My post about downscaling my gaming habit got me thinking about my other hobbies, some of the unfortunate side effects they cause, and what to do about them. (And holy shit, did I file this under enough categories, or what?)

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate any of my hobbies; I’m just not pleased that I have far too many of them. In my neverending quest to become a somewhat decent human being, I do understand that sometimes the most innocuous hobbies can cause problems with one’s life. The main issue is that a majority of my hobbies revolve around acquiring some kind of physical object, such as an action figure, building set, video game, book, et cetera. As such, this immediately creates two problems: price and space. You need money to buy said item, and a place in which to display or store it. Both of these are serious issues, and even worse, they sometimes compound one another! I’m not affluent (or even upper middle class) by any stretch of the imagination, so indulging in my hobbies tends to have financial ramifications down the line that I’m not always prepared for. So what’s a man to do?

Here’s a rundown of my various hobbies, and the problems I’m running into while keeping up with them. Aside from giving you an insight into my madness, it’ll help me keep track of this stuff later on. I should point out that this stuff was all acquired over the course of a decade or two; I certainly don’t have the cash to acquire massive quantities of stuff in a short period of time!

• LEGO®. This one gives no quarter; the entire premise of being a LEGO® fan is based on the building sets themselves. You need to own at least a few in order to get involved! The upshot is that once you’ve got a good amount of bricks, you can create just about anything you want. You can display an official model for a while, then if you get tired of it, rebuild it into something else. It’s not like a collectible game, where you’re absolutely required to spend money on a regular basis just to stay competitive! (That’s the exact reason why I gave up on playing Magic: The Gathering long ago, and Axis & Allies Miniatures more recently.) With my LEGO® addiction, space has become my biggest challenge. I’ve completely run out of room to display my sets (mainly Star Wars ships), so I’ve been forced to disassemble many of them.

• Star Trek. The beloved science fiction franchise spans over forty years of history, twenty-nine seasons of television, and eleven films, not to mention all of the countless merchandising and other goodies. The television shows and films are most important to me; I own all of the films (save the newest one, which isn’t available on disc yet, and Star Trek V, which is crap), but only five of the twenty-nine seasons. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, and that’s not going to be cheap. Granted, Voyager and the first two seasons of Enterprise can wait until the very end, but I’ve still got a majority of the original series, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine to pick up.
• Star Wars. The core of this franchise is the films, and there’s not many of those; that made collecting them quite easy. I also enjoy reading some of the novels, and collecting the artbooks and other reference tomes. However, when it comes to Star Wars action figures…therein lies the rub. Even casual fans of the franchise know how addicting that can be, and I’m no different. I used to display them in my office at work (gotta be the stereotypical IT department, and all), but since we moved to a new location, I now have a cubicle rather than an office. Thus, I no longer have a door that I can lock. I don’t think anyone would pilfer or otherwise screw with my collection, but why not err on the side of caution? Since I’ve got nowhere else to put them, though, they now sit in a box in my apartment complex storage space.
• Model railroads. While this is one of my most enjoyed hobbies, it’s sadly one of the most neglected, simply to due to the high cost. I’m “over the hump,” as it were; the most expensive pieces of my layout were the tracks, locomotives, and control system. However, I’ve still got landscaping materials to buy, plus model cars and tiny little people. Those aren’t cheap! If I don’t finish my layout this summer, I’ve got a feeling it will be indefinitely shelved.
• Video games. Ouch. This one’s definitely the 800-pound gorilla in the room, since I play a lot of games. They’ve never been cheap, and with more and more titles coming out all the time, with more platforms competing for market share, costs can add up insanely fast. Part of this can be alleviated by renting games, but that creates two more problems. One, renting from chains like Blockbuster is a complete ripoff; the rental price is too high, and you’ve only got about five days to play! Two, even if you use a much better system like GameFly, now you run into the subscription problem. Here, you’re paying a flat fee per month to rent a certain number of titles (GameFly wisely offers a tiered system), but what if there’s a few months where nothing’s coming out, or there isn’t anything you’re interested in playing? Now you’re literally spending money on nothing. As far as older titles are concerned, emulation’s a quick solution, but legal issues aside, that doesn’t compare to playing original games on original hardware. It just doesn’t! (I keep a 13″ CRT TV in my room specifically for retrogaming, fer crissake.) I’ve focused much of my attention on my NES collection, but those still take up space. Right now, I’m using the ol’ cardboard-boxes-in-the-closet method, save for a small stack of cartridges I’m actively playing. Those get a place of honor on my desk. Classy.
• Heavy metal. You’d think that simply enjoying listening to music wouldn’t cost too much, since you don’t have to pay to use your ears. And as far as acquiring music goes, that’s inexpensive, too, especially in this day and age of iTunes. Too bad I’m one of those old-fashioned fuckers who enjoys owning actual physical copies of his media! The backlog of discs I still want to buy would probably equal the down payment on a small house. Eesh. My subscriptions to Decibel magazine and the Requiem Metal Podcast have exacerbated this addiction by getting me into many new bands.
• Books. Normally, this isn’t a problem, as we have libraries for all of our reading needs. However, some of the licensed series I enjoy (particularly Star Trek novels) have little to no library presence. Translation: if you want to read it, you’d better buy it, and I’ve bitched about the ridiculous cost of paperbacks before. Even though the recent Star Trek film has breathed new life into the franchise, the books are still a relatively niche commodity. The Star Trek section at my local bookstores just keeps shrinking over time, and when new novels come out, you really need to nab them within a week or so of release, else you run the risk of missing them. Then, of course, there’s the fact that eventually, my bookshelves at home start to get very crowded.
• Manga. Since the stories I enjoy only come out every few months, this one’s at the bottom of the problem pile. Prices are on the rise, though, and I read much of my manga well in advance via scanlations. I buy the official collected English editions later on. If the prices get more annoying, I may dump the printed versions, and just stick to reading them online. And before you bitch at me about the “illegality” of scanlations, they’re not technically illegal, and publishers often use them as a way to gauge interest in localizing new series! Eat me.

As you can see, the solution to many of these issues falls under the usual purview of “stop buying shit.” Which, as it turns out, is something I’m actively working on, especially in the video game realm. I know that sooner or later I’m going to have to no choice but to severely scale back or ditch a few hobbies, but them’s the breaks. It’s happened before (like when I ditched that filthy comic book collectin’ habit), and I’d like to think I’m a better person for it. Life is more than just random collections.

It’s apparently common knowledge that two of the nation’s largest bookstores, Borders and Barnes & Noble, are in financial trouble. While both stores are still functioning, it would be a dark day indeed if either of those two stores went out of business.

I buy almost all of my books from Borders, simply because they offer a better discount program than B&N. However, I’m not averse to shopping at B&N, especially since they sometimes carry items that Borders does not. But if one of those stores went out of business…then the other would have no longer have a reason to one-up the competition with great sales, discount programs, and so on. The exact same thing happened when Circuit City went under; they were in a running battle with Best Buy as far as sales were concerned, and I’ve noticed Best Buy’s discounts have waned since CC went the way of the dodo.

It would be even worse if both B&N and Borders went under. Then, what option is left to us? Amazon‘s great, but not if you only want to buy one book. After shipping’s factored in, you’re going to end up paying more than MSRP! (Obviously, this doesn’t apply to coffee table books and the like where you can often use their “Free Super Saver Shipping” offer.) Sure, you could solve this issue by ordering multiple books, but you shouldn’t have to do that in the first place. When a new book comes out that I want to pick up, I don’t want to feel pressured into buying a few more along with it. Besides, you can only read one book at a time, at least until we’ve evolved an extra pair of eyes. Last but not least, if brick-and-mortar bookstores disappeared…what would be Amazon’s incentive to keep their prices low? It’s the CC/BB problem all over again.

Paying $10+ shipped for a measly paperback had better not become a reality in the near future. Not only that, the loss of physical stores means impulse book purchases will dry up, too. Nothing beats just nabbing a random book at the bookstore, taking it home, and reading it. Let’s hope Borders and B&N get back into the black, otherwise we’re all in trouble.

Someone needs to defang the current craze of vampire fiction, and do it fast. Every time I walk into a bookstore, that bullshit is everywhere.

Largely thanks to Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, we’ve seen a massive explosion in books that cater to young adults (primarily women) featuring vampires, werewolves, and other such supernatural creatures in a contemporary setting. While that doesn’t seem too bad on the surface, this craze is rife with serious problems.

First and foremost is that a majority of the writers…well…can’t write. Stephen King has rightfully derided Meyer on this exact point. It’s fluff fiction, and the cookie-cutter plots and characters are showcases thereof. Furthermore, the characters in these books are appallingly one-dimensional. We’ve got angsty, emo teens or young adults…some of whom just happen to be monsters. But do any of these people do what monsters are supposed to do, which is terrorize and rule the human filth? Like I’ve said before…no. They wimp out with their own personal problems and petty romances. It’s the same thing, recycled over and over.

Hell, most of the books’ covers are the same, too! Far too many have the same trendy-looking chick on the cover, either sporting a bare midriff (often tattooed), or her lower back, complete with the ol’ tramp stamp. You’d think that the art departments would try to come up with something a bit more original, but when your plots are the same as six hundred and eighty-two other books out there, I guess the cover art doesn’t matter.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do read my share of pulp fiction, or “airport novels” as I like to refer to them. However, I’m not obsessed with the stuff, and I do like to broaden my horizons by reading across multiple genres, classic literature, and even (gasp!) non-fiction. The current craze of shitty vampire literature (let’s call it “shiterature” from now on) just has to stop. If I see one more emo vampire, I’m going to spew bile.

Proponents of this crap may try to stake their last defense on the fact that at least these books are getting more young people to read. Sure…but so did the Harry Potter series, and at least those are well-written.

I love to read, and I also enjoy collecting my favorite series and authors’ novels. However, unlike most collectors, I don’t like hardcover editions of books. I vastly prefer paperbacks; they’re cheaper, fit better on my shelf, and are easier to just grab and throw in a pocket in case I’m going somewhere.

However, like their hardcover predecessors, there’s one thing about paperbacks that pisses me off: the price. On average, a paperback book today goes for about $7.99. Worse yet, this price is set regardless of the book’s length; it’s the same eight bucks for a 600-page novel and a 200-page one. Topping it off is the larger trade paperback format that many publishers have been adopting; these books are a few inches larger per side than standard paperbacks, but often include less pages…and the price starts at $13.95! What the hell’s up with that shit? More money, for less pages…just because the book’s slightly larger?

Fortunately, I’m a big proponent of buying used books; The Book Barn has helped me fill out my Frank Herbert collection for a dollar a pop. When I have to buy books new, I almost always use coupons to knock a few bucks off the price. I love to read, but when new books cost more than a lunch, something’s very wrong.

I’m beyond sick of the media frenzy over Twilight. I had to sit through the trailer for the film adaptation the last time I went to the movie theater, and it reminded why I can’t stand 99% of vampire fiction.

Why? Because so much of it portrays vampires (and often their cousins, the werewolves) as these incredibly fruity characters that are a jarring contrast to their roots. These clowns would be more at home prancing about in a Broadway musical! They’re supposed to be monsters, people, not well-dressed emo kids! Even Dracula, the original gangsta, knew when it was time to drop the charade and slaughter the villagers. Screw this whiny love story bullshit. We need to bring back serious vampires, who see and treat humans as the cattle that they are.

The Blade films did it right, but if you want some proper vampire action, I suggest you read Brian Lumley’s Necroscope saga. The vampires depicted therein are much more realistic (and frightening!) than the protagonists of some teen craze. The monsters therein mean business, and actually pose a significant threat. Sorry, sad-eyed teenage vampires are about as threatening as an earthworm who’s crawled out of the ground on a rainy day.

Where’s Simon Belmont when you need him?