Friday night at the LEGO store

After a day of setting up LEGO displays, Friday night is the reward. At most conventions -- the LEGO store is open after hours, exclusively for adult fans of LEGO, who get to purchase scratch and dent sets and get a discount based on how much they purchase.

For those who don't have a retail store in their area, the layout is fairly straightforward. Sets and LEGO gear ring the exterior of the store, organized by theme and item. The lights in the store represent the tube-d underside of a standard LEGO brick. It's a toy store designed by Apple enthusiasts.

The back wall of the store is a Pick-A-Brick wall -- where LEGO elements can be bought by the cupful. It's hard not to be drawn to this wall, each plastic, circular opening is filled with a LEGO piece of one color, meaning the entire wall is a rainbow.

Adult fans are allowed in by random drawing, your colored slip of power corresponding to the order in which you can enter the store. I pulled yellow, the final of five colors. However, I was still able to snag a LEGO Guggenheim Set and a LEGO Smart car. Throw in a Rock Monster keychain and I had a bag of pure impulse buys, selected for completely aesthetic reasons.

So faced with a Death Star at half-price, think you'd have the willpower to resist? I did, but only because I've got a backlog of sets and projects at home. That, and I'd need a few weeks to put together the iconic battlestar.