For My Future Granddaughter

I bought one of these on eBay a few weeks ago:

LEGO 21110 Research Institute

I paid a premium, quite a bit higher than retail. The set, rather small and originally retailing for just $19.95, has made quite a few Lego resellers fat stacks of profit as they scooped them by the cart load and flipped on eBay, Amazon, and other you-sell-it sites. I'll admit I do a little Lego "investing," too, but not on the scale as major resellers. I've held onto a few Star Wars sets and made a few bucks. Kim can tell you about the Monster Fighters Haunted House on a shelf out in the garage. (Or maybe she can't... it's packed neatly in an inconspicuous brown box.)

One of the big rules of Lego investing is one should enter at a low price. It's frighteningly like the stock market, at at web sites like Brickpicker.com, it's treated as such. Buy low and sell high. Hold for the long term or occasionally find one of those glorious penny stocks which appreciates rapidly and can be sold short term for huge profits. The cheapest Research Institute available on eBay US as of this writing will cost you $70.04 including shipping. Yes, more than triple the MSRP.

So why break such a cardinal rule to get my hands on this set? Do I see the price rising even higher?

Sure, maybe. But this one isn't for sale. I wanted to grab a RI for my granddaughter. (This is where the audience gasps, thinking something like, "Isn't your oldest kid like a freshmen in high school?")

Look, this isn't a family blog, per se, but no one here is pregnant.

I'm looking down the road here. Waaaaay down the road.  Lego's Research Institute made a huge splash largely because... look closely at the box... it features three female scientists. It garnered a lot of media attention last month, including this article from the New York Times, this op-ed in the Chicago Tribune, and an online petition to resurrect the set after its too-short life.

So I mentioned I'm looking down the road. Waaaaay down the road, but the RI isn't about "investing" in the traditional sense. I want to gift this to my future granddaughter because her world (hopefully) will be different than the one in which we live. I want to give it to her and let her know how happy I am she is able to do whatever she wants. I want her to know how happy I am she lives in a world in which a toy set featuring female scientists is no longer a big deal because everyone knows women can kick ass at anything they do.

That's the best investment I can imagine and a world in which I want everyone to live.

All of My Fingers...All of My Toes

No major injuries this year during our Fourth of July festivities. (Long time readers will remember several burns sustained last year.) So whew. I'm thankful for that.

After a slew of rejections this weekend (and a few from short-listed stories), I've put the old editing nose to the grindstone, hoping to find my stride in this "summer of slack". Unfortunately, I sort of feel like this guy......when I'm trying to write. There are some ideas in my head, I'm sure. Now to tease them out.

Speaking of the cuter-than-a-puppy Lego zombie, I'll have one to give away with other magnificent prizes when Loathsome, Dark, and Deep is released later this year (or early next). Good times, folks. Good times.

WIP Wednesday: It is Wednesday, Right?

I've been decidedly absent from the web the last week or so. I've been absent from writing, too.

I started June like a madman, and now I've hit the wall. The summer vacation wall. The "why-the-hell-am-I-more-busy-when-I'm-not-working" wall.

The only thing I've touched (writing-wise) in the last five days is a revision/rewrite of a piece I'm hoping makes it. Maybe I've just jinxed myself. Maybe not.

The boys did help me sort my old Lego sets, and we've been piecing together some classic space kits from the 1980s thanks to the instruction scans found at Peeron.com. (http://www.peeron.com/inv/theme/LEGO/SYSTEM/Space/Classic)

Everybody's napping. Maybe I can manage ten minutes of writing. Maybe.

Old Hobbies Die Hard

Although my wife may argue based on my earnings/time spent ratio, writing is not a "hobby" of mine; I consider it a vocation and treat it as such.

But one of my old, bona fide hobbies reared its costly head this weekend: wheeling and dealing Legos on eBay. It all started with the six-year-old and his desire for a retired Power Miners set...did they have to put all those pictures of the other sets in the back of the instruction manual?

Lego really knows how to market.

So I did a few searches for sets & minifigs I used to own...holy jumping catfish Batman! I shouldn't have let that Greedo minifig go for five bucks.

Doing my best to maintain a reasonable control over my wallet. But when they're this cute/menacing, who can say no?

Smoke

When Ernst woke, he smelled the smoke first, even before he felt the rough cord wrapped around his wrists. His eyes began to water, burning from the ash in the air.

"Hallo?" he called.

Shapes shifted in the darkness. Ernst tried to move his head, but stopped as nylon rope scraped his throat. At his back, a square post, the corners digging into his flesh despite his woolen jacket.

The shapes came forward. Books. The cover of each speckled with morphing yellow and orange firelight...each having sprouted arms and legs of black shadow. One volume of dark green leather plucked its cover open with a shadow-hand. On the open page in front of Ernst, words stood out in the flickering light.

He began to cry. The rope at his throat constricted as he gasped for air, cutting into the soft skin. "Ich bin traurig," he gasped and closed his eyes, remembering the bonfires in Berlin, the piles of smoking pages. He understood the heat that began to sting his toes.

__________

Yeah, a little preachy today. Fahrenheit 451 does that to me.

For your viewing pleasure, I present:

All of the Dead

A brilliant blend of zombies and Legos brought to you by Tim Drage and Tony Mines. (no embedding of this video, but you'll be glad you checked it out...you can download if you want)

Finally, I'd be remiss not to mention the release of the special Road Trip edition of the Monsters Next Door. The best thing to come out of my experience running cross country in high school* is within, a little story I call "The Qualifying Run". There's fiction by some good peeps inside, so enjoy.

*What, you thought it was the shin splints or stress fractures?