I finally figured something out.
Santa has visited early this year, and has brought a Lego Advent calendar. There are 24 little numbered doors, each containing a dime bag of Legos. There’s a new toy or doodad to build every day, which, in turn, builds anticipation for Christmas.
I will build these and attempt to discern what they are.
December 14: Lantern Girl
This is Lantern Girl. This is the “City” version of the Lego Advent calendar, and there are few things more urban than someone wandering around with an enormous lantern. But more importantly, I have figured something out about modern Legos: I don’t think this is a grownup.
On December 2, when discussing the Postal Nerd, I specifically said, “One might be tempted to consider this a child, but he is of the exact same height and build as every other Lego adult, which makes the propeller hat more odd,” and I was wrong. When building Lantern Girl, I tried to estimate the size of lantern at full scale, based on the average height of a woman and this lantern being about 70% of that, but noticed that her legs were so small, she couldn’t even carry the lantern without it dragging on the ground. Upon examination, her legs are about 50 thou shorter than grownup legs, and they’re not even articulated. I then looked back at Postal Nerd, and it’s the same for him (but not Embarrassed Bellhop with a Pastry or Punk Rock Curler—they have grownup legs). I have issued a retraction on Postal Nerd, and now know that children exist in the Legoverse.
Rating
Fun ★★★☆☆
I was never much of a lantern guy, but hey, do your thing.
Ease of Build ★★★★★
The people are easy to build.
Comprehensibility ★★★★☆
Do lanterns of this tremendous size actually exist? Well, technically, we don’t how how tall this child is, so who’s to say? If there was a handheld lantern that was 3 to 4ft tall, and it was filled with a proportional amount of pressurized white gas, could a kid actually carry it around with one hand? Again, I guess it depends on the kid. Do I understand why someone would walk around a city with a lantern at all? Not really. Maybe a ghost tour, although she’s not really dressed for that. Nor is she dressed as a nineteenth century ghost, which is (statistically speaking) when most lantern ghosts are from. I don’t really get it, but compared to The Egg of Kotopoulo, this makes four star’s worth of sense.
Extra Parts ★☆☆☆☆
This lone round thing wouldn’t be interesting even if it was a color other than beige.
Overall ★★★★☆
Today, I’m giving MYSELF a 4-star rating for resolving the whole “child legs” issue, even though I’m as embarrassed as a bellhop for not figuring it out the first time around. I’m often reminded of Taken, a film that I enjoy primarily for Liam Neeson’s attempted American accent, which answers the question, “What would Mr. Ed sound like if he grew up in Queens?” At one point in the movie, he’s in France, and his Frenchly-named old pal Jean-Claude pulls a gun on him. Of course, Liam Neeson expected that (he has a very particular set of skills), and shows Jean-Claude that he had already removed the bullets from his gun. He then says, in a completely natural and believable American accent, “That’s what happens when you sit behind a desk. You forget things. Like the weight in the hand of a gun that’s loaded and one that’s not.” I’ve apparently been sitting behind a desk for too long. I forgot the length of an adult Lego person’s leg, or that they’re supposed to bend. I did eventually figure it out though, and am fortunate to be able to talk about it without sounding like Tommy Wisseau doing an impression of Joe Pesci.
