Lego is Dead.

Don't get me started on that new shitty lego.

There are few things on this illustrious planet that I do not loathe more than the new lego.
Not even annoying AOL users tick me off this much.

It’s a crying shame really. But what pains me most is how the conversion came about in the late 90s… and it couldn't have happened at a worse time.

See, many years ago I loved lego. Don’t let anyone lie to you otherwise. All my siblings and myself were brought up on it. We would start with duplo, and then when we turned 7, we would come of age and were we allowed to master the joy that was lego.
*Sigh* The memories are fun indeed. I remember when I was 11 and my brother was 6 and he wanted to play with the lego, and he wasn’t allowed to! How I gloated! It was all mine! I’d make little houses and drive my fire engines (with the real string hoses!) and he’d be stuck with his frickin’ huge useless duplo blocks.

Then he turned 7 and we had to share.
Bummer.

But although we did fight once or twice we soon had enough stuff to have plenty of fun without getting in each other’s way! (And every night we’d help each other clean the floor of the room which was always heaped with the scattered stuff as we usually started the day by holding the bins upside downs and spilling everything out).
We made little racecars according to specific themes (pirates, space, fire engine, cops) and held races (just like Mario kart!), and we’d always have our fill of violence by staging imperialistic wars (using the soldiers from pirate series) which usually featured characters getting torn limb from limb. Wasn’t it great? Not only the head came off, but so did the hands, the arms, the torso, and we even figured out how to separated the legs without breaking anything!

But soon, our interest narrowed. My brother wanted to concentrate on the medieval theme, and I wanted to do the city theme. But the big difference was that my brother was a smalltime player.

I was dedicated.

I had ambitions.

I had always dreamt of creating a giant lego city. With streets, railways, people, shops and services, the whole shebang!
Not only because I wanted to simulate the job of running a city, but because I had this neat 1-foot tall rubber dinosaur whom I wanted to destroy the city with and eat all the lego men once I built it. It was a great idea!
And so I started!
I already had one street with a neat restaurant, a fire station, and a gas station and one 2-foot tall office building (designed by me and constructed from spare parts and the contents of three red variety lego bins).

I wanted to go all the way and I made a list from checking the pictures in one of those lego catalogues that you’d get free with big sets, of everything I needed. I was going to start with the legoairport and that grey passenger train.

There was only one problem. I had no money.

So begun a long time period in which I SAVED LIKE A BITCH.
I starved myself (no candy) and tortured myself (didn’t rent any videos), lied (“Is there any change from the money I gave you for groceries?” “No.”), cheated(“Gimmie that coin I wanna show you a trick!” “Okay. What’s the trick?” “What trick?” What? Gimmie back my coin!” “What coin?”) to save every cent I could get my grubby little palms on.

And you know, when it comes to restraining yourself from buying things, there is no better method with which to succeed than to stop going to the shops you are likely to spend the money in, in the first place!
And it worked!
After half a year I was one rich little snot.
I decided to give myself a treat and made my way to the shops in order to view the prizes, which were so nearly in my clutches,… and what I saw shook me to the very bone.

I could not find my airport.

Oh yes there was an airport but it was wrong. It was as if it were only created out of three blocks - planes and all…
I quickly checked to see if I was, in fact, in the duplo section… but no it said lego... but this new stuff…
WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS ALL THIS NEW CRAP??

I could not comprehend it! The dolt in charge of redesign had ensured that cars were now only made out of 5 pieces – the entire chassis was already one piece!! And it was not only bad because you were deprived of being allowed to build it, but also you couldn’t obliterate it to smithereens without actually breaking it!
And it got worse…
The lights and fenders were not individual pieces anymore, but PAINTED on a boring diagonal block! PAINTED! That heinous crime was a step too far!
I got mad at anything after that! What was with all the lego men having dorky facial expressions now? YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS YOU LITTLE BASTARDS! You are supposed to be bald smiling cheerful little yellow clones!

Not only were the new designs ugly – there were now so childishly simple and uncreative they were unfun! What was the need for these? Are children these days so freaking stupid that they cannot build a simple lego structure???

I looked around. And it painfully struck me at the time that it was ONLY the city themed lego that had been cursed with redesign.
The pirates and space guys were the same. The aquasharks and the cowboys wre the same. Of course they would change later.
Yes. I remember that. With time the plague spread to the other quarters but it started there. But there was all it needed to strike in order to wilt my dreams.

My vision was shattered in the same way I had long dreamt of shattering my 2 foot skyscraper with my one foot dinosaur.

At that moment I was transformed from a blissful, cheery, happy-go-lucky child into a negative, pessimistic, cynical beast.

My childhood was officially over.





Mind you this was before the Star Wars and Harry Potter lego.
That came later.
When I first noticed them in the shop window, the traumatic memory of my never-to-be-city caused me to get overcome by rage.
I burst into Toy’s’R’us foaming at the mouth.
“You bastards!!” I screamed at the obviously guilty boxes.
“You fucking bastards! That’s why you became so shitty! You sold out! To George Lucas! DAMN YOU LUCAS!! I tortured myself all those years ago for this??”

Insane with fury, I started throwing boxes to the ground, while shouting gibberish at onlookers who stared at me while protecting their children’s eyes. It wasn’t long before the attendants and mall cops attempted to stop my just protest. They mercilessly attacked me. (“Jubbadabubbada haaai!” “GRAB HIS LEGS MICKEY!” “JibbarjabberjobberjibberSTARWARSraaarghHARRYPOTTERhoihoihoi”
“OH GOD HE CLWED MY EYES!!” “DON’T LET GO OF HIM!!” “wingaawoonga!!! “IM TRYING!!”)
And promptly overpowered and threw me out.

Okay so maybe that last bit didn’t happen.
But it nearly did!

I just couldn’t think of any original sounding gibberish at the time.




Epilogue

“But what happened to the money?” I hear you ask.

Well I spent it on drugs and alcohol. Thank you very much lego.


You dirty bastards.