storage for two suitcases in the back.



In hindsight, I think this truck is my favourite of the three vehicles. It's a cool looking red and black jeep/truck, with my first set of yellow tire-wells (indeed, my only set for a number of years, in any size), and a design aesthetic similar to the truck in my oldest Town set, 1720 Cactus Canyon.



Although the jeep claims my favouritism now, the seaplane was the real reason I wanted this set back in 1997. My brother had the first airplane in the house, from an Outback set, and I was green with jealousy. After all, planes could fly--and who can deny the swooshability factor? I certainly couldn't, and the big reason I wanted this set was so that I could have a plane too. I always felt a little bit cheated that it was a seaplane, rather than one with wheels, but I like the black, red, and yellow colour-scheme, and it's still plenty swooshable.



Boasting all of a chair and a glass mug, with a half-high door and more roof than walls, this little shack may not seem like much, but back in the day it was a millionaire's palace. My LEGO town had a severe shortage of housing, and this was the first, and for a long time only, Town set I had that came with a building--and a building that wasn't related to business. As such, it was a sauve waterfront estate in the midst of the cruder, basic brick houses I had built otherwise out of Freestyle sets.



Of course, the possession of three vehicles and a waterfront estate wasn't all the evidence I had that these three characters were millionaires: there was also the conspicuous presence of money in this set. How I missed it then, I don't know, but it looks pretty clear that this is a hideout in the bayou/swamp somewhere for... robbers, smugglers... someone apparently unsavoury. That never once occurred to me. For whatever reason, these three fellows, Messrs. Smith, Smith, and Octan, were millionaires who happened to carry a lot of cash on hand. In suitcases.