the vynsane asylum

Sometimes you just get the urge to put together a Lego set, so I pulled the new Hospital set out and put it together.
I try to manage my expectations for non-adult Modular sets. As prices and manufacturing costs rise, I know they’re trying to do more with less. And since these are designed to be played with, they usually look aesthetically pleasing from the front and are open on the back to access them better. So if it’s in my city display, it’s gotta be facing a certain way. A lot of the newer City sets are integrating the new road plates into their builds and this one is no exception.
There’s a little play area for kids on the first floor with a hinge to swing it out for more access/playability. The check in on the first floor also doubles as the cafeteria(?) with some sandwiches and drinks for sale while you wait in the waiting room. Second floor has a maternity room with a natal crib and a bed for mom.
The “corner” connecting the two “wings” of the hospital has a bathroom. A weird spacious bathroom(spacious by Lego standards) Is that something a lot of kids play act out? Taking a deuce at the hospital?
The other room on the second floor is a nifty MRI room
Up on the roof is some kind of garden with a couple chairs, and a helicopter pad.
It comes with a LOT of mini figs. One of them is a clown. I noticed he’s wearing a shirt that says VitaRush on it. As that is oddly specific, I looked it up. It’s some kind of made up energy drink in the Lego-verse that sponsors race car teams and shit. Haha.
I have the previous hospital set from five years ago. I’m trying to figure out a clever way to combine the two with like a walkway or something.

Tom Foolery wrote: ↑Thu Nov 02, 2023 12:26 pm The “corner” connecting the two “wings” of the hospital has a bathroom. A weird spacious bathroom(spacious by Lego standards) Is that something a lot of kids play act out? Taking a deuce at the hospital?

i think it originated from the focus groups that were the inception for LEGO Friends (basically all the houses in that theme had bathrooms) and have proliferated out to other themes from there. to be honest, as a kid i was always bothered by the lack of bathrooms in any houses, but kind of understood it as an "imagination item". sometimes they didn't have stairs to the second floor, which bothered me more!

It’s Black Friday time. Redeemed my Insider Points(formerly VIP points) and got the Lions’ Knight Castle set. Qualified for a couple freeb sets.

My Castle arrived already! Damn, that was fast.
And holy shit, is it a big heavy box. Not sure when I’ll get around to opening it up. Probably three years from now.
Every time I get a new set now, my wife’s go to query is “Where you gonna put it?”

Bricklink revealed the Third series finalists. The Harbormaster Office is my fave from this round. I also like the smaller Camping set. The Castle set didn’t make the final in the first round, so the guy just renamed it and resubmitted it.
Ambivalent about the Lost City set and a hard pass on the chocolate factory or whatever.

We officially started Christmas shopping yesterday by going to the Lego Store. We spent $130 on 6 sets plus Lego salt and pepper shakers. The only set for me was a Brick Headz Tusken Raider. In general, I don't really care for the Big Headz, but this one looked cool, and it was only $7. 2 sets were for my wife, 2 for one daughter, and the other one is getting the other set and the salt & pepper shaker.

Ahhhh…that special time of year when Lego offers tons of deals on sets that either “Backordered” or “Temporarily Out of Stock/Sold Out”

I called to complain because I bought that Castle set and they knocked 25% off a few days later, which was $100. They don’t price match their own promotions sadly, but they did give me 2200 extra Insider(formerly VIP) points.

I also got an Iron Man Armory set for 40% off.

And since it was one of the very few sets that are still actually available I got The Ghost from Rebels. It‘s coming with a couple small freeb sets.

I imagine they’ll have another cool GWP before the year is over so we will have to see if there’s anything not sold out by then that I would like. I’ve been wanting that Loop Coaster, but it’s out of stock.

The new Space sets for 2024 look pretty neat. I dig the updated minifigs spacesuits incorporating “classic” colors into them.
The last couple space subthemes were more ‘current’ like Mars exploration theme or the Lunar-centric theme from a couple years ago(which I still haven’t opened). But this one looks to be straight up futuristic outer space like the Classic Space used to be.

But where will I put it(them)?

My wife and daughter showed me a bunch of other sets, but didn't tell me about the space sets. They don't look bad, but I don't know if I'll get any of them.

I'm probably getting the Bat Wing and Batmobile from 1989 for Christmas. Once my oldest daughter finishes grad school and moves out, they will be on a shelf with the 1966 Batmobile.

Behold. Legopolis! Or something…I built a version on my dining room table before they get moved into the other room. Threw a few random cars in there so it wasn’t a total ghost town.

They’ve all been sitting in boxes so they are covered in dust. And they were dusty from sitting on a book case years before that. I may have to disassemble each set individually and clean them.

But this has been the bucket list since I bought the Firehouse set like twelve years ago. Never had the room to properly display them as intended. Until now.

And a bird’s eye view of the set up. Have a couple smaller City sets in there, like the old Sanctum to fill it out. The bases are sitting on cardboard so they are flush with the new road plates.

Moved the city off the dining room table(and away from the cats who love to pull random elements off sets and chew on them) and into the front room. I have several more City related sets like gas stations, burger joints, etc I can intersperse into the layout so this isn’t the final version. Also have the new Sanctum Sanctorum and Daily Bugle I can slot in somewhere.

I left a blank spot for a bus depot set that came out a few years ago. I also ran out of road plates, so I’ll have to invest in a few more. But there’s room for expansion. I’ve used about 60% of the surface.