I have two, and I call them “guilty pleasures” because they both seem entirely unlike what my outward persona would portray to people as stuff that I like (I am an attorney, work in an office, spend tons of time reading and revising boring contract documents; this isn’t to say attorneys can’t like these things, I’ve just had many people be surprised when I’ve told them!)
(1) I am really into war gaming miniature painting. I recently got into this hobby, and have had a blast with it. The other night I had some rare time to myself and set up my “painting station”, grabbed a beverage, loaded up The Lord of the Rings in the background and just went to town on painting a magical mini dwarf dude.
I wish I had more time for this. It’s so relaxing and calming for me and has been an excellent way to wind down, focus on something that’s not work or kids or relationships or day to day stress. But, alas, all of those things often get in the way of me having time to actually use this hobby as a way to wind down and relax…
(2) Metal music. Not only playing it, but spending more time being able to go to Metal concerts and festivals. I wish I had more hours in the day to spend getting my stresses out through my guitar and amp set up. I’m not very good, but I love playing classic metal rhythms and just feeling like I’m rocking out. Metal music has been an incredible way for me to channel my day to day stress and I really wish I had a little more time and freedom to go to weekly concerts put on by local metal acts at some smaller venues around town. Or flying to metal festivals around the country. Or attending shows from classic metal acts that are touring now and are nearing their last legs (Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Saxon, Testament, etc.)
If only there were more hours in the day, more days in the year…
I get this. In fact, in the last ten years I have seen Iron Maiden once, Black Sabbath twice, Judas Priest three times (once with Saxon), UFO (with Saxon), and Alice in Chains three times. The beauty of these guys is that in addition to being awesome (as you and I clearly both know ) they are also reasonably priced.
Guilty pleasure-wise, I’m a couple of months away from retirement, and then I can spend lots more time noodling on my guitars (an Epiphone Tony Iommi signature edition SG, an Ibanez electric-acoustic, and a Fender electric-acoustic bass), and riding my bicycles.
I’ve had SO much trouble finding time to hand-assemble my fleet of personal jets. Now I have to spend all that money on aircraft fuel if I’m going to pilot each of them to a different continent…
[/sneakbrag]
Actually, one of my retirement hobbies is total “guilty pleasure”: comic books. Just got back from biking to a coffee shop, pulling out a vintage Batman 'book, and laughing at how they portrayed Robin back in the '50s…
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ps: I’d call it a guilty pleasure because it doesn’t really make the world a better place, and my wife would call it a waste of time… and those college kids at the coffee place were not impressed.
Well, I am retired and I’ve become addicted to a word game. Thankfully only one is released a day, so once it’s done, that’s it.
On the one hand, it could be considered a complete waste of time. On the other hand, I’m learning a ton of new words (not that I’d actually be able to use the vast majority of them in casual conversation) and each puzzle requires analyzing letter combinations to come up with higher scoring words. There’s also some math involved, which is one of my weaknesses. You want the highest score possible on the puzzle, so which words in which places will give you the best one?
So I justify spending an hour or so on this puzzle every morning by saying it’s brain exercise. You need that too, right?
I just want to offer a disclaimer and apology: I was not at all trying to post this as or intending this thread to be a “humble brag”, or anything other than a discussion starter. I apologize for it coming off that way. I really was just trying to share my own “guilty pleasure hobbies”, which I consider those that my family or friends don’t really see as valuable or “cool” hobbies…and those that I tend to feel like I can only do on my own and can only talk about with similar hobbyists in niche corners of the internet.
Again, not at all trying to fish for compliments or trying to back alley brag.
I love doing diamond art. I guess the guilty part is that it’s easy and I’m not really using any skill or talent. It’s a lot like paint by numbers (which I also enjoy) except with colored beads instead of paint.
I do all of the NY Times games every morning (except for the large crossword); once I’m done with those, I do Squaredle. Every evening I do Waffle. I wouldn’t say I’m addicted, but I MUST complete each of these games each day. And I wouldn’t exactly call this obsession a hobby, so probably this post doesn’t belong in this thread.
Out of idle curiosity, to which word game are you addicted?
(Link, if that doesn’t work properly)
As you can probably guess, this looks a whole lot better in person than it does on my phone, in a dark room, with bright LEDs. That sphere on the left looks like this (not my picture) IRL. That thing was a beast to assemble too. All those layers are 3D printed, glued together (make sure to say a prayer that everything lines up) and then soldering, soldering and more soldering.
Here’s half of it:
I finally picked up a bench mounted, lighted, magnifying glass and it made a world of difference.
Also, hidden behind the sphere you can make out my 3D Elaine dancing
On the downside, my living room is starting to get a bit bright. It’s like having a Christmas tree in there. They’re currently all on a single timer and an upcoming project will be to put each one on it’s own relay and let an Arduino randomly pick a few to run each day.
) they are also reasonably priced.
