For my money audiophiles are the most boring tossers on the planet. I don’t care about which cables get the best result with which speakers and which tuner matches which amplifier, or what Which Knob? had to say about the crystal-clear reproduction you can still get with your head stuck up your arse. You’re a tedious wanker with absolutely no interest in music beyond how much you spend on the hardware, and if you don’t stop bragging about it now I shall stuff your woofer so far up your tweeter that when you wow you’ll flutter. Yep, audiobores are the biggest knob-ends in the whole of hobbydom.
Hey now! I’m sure as heck not going to shoot someone with my 1903 Springfield .30-06 manufactured in 1918 but didn’t see action in the Great War. Later, as WWII started, this rifle…
Ok, you might have a point. But don’t be afraid of collectors - It’s my modern sniper rifle that you need to worry about.
I’d vote for audiophiles, but much of that might be due to my screwed up hearing (a legacy of shooting without ear protection for many years). If I could tell the difference between a $40,000 system and a $1000 one, I might care a little more.
Gamers of all types bore me tremendously. From Magic to WoW to football. Talking about a game instead of playing it, especially to someone who doesn’t play. Yeah, the Bronco’s lost or won or something, what more is there to say?
I’ve found that audiophiles with the most expensive systems have the worst taste in music, and home theater nuts tend to watch absolute crap in the way of TV and movies.
I HATE sports fans though I’m not sure if that can really be called a hobby. The group of guys that sit behind me in my Geology class do nothing the whole time except talk about the latest football games. Who gives a damn? It would be one thing if you were actually at the game. But how can you get that excited watching the stupid shit on the television screen. :mad:
People who collect various types of steam engines are deadly dull, and tend to go on and on about the innate superiority of steam over the combustion engine. Odd theories about Nikola Tesla seem to go hand in hand with this group, as well as the desire to live like it was 1850. On the other hand if you need to make a *lot *of noise for some reason, they’re quite useful. Steam driven whistles are LOUD.
Audiophiles are a pretty good choice if you’re only talking about the ones who buy the extremely high end stuff. The lower end attracts a lot of DIY’ers and folks who, like computer geeks, obsess over effecting the largest change with the smallest amount of effort.
This goes to show that there’s a point between helpful and boring.
I actually like to watch a model train going. There’s a model train museum in San Diego that I stop into once in a while. It’s amusing. But I probably wouldn’t want to have a conversation at a cocktail party with the guys that do this. (That is, if they talk about shrubbery.)
When I had a firearm, I appreciated advice. But some people will go on and on about firearms, whether the advice is solicited. I don’t really care to hear about it. If I don’t possess your model of gun, I don’t care about it. It’s just about as important to me at the torch wrench I don’t own.
I agree with your nomination, but I hope you realize at least the first two of your example pictures are jokes making fun of ricers. I’m , uh, not sure what to make of that last one.
There might be a good reason for that, actually. While there are some very good movies with sound and special effects that will reward top-notch television sets and speakers, an awful lot of movies that go all-out on special effects skimp on the writing and acting side of things. So, if I want to show off my sweet new HDTV and 5.1 Surround Sound setup, I’m probably likelier to end up with something like “Independence Day” than “The Merchant of Venice”. or even “Solaris” (which is a good movie that probably does look on a lot better on a high-end home theater).
Oenophiles. There’s one here at work who never stops talking about his wine cellar and how extensive it is, what he’s recently bought, what he’s planning to buy next, etc. Everyone’s eyes glaze over as soon as he starts.
And here I was thinking that coin or stamp collectors would be nominated much sooner than this in the thread.
I mean, just how excited does most of the nation get about finding some cancelled stamp, or a shiny piece of copper? And [del]we[/del] they will go on and on about having seen a mint 1909 S VDB penny.
More generally - any hobby is going to have boring wankers. And there’s always going to be some weirdo in the hobby who can communicate the fun of it to outsiders. But, in general, if one isn’t involved in a given hobby, hearing someone else talking about it is going to be about as compelling as watching paint dry.
I love it in audiophile equipment reviews when they say something like “…the attack in the guitar work on Dire Straits’ Love Over Gold demonstrates the suppleness in the midrange of the Hakamichi 1750Z speakers, although perhaps fitting Lugenheim titanium cables would yield a more spacious soundstage. Hign notes were particularly…”.
Woah, woah, you’re using all this stuff to listen to fucking Dire Straits?
Just this weekend, the Observer’s wine writer (Matt Skinner) was encouraging us to buy a $50 bottle of chardonnay.
But not just chardonnay.
Apparently, this is “iron fist/ silk glove Chardonnay that blazes with grapefruit-citrus intensity, pork rind, gun-smoke, mineral, cashew and spice from the moment it hits your lips”.