Happy Hanukkah! I built my own menorah out of Lego, and will use Lego people as the candles. Is it traditional? No. But Batman is the centerpiece, so I think God would approve.
If you’ve read these blogs thoroughly, you’ll know I’m half-Jewish. My father is Jewish and still attends services Friday nights. My mother was a Christian Sunday School teacher for most of her life. And they loved each other, and made it work. So I’m the best of both worlds! My parents never forced my brother or me into one religion or the other. Instead, they answered questions if we had them, and then let us figure things out on our own. My beliefs were forged from that and lead to the creation of “Dan Bergstein’s Life Path System of Living.” The first four rules of “Dan Bergstein’s Life Path System of Living” are as follows:
Rule 1: Be Good.
Rule 2: Be Humble. (Which is difficult because I’m so very pretty.)
Rule 3: Treat all people with respect and kindness, even if you’re feeling cranky.
Rule 4: Don’t just assume you know karate.
These rules have treated me well in life.
Because I didn’t have a menorah, and because counting things via Lego is how I spend most of December, I decided to build one. My girlfriend helped, because it took some time to find all the pieces in my Lego bucket. I’m very pleased with the end result.
And now you ask, “Since you’re half-Jewish, are you only gonna ‘light’ four of them candles?”
No. That’s stupid. I don’t stop my countdown to the birth of Jesus on Day 12.
And then you say, “You shouldn’t be playing with them toys, nerd.” And then I nearly forget Rule 4 of “Dan Bergstein’s Life Path System of Living.”
Bee Girl is the first candle, and I’m sure there’s a Maccabees/Bee Girl joke to be made, but I’m not sure what the joke is. Thoughts?
Yesterday’s Lego calendar item was confusing but interesting. Today’s item is…
A table?
Wait…That’s no table. I don’t think that’s a table at all! I think this is a very, very tiny Ewok Village Playset!
Is that what this is? Is this an Ewok Village Playset?
If it were just a table, why would it have those nuggest on top? If you think to yourself, “This is an Ewok playset,” then that’s what you’ll see!
What a weird little thing this turned out to be. Growing up, I was a big fan of playsets. I had Castle Greyskull, which was perhaps the greatest playset ever made, and I even remember owning a Dagobah playset, complete with foam quicksand area and Yoda figure.
Playsets were the highlight in any bedroom. To have a playset was to play God! You could put Luke Skywalker in He-Man’s living room and Cobra Commander could spend some time in Barbie’s Dream House. They were an amazing part of the toy experience, but also a pricey one. You don’t see as many playsets on shelves these days. I think part of the problem is the cost. A while back I read an article on oil prices and how it relates to toy manufactring. The cost of plastic has gone up, which means it’s more difficult, if not impossible, to make a profit with a plastic playset.
I have dreams of one day creating and selling my own playset — a playset that would work with a variety of action figures and dolls, a playset with lots of secret doors and fun/funny rooms, a playset in which The Littlest Pet Shop rodents could hang out with Thor in a non-gender-specific setting that would be futuristic/fantasy/realistic/whimsical. There would be attics and ladders and a plastic pond and a bridge and a rocket launch pad and a dragon’s nest and a chimney with secrets and a kitchen and a forest and a cardboard mountain where the warlock lives! I could call it Thunderville. It would be rad.
But for now, I have an Ewok playset that fits in my mouth, and I love it.
Day 7 Rating: 3.8 out of 5 (Points added for being so tiny and weird.)
This blog is brought to you by PowerPencils.com! While I can’t make big plastic playsets, I can make magic pencils! These pencils can summon dragons, travel through time, find treasure, and some even talk to goblins!
(Robot Snowman put the Cosmic Snow Cone up high, where Frisco couldn’t reach it.)
