LEGOs! and Star Wars

Ah, the return of the exclamation point in the subject, we all knew it was going to happen sooner or later.

This evening we had a slightly creepy meal at an italian place where everyone seemed to know everybody - except us. Waiters knew guests, guests knew other guests, and a party in one of the large rooms sang a very strange version of 'happy birthday' that included dog howling without any dogs actually present.

We then headed off to the mall for some shopping - probably the first time I've been to Valley Fair in six months or so. After I picked up a couple of pairs of sunglasses we wandered around aimlessly for a while. I saw a number of kids with LEGO bags, and wondered what store would have those bags.... and eventually we found out :)

VALLEY FAIR HAS A FRIGGIN' LEGO STORE!!!!!!!!

If I were 12 this would probably be the greatest thing in my life, but it's still really cool. The back wall has a bunch of containers with various colored parts - you can buy a glass full whichever parts you want for about $10. If I had the time and motivation to build anything, my wallet would have emptied very quickly.

These days I don't do much 'thinking outside the box' LEGO building - I just follow the instructions for my Star Wars sets, and then admire them on the shelf. I'm a sucker for anything from the original trilogy, but I've mostly stayed away from EP1&2 sets. My latest purchase was the Millenium Falcon (v2, the ESB version), which I'm happy to report (to Wade, mostly :) uses mostly standard parts and has a pretty cool design. It was on sale, so give me a break...

I also caved and bought the Star Wars trilogy DVDs this week. I'm not as excited about them because they the 'special' editions, with even more 'specialness' thrown in. So far we've only watched EP4, and the CG stuff they added still looks out of place.

Another lesson learned is to NEVER BUY ANYTHING NEW FROM RASPUTIN'S (for you non-CA folks, it's a mini-chain that sells mostly used and some new CDs and DVDs; however it probably wouldn't be a good idea to buy anything from the evil monk either). I signed the receipt without really paying attention to the price, only to realize later that they charged me $59 for the DVDs (it would have been $69 without the membership card). Amazon ($42), I will never doubt you again.