Boys Toys

Can I surmise that all men have at least 1 expensive hobby? Some take to golf, and pay huge amounts of money for performance equipment and club fees and wagers (don't deny it fellas!). Others may take to cars (or bikes) and modify it to their hearts' and wallets' contents. It may look like crap to the general public, but it's eye candy to the owner. Ask my brother about his car, and he'll rant and rave lyrical about it. Then ask my mom for the opposite view on his ride. I tend to side with mom though, and he does admit that his car is a bit ah beng-ified now.

As for me, my sin is photography. I might not be spending as much as other people on it, but in my books I've been spending a fortune. When I first bought my Speedlite, my mom was shocked to learn that the price is equivalent to a brand new point and shoot compact digital camera (flash apa mahal sangat nih?!). To date I've invested in 2 extra lenses to complement the kit lens and 1 speedlite and some accessories. Next plan, save up for that ultrawide. I wonder if they'll accept my limbs as exchange. Or first born child. Kidding! (do they?)

But this is not my first expensive hobby. My first one was guitars. Learned it back in 2001, and after 2 weeks I'm in Sg Wang looking to buy my first six string. An electric one no less! That's ambitious for you. To buy that guitar and amp, I had to resort to an almost exclusively Maggi mee diet for half a semester. The lengths men will go to get the things they want are incredible. Since then, I've added 3 more guitars (a well used black Kapok, a midnight blue TGM acoustic and a wood veneer Epiphone classical), a Zoom 606 Multi-effect, and various accessories.

Sadly, my guitar playing is still as bad as it was then. But at least the room looks impressive when coupled with my brother's Fender Pbass and black Santa Cruz axe. Too bad the drum set is too bulky and noisy for my tiny unit. If not, we could have opened a damn studio.

Then it was the PC. I wasn't by any definition an extreme modder, but I want mine to look good, sound good and work good. And that equals to constant upgrading of this and that. Last thing I did was bought a 19" wide screen LCD monitor for it. After that I bought the laptop, so the PC is now idling in the room, with the guitars as company.

I don't know about golf, tried it when I was younger and it sucked. Perhaps my next hobby to take up will be cars. Sleek, expensive, fuel-guzzling Italian supercar. But that is still some light years away though. As for now, I'm sticking to what I'm at least half decent at - being the man behind the lens. But no matter how much I've invested (or wasted, your call), I'm proud of the fact that all of it comes from my own coffers. I worked hard to be able to afford all these things myself without asking for money from anyone.