What hobby do you spend money on ?

Jose said:
How's Valheim treating you? Haven't played in a while. One of the best games ever. Certainly one of the best $20 I ever spent.
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Never heard of the game, but the plan was to have a go at it with a few colleagues. So I bough it and started playing by myself to get a feel for the game. Clocked nearly 90 hours of playtime now. Am at the iron age, trying to collect enough for upgraded weapons and armor to have a go at Bonemass. Intermingled with countless hours trying to build the "perfect" base (you can sink a lot of time doing that). It's safe to conclude I've been totally hooked on it.
 
SirDice said:
Never heard of the game, but the plan was to have a go at it with a few colleagues. So I bough it and started playing by myself to get a feel for the game. Clocked nearly 90 hours of playtime now. Am at the iron age, trying to collect enough for upgraded weapons and armor to have a go at Bonemass. Intermingled with countless hours trying to build the "perfect" base (you can sink a lot of time doing that). It's safe to conclude I've been totally hooked on it.
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Oh yeah! I love the way that game does boats. Closest to real boats I've ever experienced. I've spent hours sailing around looking for the perfect natural harbor in which to build my complex stone docks.

Have you tried fishing yet? Another mini-game they nailed, IMHO.

OK, I guess I should get on-topic. I have three main hobbies, in this order:
  1. Sailing. I co-own a 1967 Santana 22 with two other guys. Fun little boat. I came in second in my yacht club's regatta series this Summer. It was my first try at racing that boat. I've recently been racing on a j/105. I do bow on it, a role that I like because it's both technical and physically taxing.
  2. Snowboarding. I've been getting together in Utah with some college cronies for more than 30 years. We stayed at someone's parents' to start with, but nowadays we can afford Airbnbs. We can also afford to do a second week in Colorado, now that we're older and the kids are mostly out of school.
  3. SCUBA. This is a third expensive hobby that takes time, so I usually only get one day of diving in per year - the minimum so I don't have to take a refresher class (again!) I dove in freezing cold Monterey a couple of years. Always fun when you get an ice cream headache even though you're wearing an 8-millimeter wet suit. Recently a friend bought a place on the Big Island, and I've been doing my diving there. This was a banner year. I actually got two days in 'cause my buddy needed help with some construction on his place.
EDIT: I also highly approve of the Steelseries mouse pad.
 
Jose said:
I love the way that game does boats.
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Sailing and exploring has been great fun. Also quite a bit of frustration, like getting stranded somewhere far from my main base (bloody raid destroyed my karve as I was setting up an outpost) and only being able to build a raft in order to get back. The ocean biome is a genuinely scary experience on a raft, at night, during a storm and have a serpent show up in the distance. Nope. Nope. Not now dammit.
Jose said:
Have you tried fishing yet?
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Not yet, but I have bought the rod and bait from the trader, I did find all three traders relatively close by :)
 
SirDice said:
Sailing and exploring has been great fun. Also quite a bit of frustration, like getting stranded somewhere far from my main base (bloody raid destroyed my karve as I was setting up an outpost) and only being able to build a raft in order to get back. The ocean biome is a genuinely scary experience on a raft, at night, during a storm and have a serpent show up in the distance. Nope. Nope. Not now dammit.
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Ah, the naked corpse run. I have chills.

SirDice said:
Not yet, but I have bought the rod and bait from the trader, I did find all three traders relatively close by :)
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There are three traders? I've only ever found one!
 
Jose said:
There are three traders? I've only ever found one!
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Hildir (Meadows; sells clothes; adds a nice buff for farming for example); Haldor (Black forest; sells the fishing rod and couple of other useful items); and the Bog Witch (Swamp; sells items for various potions). Got to do more exploring :D
 
drhowarddrfine said:
He said he takes it out every so often but something always breaks.
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94% of all Harley-Davidson motorcycles ever built are still on the road. The other 6% made it back home.

Yes, I know, cruel old joke. But HDs are famously tinkered with, "improved", and often unreliable. A friend of mine (famous computer scientist) bought one to come visit us at "big computer company" CS research lab. Twice in a row the bike failed right before arriving in our lab, and the dealer had to come and carry it away. The problem was a software bug that shut down the engine control computer. My friend ended up demanding his money back and buying a Honda instead (a Gold Wing), and then a Buell sport bike.
 
Hobbies that take time and money? Quite a few things. Yard work equipment. Just today I had to bring the clutch for our wood chipper to a repair shop ... if you forget to adjust the clutch on a 200HP diesel engine, and cook it, repairs are not fun and expensive. The chipper itself can eat 18" (45cm) diameter trees, and is self-propelled on tracks (so it can go off road). A very big machine, and an expensive one. It is then partnered with a crane that is also a bucket truck, so if a tree falls down in the forest, I can pick it up (as long as it is less than 26,000 lbs heavy). Or I can sit in the bucket and work on trees at 45 feet (15m) height. Which is quite uncomfortable.

The other one is the music hobby. The next two weeks I'm playing in a semi-pro Nutcracker ballet, and interestingly, this time I don't have to contribute any of the instrument myself (I play percussion, and another musician is bringing theirs). But the previous concert, I had a station wagon of stuff that I brought from home to play on. Some of it is very big (the 4-octave vibraphone is over 2m wide), some of it is annoyingly expensive but sounds fabulous. A few months ago we played "Symphonie Fantastique" by Berlioz, which has a great big snare drum solo when the main character is beheaded (no, not a joke). For that solo, I spent a big chunk of money on a special snare. Great investment, everyone loved the sound: Pearl Philharmonic 15x8.
 
ralphbsz said:
94% of all Harley-Davidson motorcycles ever built are still on the road. The other 6% made it back home.

Yes, I know, cruel old joke. But HDs are famously tinkered with, "improved", and often unreliable. A friend of mine (famous computer scientist) bought one to come visit us at "big computer company" CS research lab. Twice in a row the bike failed right before arriving in our lab, and the dealer had to come and carry it away. The problem was a software bug that shut down the engine control computer. My friend ended up demanding his money back and buying a Honda instead (a Gold Wing), and then a Buell sport bike.
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That still happens!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA1u8MV_IYg&t=1849s
 
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