I have too many hobbies to support. Supporting hobbies is like supporting children.

Each hobby has got it's own needs and wants, whether it be upgradres for your computer to be able to play better games, or enough time on the driving range to be able to actually go to a course or even more paint because your last batch of Warhammer paint is almost dried up because of disuse.

The most expensive item that ALL hobbies require though, is time.

I do not have enough time for all my hobbies.

A quick list (in no particular order of importance):

• Golf
• Cycling
• Warhammer (painting at the moment)
• Games (Xbox 360 and PC)
• Games Development
• Reading
• Learning to play guitar

The problem with my brain is that it latches onto some arbitrary idea (like golf) and decides to run with it. This process can last anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months. In this period, I learn as much as I can about said idea and then for whatever reason (usually unbeknownst to me) my brain decides it's had enough of this idea.

Then it moves on to the next one.

Quite frankly, I'm getting tired of it.

Yes, certain hobbies do take preference and have their fixed times. Other hobbies might require more money than others and so they take a natural back seat to the others.

Learning to play guitar for example, takes a lot of endurance. I learn for a few weeks, spending big amounts of time on it and I start doing better and it starts to resemble sounds.

Then I get tired of it and leave the guitar for weeks. Then I get an urge to pick it up again only to find out I've forgotten most of what I've learned so far.

Golf has got the money factor going against it. You need to spend a few sessions on the driving range before you go to a real course and play. Going to a driving range twice a week would be preferable to once a week. At R15 a bucket, you probably play about two buckets a session, which means R60 a week, equalling ±R250 a month, including travel time. Now you haven't even touched a course. A cheap mashie course will probably set you back about R60 in green fees and you need to do that at least twice a month to keep in shape. Before you know it, this hobbie is costing you about R600 a month. While this might not sound like a lot of money, to most people like myself, it is. So golf takes a backseat on account of money matters.

Warhammer has got the social element missing. What I mean by this is that not a lot of people know of the hobby and getting other like-minded people to paint and play with you is kind of hard to do. So while I enjoy painting my miniatures, it also feels a little futile, as there isn't much of a community to join so that I can use the little guys in battle. Also, I think even knowing what Warhammer is, pushes your geek-cred way into the red!

Playing games comes naturally to me, so I do tend to make more time for this. The problem here though is that I don't play the average shoot-em-up's or platformers. I like to play games with a storyline, games with RPG elements, generally games that take more than 10 hours to complete. Yes, I've finished Gears of War, but that was a 10 hour game with a storyline that I enjoyed. Most of the time, I'm playing Bioshock, Phantasy Star Universe and after I'm done with Bioshock, I'll be playing Oblivion. Let's not forget that Final Fantasy XIII is also on the way. As you can imagine, I have a few unfinished titles in my library.

Game development is also frustrating in the sense that I can do it (and I have written two small games), but not being able to do it quickly enough irritates me. Also, my PC is not up to scratch at the moment and some of the rendering that I am throwing its way is hampering the machine quite badly. She just can't do it cap'n, she ain't got the power!

Cycling is the one hobby that I do because I must. Transport problems tend to do that to someone. I guess I have to be thankful then for the fact that I enjoy cycling. Every time I get home from work, the endorphins keep flowing and I feel great! So, time well spent on this hobby. I've done a quick calculation and I suspect I've done about 600km's on my bicycle in the last 11 weeks. You have to be able to enjoy something like this when spending so much time on it!

Reading will always have a special place for me and I love reading. I finish about 30-40 books a year. And reading time is the one hobby that has a reserved block. Between 10PM and 11:30PM at night is when I devour books. I recently finished the whole Harry Potter series of books in a month. I finished the Sword of Truth series not too long ago. I'm going to start buying the Magician series of books by Raymond E. Feist soon, even though I've read it before. It is that good and I want to read the entire series from the start again!

So to recap... I have a lot of hobbies. Some get more attention than others. Each has its own special needs. Endurance, patience and knowledge are all resources that my hobbies require.

There is one resource that overshadows the rest though. It is also by far the most valuable.

It's called: Time.

And I have very little of it.