What are your other hobbies?

[madmax]

I'd like to get to know what people around here do when they aren't working, playing video games or hunting them down. Do you guys have any other hobbies/ interests?

Me? I like to build computers, overclock and such. I'm a big PC gamer, I also make youtube videos (involves editing + rendering) so I like to get the most out of my computer. Best bang for a buck. I've had my PC for quite a 3-4 years now and it's still a pretty solid build and can still keep up with games (upgraded gpu more recently).

I also like to work on cars. I bought my car brand new when I was pretty young and have put a little money here and there. After a few years of hunting deals for used parts. I've gotten a nice little set of mods for pretty cheap. It's got quite the ricey look, a lot of people don't like it but meh. I had fun working on the car. Where I'm moving the lights aren't legal anyways so they will rarely be lit. (Since the picture, it's been lowered 2 inches.) When i go to car shows. I leave the car unlit and let the people have their show, I'm not "That guy".





I also snowboard and am quite the adrenaline junkie. I go cliff jumping into water and such.

[desocietas]

Wow, my hobbies will sound way more boring after @madmax's start (I really dig the night shot!  It'd be pretty impressive even if it just lit up when you turned on/off your alarm! ).
I'm much less flashy...
Much of my time is taken up by gaming, but here are other things I do (in order of frequency):
- workin' fulltime at the liberry
- taking a series of fashion construction class (jackets are next!)
- learnin' to cook
- just joined a gym finally after a long absence
- drawing occasionally (http://www.seeinsidefordetails.com) < sorry about the design... I wrote it over a decade ago, and it's in serious need of an overhaul
- graphic novels

Oh, and since I feel like I need to add an image of some sort, here's a drawing I did recently for a friend of his wife and cat:

Oh, also, I guess I like a bit of nice scotch every once in a while.

[scott]

That's a great drawing! Man, I am so out of practice in my own drawing it makes me sad.

When I am not working and or playing/ collecting video games, my hobbies include:

Playing admin/moderator/editor/style-guide war-chief for this beast of a project.

Playing bass guitar, I also made a custom aluminum pick-guard for it, with a sandblasted finish and one of my designs on it.

Over the last couple years I began snowboarding again, after a 4 -5 year dry spell. I only usually get about 1 good trip in a year though. Hopefully this year I can sneak in a few extra, especially since I plan on buying a new deck and bindings before this season begins.

I'm mildly-alright at playing disc golf.

I'm a table-top gamer, and spend Saturdays playing an old-old pen and paper RPG with my cousins and a few friends.

I do like to do artwork, though I am out of practice in my drawing. Most of the graphic design I've done lately has been site related, icons flyers, etc. Though, I do paint minis both for gaming and for display.


Also 2 years ago, I built my own arcade machine. The entire body shape and artwork is my own design. It runs off of an old PC with a modified version of Windows XP, the joysticks are wired into a special encoder and the trackball plugs into USB. It has a working marquee light and the screen is a 20" CRT monitor mounted vertically. I even installed a real coin door and wired it to take tokens for credits, I have a bowl full of tokens that I leave on top of the control panel. All in all, it took me about 3-4 months of solid work to finish it and it's beastly. I'm currently working on a tabletop Centipede machine too, based off of the body design of the original Centipede machines, complete with authentic controls.

[desocietas]

@Scott, those minis and homemade arcade are so sweet.  I'm just an beginner with soldering, and power machines freak me out, so it's way impressive that you designed and built that beautiful machine.  And that's sweet about the tabletop time - I only have a few friends who do the pen and paper role-playing, but they never seem to take me seriously when I say I'd be interested in joining them...  A boy's night, I guess

[madmax]

Wow @desocietas you can draw I can draw good cartoons and I used to make comic strips by hand and then color them with flash for a friend but I could never imagine doing something of that caliber.

@scott , I had tried collecting minis but I have very unsteady hands and I can't paint them to the degree of detail I would like, so I gave that up (that and their prices sometimes 0.o ). that's a pretty sweet arcade machine you build there. Do you use it much or is it really just for display/bragging rights?

Come to whistler to snowboard Great mountain (not so great prices). To be honest my snowboarding has been on the low as well. I don't think I've been in 2 years now. I kind of slowed down when I went to college and when I was in highschool (Wow that was long ago) I did an idiotic huge jump and landed on my hand, it pushed my colar bone completely out of it's socket and I still haven't recovered (never will). I lost that season and then i started being too careful and it became a little less fun.

[scott]

@desocietas Thanks! The theme and artwork/logo are all custom designed. The Marquee reads "SHMUP" after the Shoot 'em Up genre.  In the original build, I didn't do any soldering at all, all the wiring is put together with quick disconnects or standard PC connections. After I moved it to my new place, I realized the amount of work it took to remove the control panel, so I soldered a 25 pin serial port in place to make the control panel unplug from the cabinet wiring. Soldering isn't that hard, it just takes patience and a steady hand.

In the time I've played P&P RPGs we've only had, maybe, three girls that were interested in playing. Only one of them was super into it, the other two lost interest pretty quickly.  I'm guessing they didn't understand imagination usage. No big deal though, it is mostly a boy's night to get together and hangout... until 4am playing games ha.

@madmax I've been painting since I was a kid, prolly 10 or 11. Sometimes I look back at past paint jobs and it almost seems embarassing, ha. Like looking at a crayon drawing from pre-school. As for pricing, I don't like them either. I tend write it off as a "art material" in my mind to justify some of them. Especially if they are from something I don't play, but are so cool they beg to be worked on.

The SHMUP is currently in a back room, so it doesn't get to be displayed, and I totally claim bragging rights! The cab gets a decent workout, mostly vertical scrolling shooters, like Raiden, Strikers 1945 II, Gunbird 2, etc. But Horizontal games still look good on it, without seeming too small.  Usually, I try to get a decent amount of play time in on it during the week, but right now one of my coin mechs is acting up, so I need to see what the problem is with that.

[scott]

@madmax Looked up Whistler. Man that place looks so rad, too bad I doubt I'd afford a trip anytime soon.

[desocietas]

Soldering isn't that hard, it just takes patience and a steady hand.

I've really enjoyed the soldering I've done so far.  I'll buy a kit or two from Maker Faire sometimes, and the last thing I made was this Pong Clock:

Fun stuff!

[foxhack]

I listen to music. Lots. Of music.

http://rateyourmusic.com/~Foxhack

I also enjoy writing about stuff, usually games, but I really don't get to do that very often.

[nophix]

Building and racing bikes. I just sold this one after owning it forever, and sticking massive amounts of money in it. This thing was the definition of retarded fast, and thats coming from a guy who regularly rode a turbo Hayabusa.

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/sportrods/100_2851.jpg

[darko]

I'm a fan of anything electronics related. I build computers for my friends, co-workers, etc. I've been doing that since high school. I also enjoy movies about as much as @foxhack enjoys music (and the sound aspect that goes along with it). I'm a commodities trader by profession so that also takes up a lot of my time.

I love to travel and have been to Sweden, Estonia, Denmark and Grand Cayman Island over the past several years. I try to get out of the country at least once a year. I'm planning a trip to the Philippines next year so I might not get out of the US in 2011. It's going to be a big trip (and pricy). I'll probably spend a week or so in Japan in 2013.

I also have an active social life (between my job and friends that aren't into video games). I'm not really into clubs anymore but I'm still rarely home on the weekends. As soon as college football starts up I'll be even busier between hosting parties and going to OU games

I'm also a member of the Oklahoma City Retro Gamers Society. It's only about a year old and we've been trying to expand our membership base. I'm not the founder but I'd say I'm a founding member. That doesn't take up much time now but I could see it really growing and requiring more time in the future.

I bought my first house this year so that's also been a big time sink. It's a new house but you wouldn't believe how much time you can spend just upgrading things (painting every singly wall for example).

I love to cook and I love wine. I almost went to culinary school in Pasadena right after I graduated from College. I'm still interested in it but I have a great job that I enjoy so making that switch is unlikely.

@madmax You wouldn't happen to know how to remove the center console cup holder door of a G35 coupe would you? I broke mine last week and it's driving me crazy.

[madmax]

@darko  I could probably figure it out with pictures. If not, the G35 is a popular car to mod and thus probably has a forum somewhere online with How tos. The thing with new cars is that everything is made to look nice and fit nicely together but then sometimes you have to take most of the dash apart to get to something.

What kind of computer do you have? Mines pretty old now. Quad Q6600 @3.4ghz, 8gb ram, 460 (1gb) with slight Overclock...

I'm a pretty big traveler,I was raised travelling because of my fathers job and now I can't seem to stay planted in one place. Just now I moved across Canada from Montreal to BC. This Christmas I am going to Dubai for 3-4 weeks. I haven't been in 2 years..I've been there more times than I can count, hehe. I've been to Australia, South Africa, Bahrain, Egypt, French Polynesia, States, Europe and others I can't think of off the top of my head. My girlfriend has never really traveled so I plan on doing everything all over again with her (Thus why Dubai is lined up for xmas)


@nophix

Sweet bike! I've been staying away from bikes. Ideally I'd want a ninja 650 but I know that I would kill myself with a bike. I'm a fast driver and although I always take the time to assess risk and don't drive recklessly, it's too easy to blip the gas and be going 250 (km/h) with a bike. I can say I would be responsible but in the end, I wouldn't

[desocietas]

My girlfriend has never really traveled so I plan on doing everything all over again with her (Thus why Dubai is lined up for xmas)

Lucky girl!

[madmax]

My girlfriend has never really traveled so I plan on doing everything all over again with her (Thus why Dubai is lined up for xmas)

Lucky girl!

Traveling and experiencing the world is an important thing for me. She's been to Europe but with her school when she was younger. Schools don't let you experience a country. They force you to go through the touristy crap. Although that stuff should be done, there is always so much more.

A few months ago she flew over to Montreal and I drove us to Niagara falls. When you're just out of season (We were 1 week before "the season" started) and we payed pennies for a kings suite at the Hilton Hotel

I didn't mention this above but I am also attempting to make a video game. Nothing crazy or complex, using UDK (unreal Development kit) and trying to make a little game. If I manage to make it, It'll be one of those games for $3-4. I'm stuck on the programming aspect of the thing though. I've got the idea. I know how to make 3d models, meshes and such. Programming the game and such aspects are the ones which are making it hard for me to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

[urbanchaos]

I mostly collect DVD's & Blu-Ray's. I have a collection of over 400 movies. I don't even want to think how much money was put in it!

Last time I counted, I had only a shelf and a half of dvd's, and I was already at 1000$. Now, I have 4 complete shelves, and one half full....