"He is his father's son!"

I have no idea what Guba means by this.

So Rolly and I had a Lego weekend. More Lego than normal I mean. This was built up to over the past month by Rolly's interest in Lego Power Miners. Something that both his parents supported him in. This was a new Lego theme that was all Rolly's own. It has Rock Monsters that eat crystals and six different sets that build various crystal mining machines. And for your info "I don't want five!" doesn't mean what you would think. It means he wants six ("I don't want two!" was even more confusing). Rolly is still missing set number 8961 -The Crystal Sweeper. He enjoys the monsters, the vehicles, the web site, and particularly the designer's videos – which I admit are very entertaining.

So this leads us into our Lego weekend which is broken into two separate stories:

Part One: Rock Raiders

Surprisingly Lego Power Miners wasn't Lego's first foray into Lego Miners. Before the Power Miners there was the Rock Raiders. Nothing special about the Rock Raiders other than the mining machine, rock monsters (of a different type) and power crystals. Something familiar there.

Unfortunately in my collection I had no Rock Raiders Lego. A shock I know, but I do mostly specialize in Star Wars Lego. But my memory twinged and some searching lead to a long ago Christmas gift from Guba. A video game, yes. And even better, a Lego Rock Raiders video game. I won't go into the full details of Rolly's reaction to seeing this come up on the computer monitor but it was generally positive. Not exactly contained, but positive. We spent some time playing this yesterday. A time measured in hours.

Rolly was very clear in explaining our play style to Guba, "I showed daddy how to play it!" and it is pretty impressive how much of the game he can play unassisted. It is a relatively basic Real Time Strategy game with missions based on collecting crystals, finding lost miners and generating oxygen before you run out. Far more in depth than you would think for a kids game.

Part Two: Minifigs

One of the most popular aspects of Lego in recent years has been their MiniFigs. The tiny characters that use the Lego structures and vehicles that you may build. There are a lot of them in many different types. Several years ago I purchased a random box of Lego through Usedottawa and got a large box full of Lego. Inside the box was over 50 different minifigs along with all sorts of accessories. I combined this with a set of Lego horses and knights that my mother bought me at a garage sale (this was 10 years ago, not when I was a child). She was surprised at the enthusiasm this gift generated by an (theoretically - at least to her) adult.

This stash of minifigs was stored in a Zip-loc bag and stored away until someone was visiting who wanted to play with them – until 5 years ago... when it mysteriously vanished somewhere in the depths of the basement. To say I lamented about this loss occasionally would be a minor understatement. Guba winced and smacked me every time it came up. Even Coxxorz was well aware of my loss. Well aware.

A few minifigs: and accessories.
Well no more!

Yesterday I found them. Two Zip-loc bags full of minifigs. The only thing outshining my eyes as I cracked them open were Rolly's. He grabbed one of the bags and dumped it out on the carpet. There were two dragons, two sharks, two octopi, eleven horses, over 75 minifigs of multiple themes: city, space, underwater, Star Wars, knights and cowboys. And accessories: spears, rifles, walkie-talkies, oil cans, drills, axes and the hats – oh my the hats.

What was a three-year-old to do...

...but throw a minifig party.

The Emperor's Fancy Hat Party: at the Museum

Yes. The Emperor Palpatine (bottom-middle, seated) hosted a Fancy Hat Party at the museum. Four battle droids guarded the entrance (3 visible lower-left) and insisted on a fancy hat before you could come through the door. Then the door would open and the minifig would be unceremoniously tossed through the door. A stormtrooper armed with a bazooka ran security (top of stairs, upper-left) and reported to Darth Vader (upper-right). It was the party to end all parties and any minifig who was a minifig wanted to be there. And the hats! Helmets, tri-corners, diving helmets, officer's hats, cowls, alien masks, cowboy hats, mining helmets, and winged helms.

(Yes, this was all his idea, thanks very much)

It was a minifig party to end all parties, and as usually happens at these things, it did not end well.

Darth Vader brought the party to close when everything got out of hand and had a truck built to haul all of the offenders away. The Empire is not a place of freedoms.

All the offenders crammed into a truck: and their hats.

Please note the heavily armed Stormtrooper driving and Darth Vader at the back helping to shove everyone into the truck.