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J.P. Manalo
("skoota")
Favorite LEGO toys/themes: Mindstorms, Train, Fire and Police
My fascination with LEGO began... When I was four years old, and my mother gave me a LEGO set to build to keep me occupied whilst flying on a 747.
I once built... A system to remotely deliver M&M candies to my desk from the kitchen.
Someday I will build... A minifig-scale model of the ANZAC Bridge (It's a cable-stayed suspension bridge that crosses Sydney Harbour at Pyrmont, see http://www.maj.com/gallery/jpmanalo/SydneyScenic/anzac_bridge_pyrmont.jpg )
LEGO is great because... One can build pretty much *anything* out of LEGO!
LEGO fans are great because... ... they aren't afraid of their inner-child :-)
My favorite Non-LEGO Toys: Does my Shuttle XPC count as a toy? ;-)
My favorite Hobbies & Interests: LEGO (obviously), Firefighting, PC Gaming (mainly RTS), collecting Hard Rock Cafe pins, helping my fiancee collect Swarovski crystal pieces
My favorite Foods: Coffee, Butter Popcorn, Cashews, Starburst Fruit Chews (EXCEPT cherry flavour! I hate cherry-flavoured Starbursts!)
My favorite Movies & TV: Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill 1 and 2, all of The Matrix films, Ghost In The Shell, Avalon
My favorite Artists: Picasso, Brett Whiteley, my sister - E.M. Manalo
My favorite Music: Portishead, Massive Attack, Hooverphonic, Moloko, Lamb, Sneaker Pimps, Supreme Beings of Leisure, Garbage, The Donnas, Spiderbait, Little Birdy, Jet, Joydrop, Everything But The Girl, Ministry of Sound mixes, The Avalanches, Micatone, Sarah Blasko, Jamiroquai, (I like my music... I listen to almost everything!)
Words which best describe me: Hyperactive, Addict (caffiene), late-sleeper, gadget-man
I love it when... My wife plays LEGO with me :)
I hate it when... I have to put the LEGO away, and head off to work...
I can't seem to get enough... time & money... <*le_sigh*>
I always seem to have enough... ... work :(
I hope I always... retain my inner-child :)
I wish I could... ... have a much-larger dedicated LEGO room/space
I could never... get rid of my LEGO collection
I hope I never... have to get rid of my LEGO collection...
I wish I hadn't... wasted two years in a university course that I didn't quite finish...
In my craziest moments... I have laughed (and rolled all over the floor) non-stop for an hour...
If I were super-human... I'd bring equality to all people in the world. No hunger; wealth and resources for all to share; and importantly - LEGO bricks for everyone...
More & Less:
- more Equality & Sharing, less Selfishness
- more Decent Coffee, less Crap Coffee
- more Environmentally-friendly power generation, less Carbon emissions
Rules I try to live by:
- Always respect other people - regardless of race, creed, or religion.
- To deal with others in the same manner that I myself would like to be delt with.
- Take every opportunity as it comes - you never know when you'll get that opportunity again!
Additional comments:
Hi there!
Hope you're playing well... I thought I'd share a history of how I came to being here on LUGNET in this section...
LEGO has been a part of my life ever since I was a young child. When I was four years old, my dear mother purchased from the Duty Free store at Brisbane Airport a house for me to build during an overseas flight. I don't remember what the set was, but I do remember that it was the start of a fascination with LEGO that continued until I was thirteen years old.
As a child, I had a very large LEGO Town which featured (amongst other things) the 7710 Push train, and (eventually) the Airport Monorail. I remember spending hours rebuilding my Town over and over again as a child whilst listening to old rock & roll tunes... (Don't ask me why, but as a kid, I loved listening to 60's rock and roll music during the 80's....)
When I turned thirteen, my family moved home, and as such my LEGO was packed away into boxes. At out new home, I didn't take much of the LEGO out of the boxes, and so began my Dark Age :-(
During my Dark Age, I would occassionally look at my LEGO and think "That's a relic of my childhood - I won't be playing with that anymore..." How wrong was I!
I started working part-time when I was eighteen years old for a very well-known Australian electronics retail chain, to help me out during my days at university. This chain started selling MindStorms sets in 1999. I was absolutely facinated, as robotics was an interest of mine at the time.
One of the very difficult parts of being a Hobby-Roboticist is the actual construction of the Robots. The LEGO MindStorms sets revolutionised all of that! By removing the difficulties with construction, MindStorms allowed me to explore all the various programming possibilities. In any case, I reckon it's so much easier to find and buy LEGO parts than it is to obtain the various components required to construct a non-LEGO robot...
Working for the electronics retail chain allowed me purchase the MindStorms sets at special staff prices. As well as the 9747 Robotics Development Kit, I also managed to get myself a copy of the 9735 Robotics Discovery set (which featured the short-lived Scout), and a copy of both the 9748 Droid Development Kit and the 9754 Dark Side Development Kit.
These kits, as well as other sets I purchased from my then-work, allowed me to amass a significant amount of LEGO Technic components. I managed to build every robot shown in the instruction manuals at least once.
After a while, I realised that the other LEGO themes hadn't disappeared and that now that I earned a little bit of money on my own, I could afford to buy LEGO sets that my parents couldn't get for me as a child. It was also at about this time, that I discovered the online LEGO community, and realised that LEGO was not only for kids!
And so my interest in LEGO was re-kindled... I purchased the 10001 Metroliner re-release from LEGO Shop@Home, and began my affair with LEGO Trains once more. I dragged out my old LEGO sets from storage. This time there is no LEGO town due to space constraints in my current abode - but I plan on one day building a significant LEGO town.
I discovered BrickLink a few years ago, and only recently (2005) took the plunge to become a seller on BrickLink to sell some of the excess LEGO I have managed to amass.
In more recent times, I have joined the Sydney LEGO Train Club, where I have been able to meet with other AFOLs who share the same interest and passion that I have with LEGO bricks. :)
When I first discovered the online LEGO Community, I guess I was a bit of a lurker at first, as I didn't see any reason for me to get involved online. However, since I now spend a lot of time online looking at LEGO, I thought it's about time that I became a LUGNET member, and became a little bit more active in the LEGO Community.
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