Need a Hobby?

I was in a Border's bookstore, skimming through a magazine called MAKE, devoted to encouraging invention and adding functionality to things around you whether electronic or mechanical. Inside it was an avertisement for Tenicalvideorental.com, a sort of a Netflix for how-to dvds. They have everything from glass blowing, sewing, and gem-cutting to building latex puppets and learning 3-D animation. Most of the DVDs are $10 for a week, which is not bad considering these videos cost $60 to $100 and up individually. My problem now will be curbing my curiosity enough to try just one or two of these hobbies!

Another advertisement I saw was for a kit to make your own videogame console. Whoa! Not just write your own game -- but console. Get down and dirty programming in assembly language and controlling the video yourself. No layers of API. No libraries. You can even hook a breadboard to it and build circuits for custom controllers and whatnot. Man I wish I were a teenager again. (Ok, maybe not)