I haven’t had time in a while to keep up with my hobbies. but i’ve been thinking about them so much these past few days, so i need to get it out of my system for now until i can indulge myself in it later.
comic books
i got into comic books when i was about 11. i found a great comic book store and i went nuts. it mushroomed from there. basically all my expendible cash went to comic books (or cards) at the expense of my stomach and my wardrobe. i haven’t bought one in a looooong time. i have no idea how long. but at least more than a year and a half. back in my prime comic book prime, i was buying as many as probably 5 monthly titles. that was when my comic store sold them for us cover with no tax. it’s like saving 40% each time. but with skyrocketing prices and that store going bankrupt, comic books have taken a bigger hit on my wallet. i was worn down to just one monthly title, but even then it’s almost five bucks an ish. and seven bucks each if i wanted to get into marvel knights or any of the other popular books. when you go from fanboy (to the extent my dollar would take me) to one monthly title, you quickly lose interest in the comic book world. i couldn’t even afford to buy wizard, the magazine source for comic books. i fell out of the loop and i haven’t been able to get back in since. i’ve missed the last three canadian comic book expos, even after swearing to myself that i would go to the one in mississauga. i can’t beleive i missed it. such pain. but maybe all is not lost for me. with a full-time geek job in my future a few years down the road, hopefully i’ll be able to get maybe a dozen or so titles reserved for me each month at my local comic store. it’s definately something that i’ll need to save up for and be really patient, but what can i say? i really like comics. come boxing day, hopefully i’ll be able to get my back-issue on. excelsior webheads!
videogames
when i was small, i didn’t get to play that many videogames. it would always be a treat to visit my friends and play on their systems. it was great, though i’m afraid i developed quite a taste for it. often, on the way home from grade school, at the stc stopover, the friends and i would mallrat around and play some video games. remember how many quarters it took to beat that stupid xmen side scrolling game? then after a few summer jobs and saved up newyears/birthday monies, i got my first system that i could actually play in the comfort of my own home. the sega nomad! it was the most amazing, most advanced piece of console gaming hardware ever. it was full color 16-bit handheld power centuries before the gameboy advance was ever conceived. it could play the entire sega genesis library (while 7 years later gba users twiddle their thumbs waiting for the next snes port to come out), had six gaming buttons (to gba’s 4), could hook up to a tv screen (you gotta buy the gc adaptor for the gba for this, which isn’t even out dammit!) and was backlit (haha, yeah right like the gba has this… squint squint)! ah i had so many great games, and all at discount prices because the genesis was a dying console. but what a great investment, no doubt. but i think it was in grade nine (uh… 5-6 years ago) when a marketing campaign started… for final fantasy vii! i’m a loser who had never played any of the other ff games (i never had a snes or a gb (until pokemon came out, haha), i had a sega!) it was then when i realized i needed to mature into the 32-bit man i would need to become to survive in this world. i quickly got off my butt and traded in my nomad for a discount on a playstation system, oh man i had no money after that day (but i now regret giving up the nomad for such a small discount… i would still play it now if i still had it! i had such good games! waaah! i miss it!). and those who know me know what happened. my love for videogames exploded. it was pretty intense. i had a good thirty games and wasted away all of my youth infront of that grey box. then you know what happened? my good buddy who sat infront of me in grade 12 physics told me that the sega dreamcast was 100 bucks off at a doorcrasher sale one saturday morning at toys r us! so what do i do? you know it. i stand out in the cold harsh winter morning at 6am until opening time with toe and i drain my bank account once again. but can i complain? although i felt terrible spending all my personal spending money i definately don’t regret it now. the dreamcast was a much better investment looking back today, 60 games and so many hours of enjoyment that my little white box has give me and my friends (virtua tennis!). heck, i just played 14 hours in the past week every day after work. easily the best console made so far. i’m totally impressed with how well getting a dc turned out. if you were around back in the day, you would have remembered me crying for months when the dc died and went out of business last march! oh well, it was well worth my hard work and earned money. and where are we now? yesterday i spend the entire night thinking about the nintendo gamecube. it’s christmas time and videogame advertising is probably at its highest. combine that with my eternal lonliness here in the saugs. it makes me dream of videogames and the consoles i don’t have. and the system with the most potential to me right now is easily the GCN. i want it so bad. but alas, no money and i have too many videogames as it is (noticed that by now?). huff… huff… okay, i’ll sum this up: i have a lot of videogames… and i want a lot more! what’s next?
sport cards
haha, i spent a lot of money on cards and i don’t think i’ll spend much more. i could put them all up on ebay and make maybe 200 bucks tops, but i guess i’d probably rather keep them instead. for my kids or something.
gagets
reading the internet so frequently and being such a nerd has made your typical gadget freak. i’m a tech spec whore, assimilating gigabytes of information on all the latest trends and technolgies that sadly i can’t afford. but new technology has been my cashdraining hobby of late. i got new surround sound speakers, a handful of dvds, a dvd player all in the past 2 months. which is quite a bit for me when i’m trying to save money to live off of. i’m such a hypocrite: *save money, save money!* *quietly looks around in inconspicuous manner as to not draw attention to me dropping seven bills on a new camera* but hey, i’m a happy hypocrite with lots of gadgets!
sports
not much to talk about here. since high school, i haven’t played much of anything. tried to play a bit of bball, but you know how busy university/work life is. parking lot hockey at my house for christmas? anyone? my interest in sports is feigning (leafs stunk until just recently, raps suck, jays will always suck, not white enough to get into arena hockey or lacrosse). only watching tv on friday nights and saturday doesn’t help an information junkie like myself either. who knew gannon was having such a blowout season? not me. but i’m doing what i can to save my love of sports. going to see jordan play on sunday, then going to see sh-obe the week after that. i’ll keep you posted.
hiyo.org
hiyo.org is still searching for its identity on the web, but as of late, it’s pretty much just my personal site with a bit of other stuff sitting around on the same server. i’ve been thinking of some new personal junk to put up to emphasize this. reading on the internet about my hobbies just makes me want to write about them even more. i’ll probably take the couple hours that i need to convert this from blogger to movable type. using so many different interfaces is too n00b for me. anyone want space on hiyo.org? tell me!
hunnies
how could i forget this topic? i read through my first few months on weblogging last week when i didn’t even know what weblogging or blogger was. in basically every post i talked about all the fine ladies i saw on the way to and from work/school when i was in my last year of highschool. i was totally obsessed with hunnies, and now my weblog hardly talks about them at all. you see what uw and the saugs does to you? i’ve become a completely different person! and now that dark angel isn’t on tv anymore, the only hunnie intake i ever get now is surfing e/n sites and smallville on tuesdays! i haven’t even seen an episode of pmk in months! that’s an incredible drop for where i was two years ago. i’m still thinking about how to solve this. it probably needs a few more months of serious thought, or a transfer to a different school.
music
before university, i listened to a lot of radio, downloaded a lot of mp3s and watched a lot of muchmusic. after university, those things were pretty much cut down to next to nothing. i’ve upped my music quotient a bit, having nothing else to do in the saugs, but come january i’ll be back where i started, except with high speed, bandwidth limit free internet. i’ll try to get back on track with pop culture then if i don’t have to study.
movies
not much to say here either. i’ve been lucky to have been to four or five movies these past few months but it’s hard to get out to see a movie when you’re stuck here in the saugs. you know, all my friends went to see eight-mile without me! now i’m going to have to rent it. but star trek! star trek! if only wesley wasn’t cut from the production reel! star trek! i’m not sure if that’s supposed be a bigger hype that lotr or not, but i doubt it huh? oh well.
i think i’ve covered all of my current major interests. it’s great to be alive!