Wedding Loot

Despite the fact that my lovely wife vetoed putting LEGO on our Target registry, our wedding day was not without LEGO. The wedding favours have been mentioned before, but as it turned out, they were not the only LEGO involved with that day. Though no LEGO was on our registry, my family knows me well enough to indulge the habit a little. From my brother, the fare was minifigs of a variety I'd never managed to get my hands on:

(By the way, I apologise for the poorer quality of the pictures in this post--in addition to the usual excuses of photographer ineptitude, it was raining yesterday--hence the droplets on our friends.) These magnets were Toys R' Us promotional items, and as I have no car and Boston has no Toys R' Us, I would never have been able to acquire them--even though I'm a Castle fan. In a similar manner, as I've mentioned before, I never got the opportunity to acquire any Series 6 Collectible Minifigs. Knowing this deficiency in my collection, my brother got me these:

The Highlander and the Legionnaire were the two minifigs of Series 6 that I most regretted missing--and my brother knew this. My sister, on the other hand, probably has no idea at all what LEGO I have, lack, want, or need--but she does know I like LEGO and I like writing. So she got my wife and I these:

(The red in this photo is absolutely atrocious...) To my surprise--and glee--these Moleskine notebooks also come with a couple sticker sheets.

The reason for my glee is that I realised right away that although these stickers are (presumably) intended to decorate the pages of the notebooks, they also have minifig customising potential. Granted, this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I think the results are pretty good:

I am embarrassed to show this photo at all, but it gets the idea across. Both torsos and heads of these two minifigs are stickers cut from the sticker sheet. The effect may not be perfect, but it's sharper than most "do it myself" attempts and looks not unlike some of the very early minifigs, which often had torso stickers rather than printing. And as a way to rehabilitate some of the very worn, garage-sale heads that have been sitting useless in my collection, it's not bad. One just has to make sure to use the right head.

New Acquisitions: May, 2012

It's been a long time since I posted about getting any new LEGO, and although my posting frequency has slipped the sad fact is that I haven't acquired much in the past few months. This is due more to financial reasons than anything else, as the simultaneous jobs of "grad student" and "groom to be" are equally wage-deficient. Nonetheless, the two of them in tandem did not fail me completely, for upon the completion of my Master's Degree a couple weeks ago, some of my hippest in-laws-to-be sprung a surprise trip to the LEGO Store on me last weekend and gifted me with 9472 Attack on Weathertop, my first Lord of the Rings LEGO set, and one that I might otherwise have had to wait quite a long time before acquiring, my status as a LEGO and Lord of the Rings fan notwithstanding. However, I will not talk about that amazing set today. It merits its own post, and I shall give it one (hopefully in the next week or so). Meanwhile, let me talk about the other LEGO I acquired this weekend.

The five Collectible Minifigs in the picture all belong to the currently-reigning Series 7, and are the first Collectible Minifigs I've added to my collection since November, when I picked up the last Series 5 minifigs I wanted. Now, I consider it a good thing that I have not been bitten by the collector's bug, with the need to acquire EVERY Collectifig out there, but it is something of a shock to realise that Series 6 has been passed over completely--and there were a few desirable minifigs in there, most notably the Roman Legionnaire and the Scottish Highlander. Even more than monetary stingyness, however, the lack of Series 6 minifigs in my collection no doubt reflects the difficulties of reaching a store where they are sold in my local territory. Even the LEGO Store in Braintree, which reflects an hour and a half, one-way, commute on public transit, didn't have any in stock the two times I visited in January and February. With that in mind, I'm glad to note that I was able to pick out the five Series 7 collectifigs that I most wanted to add to my collection. Not that there is a lot of chance involved, since I am pretty much all/all for correctly identifying the minifigs in the bag by touch (to the amazement of my uncle-in-law-to-be), but it was luck that there was still one of each of them in the box, as that is not always the case. Indeed, I went over every bag, and only found the one bagpiper, and I wouldn't have minded more of him. Of the five minifigs here, my chief disappointment is that LEGO did not give the Viking lady's shield any detailing. After having done it for the male viking in Series 4, and with a decalled shield on two of the other figs I picked up in the same batch, it feels a little plain. That said, I'm not going to protest too much, since I will admit that an unadorned dark brown shield has its uses. On the same day, I also acquired a "collectible minifig" of another sort:

The regular minifigure-sized Hulk has been a promotion of LEGO's the past few weeks at LEGO Stores and online for orders (in the United States) of $50 or more. By happy chance, this meant that my Attack on Weathertop came with a freebie Hulk. I have to admit that, by myself, I would have been unlikely to ever acquire him, since I am not much a comic books person and consequently have not felt the need to expand into LEGO's new offerings in that field--and I'm not knocking comic books or LEGO's new DC and Marvel themes. On the contrary, there are some excellent sets there; I'm just glad that, with all the OTHER awesome LEGO coming out these days (Kingdoms Joust, Lord of the Rings, Monster Hunters, etc, etc) it hasn't become yet another theme I want while having to guard my wallet. That said, The Hulk is a rather attractive collection of minifig parts, not least because he is a little-used colour. Like many "non-regular set" minifigs, he's not the highest quality plastic, but I feel that the difference in my Hulk is less egregious than in some past instances. And, for a freebie, I'm not really entitled to complain.