Re: CHAT: LEGO and co. (was: Re: history of conlanging (aka Conlang influences,aka Lest darkness fall))

Paul Bennett wrote:
>
> Christophe>>>>>>
>
>         Well, I think I would behave the same if I had my LEGO with me instead
> of at my parents' apartment. :) But now my interest is more on computer
> games (console games to be exact. I'm a fan of Zelda on Nintendo 64. I
> already completely finished it (except maybe one or two unimportant
> secret places) but I still continue to play!). They are less versatile
> but games like Zelda 64 amaze me.
> <<<<<<
>
> 'Puter games I've tended to play recently:
> Civilisation II
> Civilisation: Call to Power
> Age of Empires
        I don't dislike them, but they tend to be too much war-like for me. I
prefer Sim City (which I used to have at those old times of the Amstrad
CPC 6128 :) ).

> Aliens vs Predator (always as the Predator!)
        Me too!

>
> >>>>>>
> >
> > My word, I never realised quite how much of an INTP life I'd actually lived,
> > until I began to reel off this list! <G>
> >
>
>         Does such a life work too with an INFP :) ? I never had any Robotix (in
> fact, I even wonder if we had them in France) and even if the name Zoid
> seems familiar to me, I can't remember what it is. But in fact, I was
> more in LEGO, because I could buy more and more pieces and still use the
> old ones. With the new LEGO Star Wars, I wonder what I could do! (maybe
> an Imperial Ship :) )
> <<<<<<
>
> I've gone right off of "regular" Lego recently, ever since things started
> getting silly.  If you haven't bought any Lego recently, I'd advise you go to
> the nearest huge toy store, and prepare to be dazzled.  While a lego-man with
> the face of the Voodoo Tomato TM (aka Darth Maul) preprinted on his head might
> be cool, it should be a collectors piece, not an everyday item.
>
        Oh I saw that! Could be interesting for my sentai stories though :).
But seriously it's true that LEGO has lost of its versatility (pieces
are becoming too complex to be used except the way the creators ask them
to be used to). It becomes more like Playmobile, and I'm not sure I like
it.

> Zoids were build-it-yourself kits of clockwork powered creatures (dinosaurs
> mainly, but also insects), with guns and cockpits.  Some of the big ones were
> battery powered instead of clockwork powered, and had flashing-things.
>
        I remember them now. My parents never accepted to buy me those for
Christmas. They were too expensive and I always had other choices that
fitted their budget better :) .

> >>>>>>
> > ObConlangingContent:
> > Some of my earliest attempts at linguistics were realising how similar bits of
> > the French and English were on Zoid instructions.
> >
>
>         Tell me more about it!
> <<<<<<
>
> After spending much time following instruction sheets which were sequences of
> pictures, with text below in both French and English, I noticed words and
> patterns that appeared in consistent contexts (with some simlar spellings) in
> each language.  Being naught but a wee lad, this had quite a large effect on me
> psychologically, and I started to slowly and painfully learn enough French to
> read how to build small plastic clockwork dinosaurs.  Soon afterwards, I started
> spotting the same thing about (and between) other languages, and then saw a TV
> program about Illiytch-Svytitch (spelling?) and it all fell into place.
>
        Oh I see! Amazing this parallelism. I remember that my first interest
in languages arose when I tried to read the list of ingredients on food
boxes and the notices in other languages than French and trying to
compare (I still do!). Or maybe it was just a symptom that I was already
interested in languages :) .

--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
        Prof. Holstlaan 4
        5656 AA Eindhoven
        The Netherlands

        Phone:  +31-40-27-45006
        E-mail: grandsir@natlab.research.philips.com