6613: Telephone Booth

A relic of a somewhat bygone era, the Telephone Booth used to be seen on every street corner.  Today they're found mostly in airports and bars, the rest being replaced by cell phones.  This 1986 set features a somewhat fancy setup, with a roof and seating.

I really like the design of the bench, very unique to use the inverted slopes as a base for the chair pieces.  Something I want to use in my own creations.

Maybe the dude is a bike messenger, getting a new assignment.  Probably a hipster on a fucking fixie.

The phone booth is yellow which is kinda weird, but I was thinking that maybe phone booths in Denmark are yellow.  I did a bit of research (via Google image search) and it would appear that Danish phone booths are Green.

6462: Ariel Recovery

Ted:  Frank!  Frank, what the hell are you doing!
Frank:  Recovering motorcycles.  There was a huge flood so I figured I'd grab a motorcycle.  The kid has been nagging that he wants one for his birthday.
Ted:  Frank we are supposed to be saving people, not recovering motorcycles so that you can get back at your ex.
Frank:  I just feel like this is the only way he'll ever respect me, if I show up one evening on a black three-wheeled motorcycle, and we ride off into the sunset.  I don't care if his mother has him every weekend, I'm going to take my son on a motorcycle ride!

Ted:  Frank, you need to let go.  He'll come around.  A few more years and you'll be able to go to the bar with him, talk about girls and watch some goddam baseball.
Frank:  I guess you're right.  I'll bring the chopper down so we can grab that scuba diver.  Fucking tourists.
Ted:  Fuckin' tourists.



Seriously can anyone explain why they are trying to save a motorcycle instead of flood victims???

9348: Community Minifigure Set

A new Lego education set was recently released, featuring members of the community.  Unlike most sets, it actually has an even number of men and women.

So this set is marketed as an educational product, displaying different roles that people play in the community.  Really glad that they included such an equal distribution of men and women.

In terms of gender roles, this is actually a really great set.  We have a female police officer and a female fire fighter, two roles that are generally seen as being male-dominated (fireman and policeman).  Even more interesting, the sole construction worker is also a woman.  Moving onto the hospital workers, the woman has a stethoscope and white scrubs, while the man does not.  Is the man a nurse, and the woman a doctor?  Again, defying gender roles.

So as you can see, this is a really great set if only because of the strides that the Lego Group made to defy gender roles.  A huge difference from the Paradisa and Belville sets of the 90s.

However, one interesting thing that I noticed (and this is probably due to the fact that female hair pieces block the other side of minifigure heads) is that every woman has an angry scowl on the reverse.

This is the only fault of the set, that it enforces the stereotype of women being upset and making such a face.  But I digress, this is one of the most progressive sets that the Lego Group has ever released.

Lego City, The ultimate Police State?

There are currently approximately 140 LEGO Police sets, from 1977 all the way up to the present.  Nearly every year featured a plethora of these sets.  Lego city houses nearly a dozen different police stations of various sizes and capabilities.  But why the need for such a large police force?

A common theme to these police stations is the inclusion of a helipad on the roof.  We see it time and time again, from this 1986 set up to the current 2011 police station below (note that this set may be missing a helicopter, but it does still include a helipad).

Why the need for so many helicopters?  The answer is that Lego City is a police state, with helicopters constantly flying around, monitoring the citizens, and instilling fear into their very acrylonitrile butadiene styrene bodies.  There are around as many helicopter sets as there are police station sets.  Is crime such an issue in Lego city that there needs to be such a large police force?

When will the oppression and fear-mongering in Lego city end?  Or will it just continue to deteriorate as the Lego police force becomes more invasive, setting up mobil monitoring stations and wiretapping innocent civilians?

The future, too, seems bleak, as the police move into space to further their oppression...