And now, from the "I'm surprised this wasn't anyone I dated in the past" department, and Suburban Chicago News...

Sudiegirl sez: You know that old saying, "The difference between men and boys is the size of their toys"? They had nothin' on this guy. Something tells me this guy smacks of the Comic Book Guy on "The Simpsons", hoarding Lego sets and not knowing what a real woman looks like. So with that in mind, hide your Lincoln Logs and read on...



Alleged Lego thief built empire a brick at a time

• Internet reseller: Linked to $200,000 in pilfered toy sets

The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. — Agents had to use a 20-foot truck to cart away the evidence from a suspect's house — mountains of Lego bricks. (Well, I'd justify it by saying that at least they weren't corpses, but that could have been the next step, right?)

William Swanberg, 40, of Reno, Nev., is accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of the colorful plastic building blocks. (What is it with guys and Legos? Is it a primordial building urge or something? I dated a guy with a Lego fixation, and Doug built a scale model of a nuclear submarine out of MegaBloks {same as Legos, just the American version}. I never got the fascination, but then again, guys don't get the same glazed look in their eyes about Barbie Case smell or potpourri. It must be a gender thing.)

Swanberg was indicted by a grand jury in Hillsboro, a Portland suburb, which charged him with stealing Lego sets from Target stores. (Which brings me to a question...you know the cute little Staffordshire Bull Terriers they use in their photo ads? Do they use them for security also? Just sic one of those guys on a potential Lego thief and I don't think you'll have many more problems...)

Target estimates Swanberg stole up to $200,000 worth of the brick sets pilfered from their stores in Oregon, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California. The Legos were resold on the Internet, officials said. (Ah, so he's a graduate of the "Brad Lohaus Institute for Internet Sales"...my Iowa readers and fellow Hawkeye fans will know the name. If not, check my archives for a reference...Brad's certainly a sterling example of stupidity. Makes me proud to be an English major and non-athlete, ya know?)

Attempts to reach Swanberg at a county jail, where he was being held on $250,000 bail, were unsuccessful. It was not known if he had retained an attorney. (If not, maybe he could have made one out of the Legos, or some of them come with little action figures...)

Swanberg is accused of switching the bar codes on Lego boxes, replacing an expensive one with a cheaper label, said Detective Troy Dolyniuk, a member of the Washington County fraud and identity theft enforcement team. (So it took planning...for little plastic things with lumps on the top that you can stick together, that's pretty ambitious. Wonder what he would have done for other items that draw interest to other demographic groups besides grade schoolers?)

Target officials contacted police after noticing the same pattern at their stores in the five western states. A Target security guard stopped Swanberg at a Portland-area store Nov. 17, after he bought 10 boxes of the Star Wars Millennium Falcon set. (What a sleaze! He was making a killing and soaking innocent people over the internet for Lego sets that they could have gotten cheaper in the store. That's it...hangin's too good for him. I'm serious. Little kids go without toys so this grownup can play Grand Wizier of all that is Lego.)

In his parked car, detectives found 56 of the Star Wars sets, valued at $99 each, as well as 27 other Lego sets. In a laptop found inside Swanberg's car, investigators also found the addresses of numerous Target stores in the Portland area, their locations carefully plotted on a mapping software. (You know, if this guy is good enough at planning to use mapping software to pull off a Lego heist, then he needs to get a real job like the rest of us. What a dork.)

Records of the Lego collector's Web site, Bricklink.Com, show that Swanberg has sold nearly $600,000 worth of Legos since 2002, said Dolyniuk. (OK, so what's he spent it on, besides more Legos, a laptop and mapping software? Obviously, not a girlfriend...)

Lego's Danish founder Ole Kirk Christiansen named the famous bricks in 1934 by fusing two Danish words, "leg" and "godt" meaning "play well." (Something this guy doesn't know how to do.)

Children across the world spend 5 billion hours every year playing with Lego bricks, available in 90 different colors, according to the company's Web site. (Yup...and I'm gonna marry one of those children in the spring.)

Sudiegirl's final word?

I like toys as much as the next person, but you know, it wouldn't even occur to me to do the things this guy did to make a buck. What a jerk. I hope they put him in a cell with someone who got ripped off from his collector's website, or else someone with an anger management problem whose wife left him for a Lego collector. "Let the punishment fit the crime..."

Sudiegirl, who prefers crayons and Magic Markers to Legos.