Goodbye Zellers--thanks for the 1000 pieces of frustration

Needing a few Lego blocks (I needed a customizable right angle to ensure that a railroad building I am working on is actually square) I headed off to my local Zellers, only to discover that it is closing.

Farewell Zellers.  You've gone the way of Towers, Bargain Harold's, The BiWay and other Canadian retailers.  I will miss you.  When I got back into model cars after years away from the hobby it was Zellers that had that provided that car.  It was Zellers that supplied my first collection of paints and paintbrushes.  Come to think of it, I have bought more than my share of hobby paraphernalia there.  Puzzles, board games, camping gear, sports equipment, stuff with the Maple Leaf logo on it--all of them were bought at Zellers.

My trip there was not really nostalgic, nor fruitful.  The 30% sale ensured that there was very little Lego left.  I could have bought a huge box of Microblocks (not to be confused with Nanoblocks, but bearing more than a passing resemblance to Lego) but I really only needed about a dozen blocks.  In fact, there was quite a bit missing from the store, and I expect most of it to be gone by the end of the weekend.

I, of course, was not immune to the lure of a good sale and I bought some stuff.  As concerns this blog, I bought myself a jigsaw puzzle--1000 pieces of pure frustration--okay, not exactly true.  I imagine pure puzzle frustration to be something like a 5000 piece puzzle entitled whiteout.  I have started the puzzle, and I guess I am about 50% done.

maybe 50% done

This is not one of the deluxe Japanese puzzles I wrote about earlier.  However, at less than four dollars, it isn't a bad timewaster.  I looked at some other jigsaw puzzles of trains when I was at the train shop the other day, so I am sure I was influenced by that.  I thought about buying one that day, but it really wasn't in the budget and the subject matter was good because it was about trains, but not specifically the subject I was looking for.  I wish my Zellers purchase had been a train picture, but this was the best of the lot.

The remarkable thing I find about doing puzzles is how quickly you learn to spot patterns and minor differences between pieces.  In a couple of days this skill has been sharpened considerably.  The other remarkable thing is how much time can disappear when you are doing a puzzle.  The other night I decided to put in a "couple of pieces" before I went to bed.  Those couple of pieces turned into more than and hour and a half.  Good thing I am a night owl.