Unpopular LEGO Opinions

pxchris

Casper_vd_Korf said:

Nah, reddish brown is much better, as are the bleys! are those unpopular opinions? Which do you guys prefer?

That's an unpopular opinion, at least to me! As a child of the 80s and 90s and a big time classic collector, I have a very strong affinity for the old browns and greys. Especially old brown. I will always greedily snatch most old brown pieces I find when sifting bulk at stores. Most of the time when I'm buying from a Bricklink I'll also see what all pieces they have in old brown and will often throw a selection of them in my cart.
While I understand the appeal of the new colors and certainly appreciate them in my modern sets I will always have a strong pull to the classic colors. I'm also extremely picky about not mixing in any modern colors in my classic sets or displays. For example, my huge Pirates display for the upcoming convention I'm attending only has old browns and old greys in it. No other post-90s colors to be found in it either.

daewoo said:

Yeah, the old grays were "dirty" looking to me.  When I find them in bulk now I toss them aside.

I will gladly take all those tossed pieces!

560Heliport

I like "old" dark grey! 

560Heliport

WesterBricks said:

Astrobricks said:

https://forum.brickset.com/discussion/35090/forum-rules-and-code-of-conduct-v1-5-june-2020

Oof, I frequently include pictures that are way bigger than 400x300.  Oops!

I'm sure all of my pictures are too big- because I have no idea how to resize them! I'm sorry!

CCC

I prefer LBG and DBG over the old greys and reddish brown to brown. Probably because I have both larger quantities and variation of bricks in the modern colours.

WesterBricks

At what point do we start calling the current colors simply “Brown” and “Gray” and the old colors “Old Brown” and “Old Gray”? It has been almost 20 years since that sudden jarring transition.

daewoo

pxchris said:I will gladly take all those tossed pieces!

Well, by toss I mean I don't add them to the bag of elements I intend to buy and throw them to the side of the bulk table I'm sifting through.  I don't do eBay or other online markets and get used Lego from shops exclusively.  Sorry.

lowlead

WesterBricks said:

...It has been almost 20 years since that sudden jarring transition.

The Great Palette Change of 2003-2004.  When untold ire and tumult ensued.  The horrors...and #10030 sets in different shades.  Years to remember. 

pxchris

WesterBricks said:

At what point do we start calling the current colors simply “Brown” and “Gray” and the old colors “Old Brown” and “Old Gray”? It has been almost 20 years since that sudden jarring transition.

Never!

Because I refuse to call my precious bricks OLD!  haha

iwybs

I call them old brown and old light gray / dark gray. I still call the current colors reddish brown and light bluish gray / dark bluish gray.

CCC

WesterBricks said:

At what point do we start calling the current colors simply “Brown” and “Gray” and the old colors “Old Brown” and “Old Gray”? It has been almost 20 years since that sudden jarring transition.

Probably never. Both sets of colours still exist even though the old are no longer made and so need to be distinguished. 

CCC

When main page comments need to be locked because of arguing over whether Target is a supermarket or department store, maybe all comments need to be stopped.

Brickchap

Target Country was a sideline store here in Australia, that actually used to be a store chain called Fossey's. Fossey's was a department store, especially for rural and regional areas. (a department store in the country, I know it's an amazing idea and sadly they all died off).

Target Australia is completely different to Target US though from my understanding. Same with Woolworths (Woolies).

I am curious though, what is Barnes and Noble? American youtubers are always going on about it. Is that like Kmart, BigW, Target here in Australia? Or is it more of a Marks and Spencer type store?

Oldfan

Barnes and Noble is a very large bookstore, either anchoring a shopping mall or as a large stand-alone building, usually with a separate coffee shop and kid's reading area inside. The store also stocks various games, music (record albums, usually), and LEGO sets.  They have a pretty large online presence too, as the physical stores are slowly going away over time. The B&N discounts get touted quite a bit around this site when they appear.

It's much more a specialty store than the big-box Target/WalMart, it's not a department store. The games, LEGO, and other non-book items are very much in the minority; generally, when you walk into a Barnes and Noble you'll see a ton of books.  They also created the Nook e-reader and try to sell them in the stores as well.

SumoLego

CCC said:

When main page comments need to be locked because of arguing over whether Target is a supermarket or department store, maybe all comments need to be stopped.

Maybe all human verbal communication should just stop.  We can gather around a carcass and throw a bone into the air.

pxchris

My bag of "spare" (original) brown barrels.



This is, for some unbeknownst reason, one of my absolute favorite pieces and I've amassed a few hundred of them.
So, yeah... I'm a bit partial to the color!

Brickchap

@Oldfan Thanks! Sounds a lot like Dymocks here in Australia. They are a bookstore that also sells a little Lego and other kid's stuff. That's more been in the last 10 years though. (pity they didn't sell Lego when I was a kid)

Astrobricks

I’ve never seen a Barnes & Noble anchoring a shopping mall, but I have seen one as almost the last thing left in a shopping mall :-/

Astrobricks

And I don’t like old gray mostly because so much of it (that I have) has turned brown.

560Heliport

And my hair, which was blond in childhood, turned brown, and is now grey (when I haven't shaved all week). WTF?!

SumoLego

Astrobricks said:

I’ve never seen a Barnes & Noble anchoring a shopping mall, but I have seen one as almost the last thing left in a shopping mall :-/

Usually right next to GameStop...

blokey9

Brickchap said:

@Oldfan Thanks! Sounds a lot like Dymocks here in Australia. They are a bookstore that also sells a little Lego and other kid's stuff. That's more been in the last 10 years though. (pity they didn't sell Lego when I was a kid)

i would have compared them to Borders Bookstores but most people probably don't remember them.

Brickchap

@blokey9 A good comparison, I've never heard of them before.

 It's amazing how short people's memories are today though. For example, I remember getting a 'new' flip phone, whereas people I went to school with think flip phones are these 'ancient' things from last century.

CCC

blokey9 said:

Brickchap said:

@Oldfan Thanks! Sounds a lot like Dymocks here in Australia. They are a bookstore that also sells a little Lego and other kid's stuff. That's more been in the last 10 years though. (pity they didn't sell Lego when I was a kid)

i would have compared them to Borders Bookstores but most people probably don't remember them.

Waterstones is a current bookshop that also sells LEGO (along with many other gift type items) too.

daewoo

Brickchap said:

@blokey9 A good comparison, I've never heard of them before.

 It's amazing how short people's memories are today though. For example, I remember getting a 'new' flip phone, whereas people I went to school with think flip phones are these 'ancient' things from last century.

Pffpt...we had a phone that hung on a wall and had a 20 foot long curly cord.  You had to spin a dial to certain points to make the number to call someone.  It had an actual bell in it, so if you slammed the handpiece into the base you could make it ring.  Those were the days...

lowlead

daewoo said:

...we had a phone that hung on a wall and had a 20 foot long curly cord.  You had to spin a dial to certain points to make the number to call someone.  It had an actual bell in it, so if you slammed the handpiece into the base you could make it ring.  Those were the days...

...the bakelite days. ;)

Astrobricks

blokey9 said:

Brickchap said:

@Oldfan Thanks! Sounds a lot like Dymocks here in Australia. They are a bookstore that also sells a little Lego and other kid's stuff. That's more been in the last 10 years though. (pity they didn't sell Lego when I was a kid)

i would have compared them to Borders Bookstores but most people probably don't remember them.

They only went out of business in 2011.

CCC

daewoo said: Pffpt...we had a phone that hung on a wall and had a 20 foot long curly cord.  

Wow, that was long. Ours extended to about 3 foot, so you had to sit next to the phone to use it.

daewoo

CCC said:

Wow, that was long. Ours extended to about 3 foot, so you had to sit next to the phone to use it.

The cord that came with that phone was 3.5 feet, IIRC, but my mom got the longer cord because she got tired of us kids being in her way in the kitchen (which is where that phone was mounted).

Fizyx

daewoo said:

CCC said:

Wow, that was long. Ours extended to about 3 foot, so you had to sit next to the phone to use it.

The cord that came with that phone was 3.5 feet, IIRC, but my mom got the longer cord because she got tired of us kids being in her way in the kitchen (which is where that phone was mounted).

Happened to us too, and then someone shut the cord in a door one too many times and she gave up and got one of those new-fangled wireless phones instead so we didn't have to deal with the cord any more.  This was early 90's, so we weren't really early-adapters, but I do remember getting that phone as a kid and it being one of the only times until my late teens that I really felt like I was ahead of the technology curve.  (Even though it wasn't really true, lol)

Brickchap

Haha, thanks for sharing guys!

I wish I had experienced rotary phones. And the 'bing' when you slam down the receiver on some annoying caller is very satisfying. (it would be very helpful these days with all these scammer calls).

Funny thing, my mother had (and still has) an old Telstra phone, with a curly cord in that funny old cream colour from sometime in the 80s or 90s? Anyway, we went to a local museum and they had a display of telephones and here's my mother's phone in the display case!

One thing I really hate though is when people refer to certain films as 'old' or 'really old'. I remember when teachers would put on films from the 80s or 90s and say to the class "Oh it's a really old one".. which would piss me off because I watch black and white Charlie Chan, Marx Brothers, Sherlock Holmes (the Basil Rathbone versions) etc. which are really old!

In fact technically I've watched a film from 1894 (I think that was the date, it's called Train Coming into A Station or something like that), although it was only a minute or so long. Metropolis is probably the oldest film I've seen. (1920s silent film.)

560Heliport

We had a rotary-dial phone from 1978 (when we moved into our new house) until around 1990. I don't know if all rotary phones were like this, but with ours, if you answered it while it was actively ringing (as opposed to between rings) that would intertupt the cycle and the next time it rang, it would finish the cycle- so sometimes there would be only one "ding" left. Next time, you would hear "ding", a pause, and then "brrrrrrrring" like usual. Our mom seldom noticed the single ding. We'd say, "The phone's gonna ring," and she'd say, "Hmm? What? How do you know?" then "brrrrrring" "Oh!" Simple fun. 

rockethead26

Remember party lines where you shared a line with 2-3 neighbors? That was always fun!

Redbullgivesuwind

When I was six I phoned a friend who had been very ill for a couple of weeks on our old corded phone and I was terrified that I would catch her illness through the phone. As I thought it was like talking to someone in the same room.

lowlead

^^ At least you were six, you had an excuse.  I see similar behavior in grown adults now.  Is that an unpopular thing to say?

Fizyx

rockethead26 said:

Remember party lines where you shared a line with 2-3 neighbors? That was always fun!

Party lines definitely were always crazy to me, but what really blew my mind was when my father, who grew up in rural Maine, told us that until well into his teens he only had a 4-digit phone number for most calls.  And it's not like he's ancient, he's really at the tail end of the Boomer generation.  Still blows me away to be honest.

Sethro3

This is quite the nostalgic thread.

I definitely recall the wall mounted corded phone in the kitchen and always being in the way and having ZERO privacy on any phone call with a friend, especially a girl...

As for bookstores, I used to go to Borders all the time. And then they up and closed and Barnes rages on, so now I have to go there. There was a really neat two level one in town that had this open space in the middle with the railings so it felt more extravagant than it really was. Naturally it closed.

Marshallmario

Borders here was for Hippies!  Barnes and Noble more for academics.
Anyone remember Walden Books or were they just midwest locations? 

Marshallmario

Kids trying rotary phone video is hilarious  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHNEzndgiFI

The_Rancor

… so you might say this thread was… phoning it in?

Another potential unpopular opinion I have is that instructions have become too sluggish for the sake of simplicity. I’ve been rebuilding some 80s and 90s sets lately and it feels like you achieve so much more per step. It’s a shame TLG couldn’t have quite a few bricks added in each step, but use their handy modern touches such as inventory and red highlight for new additions specific to each step. 

And before you say ‘well kids need it to be simpler’ I was perfectly fine and made very few mistakes when these older sets were new!

autolycus

Marshallmario said:

Borders here was for Hippies!  Barnes and Noble more for academics.
Anyone remember Walden Books or were they just midwest locations? 

There was a Waldenbooks in Mobile, AL, so definitely not just a mid-west thing. All of the Waldenbooks I went to were inside the mall itself and were often pretty cramped compared to a B&N or Borders.

I also vaguely remember Bookstop, which was a TX chain with stores in TX, CA, LA, and FL.

And of course BAM! (Books-a-Million) is still around.

SumoLego

The_Rancor said:

…that instructions have become too sluggish for the sake of simplicity.

There was also a high degree of guessing where the extra parts were supposed to go after the initial build.  I still occasionally mess up pieces when putting together my Black Monarch's Castle.  Those instructions require a keen eye.

lowlead

Marshallmario said:

...Anyone remember Walden Books or were they just midwest locations? 

Nope, there were plenty of Waldenbooks in New England when I was growing up.  A couple other brands like B. Dalton Booksellers and Lauriat's, too.  Then Borders came along, gave B&N a run for their money, but burned out and became Books A Million...or at least occupied their vacant locations.

SumoLego

The_Rancor said:

…‘well kids need it to be simpler’...

I have a father that can single-handedly assemble an automobile, but can't figure out how to answer a smartphone; and a son that re-writes code for modding his Nintendo Switch that can't use a can opener or empty a vacuum cleaner.

Lo1sJess

@SumoLego I’m with you my father can do all sorts of intricate work, build and lathe turn furniture, do videos and post on utube but needs someone else to attach a file or pic to email and my kid can’t empty the vacuum cleaner either.

pxchris

It's always a fun exercise building classic sets. It's almost inevitable with large-ish builds that I will miss a piece or two which I only discover I missed a couple steps later. But there is something rewarding in that experience with older instructions that you really do have to be careful and pay a lot of attention to what you're building. For the most part, I'm just fine with the complexity of each step in instructions of the 80s and 90s, but the one thing that I really do miss most is the parts list for the step. That to me is really the key to making sure you got all of the right parts placed in that step.

Istokg

When I was a child I got a USA Samsonite LEGO 717 Junior Constructor set.  Want to see the instructions... only 4 steps (lower left).   And the alternate builds were just shown as completed builds.  None of this spoon feeding instructions crap that we have today.... 😁

lowlead

Istokg said:

...None of this spoon feeding instructions crap that we have today.... 😁

^^ This.  It may come across as harsh to some, but I need only open up the two plastic totes of instructions I have preserved over the decades to find tiny little folded single page 'booklets' that illustrate a set being completed in 20 steps, if not less.

The contrast is stunning!  It's almost as if LEGO was pushing children to challenge themselves, whereas now....

Which brings me to another point:  Those two totes are HEAVY.  Instructions - especially for larger sets - add a lot of weight to a box as we all know.  More weight -> more fuel required to move -> more money.  God forbid they go back to truncated instructions, though - there would be 18+ temper tantrums everywhere.  Can't have that! ;)

To be fair, modern sets are more complex, granted.  But shorter instructions are worth exploring if you ask me.

560Heliport

^ and ^^  But... there are so many parts these days that are similar, various wegdes and slopes, many of which have "left" and "right" versions, or SNOT brackets that are "up" or "down", that the instructions need to be more detailed. There are a lot of building techniques now that just can't be portrayed with a dozen or more parts all added in one step. 
My issue with modern instructions is that there are so many sizes of booklets that it's difficult to store them in any coherent fashion. 

lowlead

560Heliport said:

...there are so many sizes of booklets that it's difficult to store them in any coherent fashion. 

pdf files store perfectly symmetrical ;)

560Heliport

lowlead said:

560Heliport said:

...there are so many sizes of booklets that it's difficult to store them in any coherent fashion. 

pdf files store perfectly symmetrical ;)

I don't own a computer! ;)