I want to dedicate a blog post to my hobbies, which have undergone many changes. The process started with the subtle rearrangement of my social life last year, and I found that this has been widely beneficial as I began to feel better about myself. I went further and even suggested that some people do the same- They are constantly being hectored by cranky old men who have issues with their own lives. I tell them there's no point in exposing oneself to so much negativity in middle age - we are not too far from becoming cranky. The outcome is consistent regardless of who does this: there will be a lull in your social life, but things pick up once you fill your time with better people and things. One day, I'll blog about this or even talk about it in a video, but as I rearranged my social life, some friends even got more dividends and money coming into their lives as I took addressing my critics into my own hands.
So I pressed on and attacked my hobbies. I cut away Disney+ after watching the very terrible and woke Acolyte series. Then, I reduced binge-watching to focus on generating my own content. Then I went after RPGs, but I don't do much RPGs these days, as I just enjoy reading the rules and following the industry.
On the RPG front, there is a lot of bad news: PI will be closing the gameshop in the Somerset area and possibly moving out of the area. This is a sad day because in my youth, there was always a shop selling D&D books and even hex and counter wargames called Leisure Craft, all the way to PI in its current form. As PI shuts down and moves out, the line of hobby shops in the Orchard area is forever broken. Shops have fled the rental high regions and moved out with new gaming enclaves in MacPherson and Parklane.
However, the nature of RPG gaming has changed. With social media, we can find our tribe. We do not tolerate folks who share our D&D hobby. I can easily ask a blog reader out for a meal; there's no need to accept a psychologically abusive killer DM or some blue-haired land whale who insists on greeting their NPC elves and using the right they/them pronouns.
But strangely, I'm gaming more because my son is now 9 years old and has recently learnt Magic: The Gathering, and we have games almost every week. The last time I played MTG was during The Ice Age, so I had to pick it up again. Fortunately, there are cheap ways to play two starter boosters just for my son to learn the basic rules. (E.g., What is a stack? ).
I'm also playing Warhammer 40,000 with my son, but only on a small scale, painting some Space Marines and throwing them against Tyranids. Warhammer 40,000 remains a game rich in flavour but actually very expensive even for adults. The cheapest thing you can buy from Games Workshop is the Games Workshop stock on the London Stock Exchange, which was recommended by The Edge last year as a value stock.
Recently, some things have happened in the hobby world. A few old-school wargames, all wonderful people, have achieved so much traction that there are now regular wargaming events in local libraries. Remarkably, this can happen without a source for wargaming retail in Singapore. It's totally powered by passion and not capitalism.
So there is some change, out with the old and in with the new.
I've also been attending a small Japanese karaoke outlet for several months. It started when someone was part-timing in a bar, and I was asked to tag along, and I ended up singing for 6 hours while spending $6 on soda water. So now, I have found a regular place to sing for at least 3 hours on a budget of $44, as I don't drink alcohol. It's cheaper than Cash Studio for a dedicated Japanese karaoke platform, which can be expensive and hard to find. The hack is quite simple. If a karaoke lounge has no business other than your gang, it becomes a budget karaoke room. Along the way, I made new friends and learnt a bit about the struggles of a small business owner.
One day, I may pursue singing more seriously for competition purposes, but I probably have one of the weirdest ways to add a new song to my repertoire.
Just a few days ago, I learnt of an old song by Anita Mui called the Song of Sunset ( I know I'm very late, but it's a lovely song. ). I wanted to sing it, but it was hard as it was in Cantonese, and most karaoke songs use traditional Chinese scripts, which I can't read. So I researched using the hunch that 90s Cantopop is seldom original and found a singer called Masahiko Kondo, the song's originator. As I read Hiragana competently, I can belt out the Japanese variant within 20 minutes of practice.
In hindsight, this was actually shameful given that I'm Cantonese.
I should be back producing new content on YouTube this weekend.
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