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[sambojin]

Not so much that I don't have hobbies myself. But in many ways, I yearn for something else in life. The joy of work and the money it provides has become a shallow dish to sup from. The people I have met, the joy I have gained in both meeting and attempting to get to know them is feeling rather fleeting, in the sense that I was probably not all that well known myself. I may have had the indecency to pigeon-hole many that I met into a little shelving system in my mind. That is a fault of my own.......

But when the fun happens in your life, what do you do?

We all play DF. But what else? Suggest a hobby to a bloke that just hit the unemployment brick-wall. I'm fairly young (30'ish), fairly dumb (uneducated) and full of something.

I thought this might be a reasonable place to ask, necause........ I don't know....... I need a laugh and more fun as much as the next bloke......

So, what's a fun hobby?

[Fredson]

I myself enjoy model trains a lot. But its a very special hobby. And somehow seems "strange" to most other people. Building up your own landscape in weeks or even months of work and after that enjoying self imposed challenges and schedules or simply let your trains run.
Another hobby I had years ago was doing shooting sports in a club. But it became boring too quick because here in Germany the weapon law restricts everything but BB guns to minors and they lack the fun of recoil and long range shooting. I briefly picked it up 2 years ago but with real rifles but it was too costly to do it on a real regular basis.

[LordBucket]

just hit the unemployment brick-wall

what's a fun hobby?

A few ideas:

 * Stargazing
 * Programming
 * Creating game mods
 * Walking/hiking/jogging/bicycling/skating
 * Web surfing
 * Ocean surfing
 * Going to malls and watching people
 * Learning a foreign language (online tools, audio CDs, meetup groups, etc.)
 * Having a penpal in another country
 * Stormdrain spelunking
 * Blogging
 * Making youtube videos
 * Writing
 * Baking
 * Reading
 * Meditating
 * Learn to play an instrument
 * Macrame
 * Origami
 * Gardening
 * Digging an underground bunker or pool in your backyard
 * Fishing
 * Building a ship in a bottle
 * Billiards
 * Card/coin magic
 * Playing cards
 * Join the society for creative anachronisms
 

[nenjin]

I paint and customize models for table top war gaming, and build terrain.

I really, really love building terrain. Taking found materials and creating the illusion of something else at scale. It's really gratifying. I actually had to quit doing it because I was spending 12 hours a day working on stuff, going to the hardware store and spending way too much money on stuff like spackle, glue, paints, posterboard, insulation, fittings and odds and ends. It kind of became an obsession that I swore I wouldn't pick up again until I had a career and money and all that jazz.

Anyways, I found it was a great creative release and really took my artistic skills up to a new level. I learned how to carve sculptures from pink insulation foam, carve hardened spackle to look like bricks, learned tons of different ways to paint and treat my creations to get different effects, worked with modeling putty to make free form shapes, got some freehand painting work done....and really just expressed ideas both about aesthetics and game play.

It's funny because I haven't actually played a table top war game in years, but I love making terrain for it still and would be doing it still were it not for cash, a lack of a good working space and stuff.

I've also taken up programming C++, which is the kind of hobby it takes years to get somewhere with starting from nothing.

[Astral]

Current:
Programming (Though I intend to make it into my job in the relatively near future; good to have a hobby I can profit off of)
Video games (Obvious)
Video game modding (New Vegas is my current object of interest, as were Oblivion and Morrowind before that)
Internet browsing (TVTropes, anyone?)
Partying/Drinking/Hanging out with friends (In moderation, of course)

Past:
Electronics (Get a breadboard and some basic components and go to town figuring things out)
Woodcraft (Mostly in shop class in high school, was fun while it lasted... though I think I enjoyed the thought of playing with power tools more than the actual crafting bit)
Martial arts (Did it for ten years, in varying styles; found karate to be the longest lasting, but judo the most fun)
Learning "magic" tricks (I still indulge from time to time; great for parties when you can do some combination on the fly)
Reading (Though I've moved on to video games, I could devour a thousand page Stephen King book in a week during school hours while still pulling passable grades in class; I still find a good book worth my time on occasion)
Origami (As a result of martial arts)
Meditation (Same as above)
Contemplating the vastness of the universe and how much there is to know (Got boring quickly)

[Zrk2]

Slave away for your corporate masters. When you have free time you should spend it generating more income for the mother company.

[sambojin]

Turn's out I did take up a few of the ideas posted.

Learn to program in c/c++. I'll have a crack at making a shoot'em-up with an algorithmic mission generator/slightly randomized attack waves and enemy attributes. It's a pretty big task that should teach me a lot of skills on the way, in recognizable and fun baby steps. OpenTyrian graphics pack, here I come.....

I'll probably get back into aerial archaeology again. It's kind of like solitaire, with maps. Or "Where's Wally/Waldo" with ancient civilisations. A great time waster.

Martial arts/boxing/muay thai is a definate possibility. I did quite a few years of various karate styles and other martial arts ages ago. In theory, the skills are still learned but the practice and conditioning are lacking. At least it's both healthy and painfully fun at the same time.....

There's a slight chance I might do the WH/WH40k thing again, but the prices are too high and I'm not much of one for terrain making. The rulesets have sort of gone downhill in my opinion as well.

Finally, I want to get a bit more serious with making music. I mean, geez, I still haven't written my fiancee a soppy, badly worded, poorly produced love song yet. Even with the instruments and software I have (not much) I should have slap-dashed something together by now. Pretty slack huh?

Thanks for the help everyone. Looks like I'm un-bored for a while again at least.

[The Mechanical Man]

I have a bit of a flavor for 'classical' skills so to speak, which you may find interesting if you have the desire to learn them.

- Learning art related skills like sculpting and painting
- Learning how to play classical instruments like the violin or piano
- Learning how to fence (seriously- it's a ton of fun, but definitely a serious investment of time and money)

At the very least try to learn something that is hard to forget. Something that you can stop doing and then a year later come back and still be okay or good at it.

If you're interested in painting models (like WH40k) but not interested in paying giant sums of money I suggest you look around for cheap model vendors. http://www.perry-miniatures.com/index.php Perry Miniatures is a really good historical model company, founded by former Games Workshop sculptures. They've got cool models and they're prices are really good, but they're based in the UK.

[Miggy]

Mentioned twice now, but music! Hell yeah, learn how to play, learn how to listen and learn how to forget yourself.

[MorleyDev]

I recently took up rock climbing. Tremendous fun ^^ (Helps that I'm a lanky git xD)

[Azkanan]

Warhammer. 

[nenjin]

There's a slight chance I might do the WH/WH40k thing again, but the prices are too high and I'm not much of one for terrain making. The rulesets have sort of gone downhill in my opinion as well.

This is honestly why I started making terrain. I've hated the new rules additions since like, 3rd, the prices have become astronomically stupid and anything GWS branded costs an arm and both legs.

Making terrain however let me still feel like I was connected to the game and the setting though. You channel a lot of the fluff when deciding how things are going to look, how dirty they need to be, ect....Still, it's not for everyone. You have to have a little of the OCD to get into terrain modeling.

[Bdthemag]

If you have any old abandoned buildings near you, you could do some urban spelunking. Be careful of glass if you do, and make sure to bring a few friends for safet reasons.

[TheMasterTurtle]

EXERCISE AND MARTIAL ARTS!

[Leatra]

You can make miniatures with air-dry clay. My old girlfriend got me into it. It's a little difficult at first but when you finish it you get a feeling of achievement. Tools are not difficult to get and you can use simple objects like toothpicks and foil paper.

You can take a look at this if you are interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SVT10jT7bY

One time, I tried the polyphasic sleep thing. I had a lot of free time and I was very bored. I managed to sleep for like an hour each day for 2 weeks. I started a blog about it and kept a journal. I got drunk one day and slept for 10 hours. Never tried it since then. If you don't know what polyphasic sleep is, take a look at wikipedia.

Another thing that I do to clear my mind: Get up really early one day and just walk. Walk in the street, in a forest or whatever. Get up in 6:00 AM. Have a small breakfast by yourself, go out and just walk.

I guess I never try to have a normal hobby...