Becoming a grave-robbing coot - Pt. 1

So what the fuck is up with LEGOs these days? By these days, I mean, "for the past decade or so," which I understand makes me sound like one of those demented old bastards waddling around in adult diapers and complaining about those crazy kids and their rap music. But seriously, LEGO, you guys have been sucking dick like it's your job. Recently, I came into possession of a totally fucking awesome 1996 model Exploriens Scorpion Detector.

U jelly?

It was just ten dollars at the local thrift store (it retailed for thirty-five new!) and instantly brought me back to the golden age of LEGOs. This was back when we were all slamming POGs, using Crossfire to banish our friends into a hell dimension, and drinking Capri Sun in the hopes that it might turn us into the T-1000. You know, the good old days.

Anyway, some old fuck had just died and his family found the LEGO set in his attic. They sent it to the local thrift store -- still in the original wrapping with all the mini-figs, I nearly came! -- and I snapped it up not a day later. I'm so glad you died, bro, because your LEGO set is totally baller, and now it's all mine! Still high off the glory of my latest purchase, I cracked open the vintage LEGO catalogue that came with my dead man's LEGOs...and that was when a dark and lasting depression came over me. As I poured over the images of the then-new '96 models -- The Wild West, The Royal Knights Castles, the MOTHERFUCKING AQUANAUTS -- I realized that the glory days of LEGOs were naught but a distant memory, succeeded by a tidal wave of runny shit.

And you thought your Hogwarts set was cool. Clearly, you were retarded as a child.

You may have been raised to believe differently, but Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Indiana Jones have no place in the realm of LEGOs. This company was once a bastion of originality, offering brand new worlds to create and explore. I suppose the great LEGO sell-out was inevitable, but as soon as these sets became movie tie-ins, they lost almost all of their original charm and magic. They became about replicating a world that was already preconceived in your mind and on a movie screen. They became simplified adaptations, childish representations of franchises long past their expiration dates.

LEGO's controversial foray into Holocaust narrative.

In recent years, LEGO has put out a few big sets based on the older themes to placate us die-hard fans, but their focus has never truly returned to original sets. I dunno, maybe I'll give a few of those a try, but it will never fully remedy the butthurt of my greatest childhood disappointment, that I never received the crown jewel of LEGO-dom, the one set that everyone lusted over:

The one that got away...

Clearly, my parents didn't love me enough. Now, I'm forced to poach vintage sets from the newly dead, like some perverted grave robber, hoping against hope that I might one day be reunited with my first love, that goddamn pirate ship.

Anyone else getting some full-on, misty-eyed nostalgia going? If so, leave a comment about your own favorite LEGO sets, or the big one that your parents never got you. Share the pain, spread it around...