Wired Cola

Gizmodo has a video and photo tour of Lego's internal collection of almost every set they ever made.

It's just glorious. Like the narrator, there were some sets there where the simple sight of them brought me back to my childhood in a remarkably immediate way.

My parents bought me the yellow castle set they show in the video and photos, and while I knew it was an early set, I didn't realize it was the first Lego castle, or how iconic it was in the minds of others. A little Googling turns up the fact that this set had several not-seen-since pieces, including a variation on the plastic used to make the swords, and some of the visor colours. By the details I have gleaned about the set's release date, this was probably in 1981, and my parents probably spent way more money on me than I realized that Christmas!

So I guess it's too bad in retrospect that I went and had fun playing with that set (including breaking almost all of the swords, purely by accident) instead of keeping it as a precious heirloom.

No, screw that. Experiences are worth more than objects. It's a principle I live by, however inconsistently. Use things, don't collect them. If you need a pristine version that badly, you can buy it off of eBay later, and put it beside your Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card.

Now I just have to explain away my extensive pile of Atari 2600 cartridges, plus the tub of Lego in my attic.