Hobbies

[Chindie]

Inspired by @mjmooney not 'getting' Lego in an Airfix world, what are your hobbys? Obviously we have a fair few gymhounds here and the odd musician, and I guess technically the gaming forum is dedicated to a hobby, but it's there anything else you do for the sheer enjoyment of it (fnarr)?

Or is life too short?

Over the last couple of years I've become a bit of a modeller. Specifically Gundam models. Perhaps a bit odd given my long standing dislike of anime, and the fact I've barely watched any of the many, many (...many) Gundam series there's been over the years, but I like the designs of the mobile suits. It's a slightly simpler form of model making than the likes of Airfix and the classic 'armor' style of military modelling, as the kits almost entirely are glue free and don't require paint, it's more like a more involved Lego (you still need tools for instance, nippers, a craft knife, sanding sticks) and there's a bit of skill to making the models well - getting rid of the nub marks, applying decals (waterslides preferably).

I'm now at the point that I'm doing full repaints of the kits and doing some weathering. Still learning but I'm getting better and it's nice to have that getting at the end that you've got something just slightly unique.

A few competed builds

These are mostly 99% complete. Each needs a matte top coat and the odd thing here and there. None are perfect, by any means, but they're getting better and I'm learning skills with an airbrush and weathering skills.

So, what do you fill your days with doing when aren't at work, or asleep, or desperately trying to stay alive?

[villa4europe]

i had a lego star wars resurgence about 3 years ago, ridiculously expensive stuff and then i started to fall out of love with it a bit when i realised how much of it is rehashed and how often it is released, the building of it was brilliant fun though

gym, cooking, playing football, i suppose i'd list listening to music, used to be the cinema (at least once a week) but the firestick has killed that off, villa but the drinking killed that off

[chrisp65]

Please accept my nomination for the most predictable middle aged white guy hobbies:

 

I do a fair bit of driving with my job so for a few years I've had a hobby / game of trying to collect funky gravestones. Rule is: no major diversions, the graveyard has to be visible from the route I was taking anyway.

I like going to the occasional gig, not so many as I used to, the knees are not what they were.

I like to bother independent record store staff with my interesting anecdotes and I like to fiddle with dirt cheap second hand retro hifi.

I've got a half decent garden, and an allotment.

I like to shout incredibly witty stuff at amateur footballers and dick about with a sort of footy programme / fanzine.

I like a bit of psychogeography or a rambling urban historic explore, not least around that London.

I like photos too.

I've got an ancient OM 10 and a couple of cheap digi things with interchangeable lenses.

[blandy]

6 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I like photos

Snap!

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, villa4europe said:

villa but the football killed that off

fixed that for me

[GarethRDR]

I, too, like big 'bots and cannot lie.

Lately been giving some serious thought to selling off the football shirt collection though.  I want to build a passable bedroom/home recording studio and get back into writing stuff, that coupled with the myriad guitars and pedals I want could probably be about 70% funded by selling the shirts off, at the moment they're just living in storage boxes anyway so.

[bickster]

Music, Photography and erm thats about it really. Don't have much time for anything else.

I'm currently two months into a project to clean then catalogue my music collection. It will take well over a year. I aim to be finished by the summer after next

[Rodders]

Are sports counted? I've always played tennis fairly regularly and the last year I found a cricket team through work have been enjoying that for the first time in 15 years. Two years ago I took up running and im trying not to lwt rhat slide, the recent nice weather has helped me dust off the legs. Otherwise film and books are my most boringly normal hobbies. I used to enjoy pub quizzes and hugs but the social media groups I had for that have long since buggered off with family and life in general.

[Chindie]

@GarethRDR has reminded me I also collect figures, mostly sixth scale and Mezco One:12 Collective stuff. Although that has tailed off a lot due to personal circumstances at the minute. The sixth scale stuff is like a very, very complicated and highly detailed Action Man, based on movie characters mostly. Kinda thing you can photograph and it almost looks like a still from the movie. The Mezco stuff is similar but half the size and does a wider range of things (they recently made a 'realistic' Popeye, for instance, which came straight from the nightmare realm).

Thankfully never got into Transformers though .

[Xela]

3 hours ago, Chindie said:

So, what do you fill your days with doing when aren't at work, or asleep, or desperately trying to stay alive?

Not much time for anything else! 

[mjmooney]

1 hour ago, GarethRDR said:

I, too, like big 'bots and cannot lie.

Lately been giving some serious thought to selling off the football shirt collection though.  I want to build a passable bedroom/home recording studio and get back into writing stuff, that coupled with the myriad guitars and pedals I want could probably be about 70% funded by selling the shirts off, at the moment they're just living in storage boxes anyway so.

For God's sake, do it man!  

[sharkyvilla]

I piss about on my guitar quite a lot, I've got a few days off until next week so I might have a go at recording a few of my tunes.  Other than that I got a pool table earlier this year that I have a go on most days, go cycling though not as far as I used to as my mate isn't available as much.  That's about it really.

[Stevo985]

My hobbies are getting less and less. It's quite sad really.

There was a time where I'd play loads of sport, do lots of gaming, did some running and basically did more with my spare time.

 

These days I hardly seem to do anything, but I'm not really sure why. At the very least I'd like to start playing football again.

[Dr_Pangloss]

For a long time 'the gym' was my main hobby and then I realised it's a pretty dull hobby to have, requires zero cognitive skills, there's very little to learn once you have a couple of years under your belt and gym people are in general pretty dull individuals with nothing interesting to talk about.

I fairly recently started making hiphop beats, not everyone's cup of tea, but I invested a decent amount into both hardware and software and have invested a hell of a lot of time learning sampling and drum pattern programming. I've become pretty decent at it in a fairly short space of time and I absolutely love it. It's great to simply creating something.

Other hobbies include learning a new programming language but that's not really fun these days.

[Chindie]

I am increasingly thinking that doing something creative, is beneficial to ones wellbeing. It's incredibly satisfying. Even if it's something as simple as chucking some paint on plastic or messing around with some music software, having something at the end you've made and learnt from is very fulfilling.

[mjmooney]

3 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I am increasingly thinking that doing something creative, is beneficial to ones wellbeing. It's incredibly satisfying. Even if it's something as simple as chucking some paint on plastic or messing around with some music software, having something at the end you've made and learnt from is very fulfilling.

Definitely. Even if the results are less than perfect - which they will be, until you get some practice in. Even then, you may never get results approaching the 'experts'. But it doesn't matter - it's the process that counts (very zen). Write, draw, paint, build, play an instrument, sing, dance, sew, knit, cook, whatever. 

[lapal_fan]

I like to bum. 

[AVFCDAN]

Running, Film and Alcohol really.

Tend to do all of them at least once a week. 

Used to gamble too much but have knocked that on the head in recent months with circumstances changing.

Would like to do more but its a comfort zone thing half the time, where do you start with something you aren't familiar with and or have no prior experience of. It is a shame that so much of the population just while away the prime of their life in front of the TV watching shite every night but I'm not much different really.

[lapal_fan]

I like to come on here and post absolute drivel. 

I get a tally-mark tattoo for every like I achieve, which is painful and unsightly, which makes the whole experience kinda double-edged. 

[GarethRDR]

Forgot a big one, wife and I started taking Japanese lessons last year. Japan is our collective dream holiday and when we do it, we want to spend about 3 weeks seeing as much as possible. We decided to go see a tutor for however long it took to save the ~£8k we calculated we'd need so we had a basic grasp of the language when we got there.

Then I got made redundant from my job last September with a £16k payout, so we suddenly had the cash and just needed to wait until I was back in gainful employ (which coincidentally was last week) before splurging. 

It's been a fascinating language to learn, I've always had quite strong language skills but have only ever learnt latin-root European ones so this had been an entirely different kettle of fish.  Some of it's been easier (only two tenses!), some of it has been beyond bonkers (formal/informal rules, scribbling/remembeting all the bloody kanji) but I'd totally recommend it to anyone wanting to learn a new language.

Also it would be nice to understand what's actually being said during all my favourite Asian pornography, if only to reassure me that it's not actually crying.

Edited February 28, 2019 by GarethRDR