50 Cents Cheaper than the Real Thing: Maybe this'll be a weekly thing

This is a two part blahg!

Part I

So good news is that I started getting work again. Work is money and money is happy so that sorta stuff works out well.

Bad news is that I started getting work again, and this particular work is sort of a black hole of questionable value, and work means not really looking for better work, which is arguably worse at this juncture than no work at all. But hey, the rent monster needs to be fed so I can't complain for the time being.

More work also means less sitting and thinking and writing those things down. So less of these. Which, depending on your opinion, is good or bad. It's a bit of a wash, really.

Either way, I finally [finally] got that thing in the mail I'd mentioned a few posts back, and it got me pretty excited. Yeah, if you were holding your breath in anticipation, it's Lego-related [I'm not really this monomaniacal in real life, honest]. Here's a picture of the box:

Yes, nerd, it's a Lego set.

It was ordered through the DesignByMe system that Lego is doing, whereby you download a sorta CAD-like program [is CAD a thing? I have no idea] and make a set in there, and then hit "Print" and Boom, a set shows up at your door.

Finally some recognition.

Now, before I go on, this system is prohibitively expensive. It's verging on crazy-talk. For reals. But I was drunk on post-NY excitement, fully entrenched in Bricktober, and rolling in a pre-cash-drought cash-boom, so I decided to order a set. One set. A set that the Lego people would never make because it's too macabre or whatever.


Back of the box, or, why I am not a graphic designer.

I went with a graveyard. That's unique, right? Wait, they've made a Lego graveyard already? Crumb-bum.

Either way, that fancy box art that you also ~~get to~~ have to design is just a sleeve for a slightly boring box containing the bag of pieces you picked. Apparently it is hand-picked, sorted, counted and recounted by Danish elves.

Like Keebler.

Part of the fun of the whole thing was that they also printed out the instructions, so even your stupidest idea comes to your door as a fully-realized Lego set, indistinguishable from other, cheaper and infinitely better-designed store-bought sets. But I get stuck with this zinger:

Gahg! Whatever. The bag was missing a damn piece too! If I were an angrier man with higher self-confidence, I'd complain. But I'm not so I won't.


That's me and Dree in Lego. My life is complete.

I guess I was too busy taking pictures of the box to take a picture of the full finished set, but it's... a cemetery. I'm endlessly pleased with my own cleverness in the design of the thing, but I'm not gonna go into details.


"It's a letter from OSAP. Time to pay up, chump."

Part II: Advents

There's only one more day 'till it's a month until Christmas, so that's pretty exciting, right!? Here's what you've missed in the calendar:

Day 17 and 18, hot Santa porn.

And Rudolph dropped the soap and I thought, "Ho ho ho, let's do this."

I mean... what? I love this because it's so baffling. I have no idea what the hell they were thinking, but I'm happy they did.

Day 19 and 21, leading up to something better, I hope.