Yup, that’s another year and another birthday for me. This time it’s the big 3-0. To be honest, people around me are making a way bigger deal about my age than I am. Yesterday I was 29 and today I am thirty, so what? I don’t feel any different. Fine, I’ve packed on a few extra pounds and lost some hair in the last 10 years, but that doesn’t mean I’m any different on the inside! I still read comics, I still watch movies, I still play video games, I still play card games, I still play basketball, I still listen to music, I still read novels, and I still got love for the streets!

Then it got me thinking, sure I still do all those wonderful things and more, but have the years changed the way I go about them? Does reading a Spider-Man book still make me fantasize about climbing buildings and peeping into bedroom windows? Do I still watch movies thinking I’ll be a movie star one day? Part of living is growing, learning, changing, adapting… so how is Osama version 3.0 any better than his version 2.0 equivalent? Read on …

If there’s one thing about me that I love it’s my ability to have and maintain many interests. I was probably the only kid in high-school that had a part-time job on Saturday as a cashier, was part of the school basketball and volleyball teams, played on a team for an inter-mural basketball league, took Tae Kwon Do classes, bought and read every X-Men comic, subscribed to 2 different video game mags, read about a novel per week, played a TON of video games of every genre and on every platform, and learned html in order to make cheesy website at 50$ a pop to small businesses as a hobby.

I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of things but one thing I never did is get bored. If I had a dollar for every time I wanted to pick up a new hobby but had to talk myself out of it simply because there was no room in my schedule, I would probably own EA by now. This post isn’t for gloating about how many things I did or liked to do, it’s about how the years have changed my interests.

The biggest change I’ve noticed is that I’m a lot more picky about how I spend my time. When I was young, if I paid for a magazine, comic, or novel I would read it cover to cover dissecting every little piece of information I could find no matter what. Even if a comic I bought was horrible, I wouldn’t let my 1.25$ go to waste. Money was hard to come by and I wasn’t in the business of throwing it away.

Now, although I’m far from being rich, time is a lot more pressious to me than money. I have on numerous occasion bought a 60$ video game that I spent less than 1 hour playing. That would seem absurd to most but if it’s not fun, it’s just not fun. I can come to terms with the 60$ I just threw away but how can I justify throwing down 10 hours or more of my time into the same toiler bowl? Since how time is a lot scarcer now, seeing as how I’m married and am a father and that I’m devoted to my career, I’ve become pickier with the overall quality of what I spend my time on.

Speaking of pickiness, I’ve been around much longer now and have absorbed much more information about the world around me in general, and of my interest in specific. I’ve watched, read, and played masterpieces and so it’s harder for me to settle on mediocrity not only because I don’t want to waste time with it, but also because mediocrity bores me much more easily.Yup, everyone’s a critic it’s true, but I’ve become a much harsher one.

As I’ve mentioned before I’m far from rich, but I do have more disposable income now than I did 10 years ago. This means I’ve become a bigger sample than before as well. I buy more games and books than I once have even if I don’t spend as much time with each title (with a few notable exceptions of course). I’ll easily buy 5 FPSes before finding one I really fall for and spending over 100 hours online while the it’s predecessors don’t get a combined 5 hours of play out of me. I try to read reviews and spend less money by making more educated purchases, but reviewers are so often off the mark giving undeserving games like Metal Gear Solid 4 perfect marks when they’re nothing more than presumptious long-winded and overall crappy movie with some short gameplay moments stuck between them so that it can be called a game with a straight face.

On a more physical side, I still play basketball though not nearly as often as I used to. I’ve also dropped volleyball for field hockey. As for martial arts, I prefer to watch them now than to participate ( I don’t heal as fast as I used to you know) but I have started playing a lot of paint-ball and that is self-defense training in a way … right? All this makes sense too, I’ve changed physically more than I have any other way, so my more physical hobbies have changed the most in consequence.

So yeah, I’m 30 now. I’m not longer 20-something. I’m not EXACTLY how I was 10 years ago but I am similar enough to wonder if that’s a good thing! I am happy with my life and not many people can say that so I guess I’m doing SOMETHING right. I guess the only thing to do now is wait another ten years and see how things change then…

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