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Yes, though at first it doesn't seem like much.

Wargaming
LEGO
Electric Bass Playing and Building
Rock Climbing.

Bass Playing doesn't take much space and Rock Climbing brings in a bit of $. However it's tough because Wargaming (I play lots of games and build lots of terrain) and LEGO take up alot of space and it not surprisingly bothers my wife. Complicating the issue is two kids under 3.

 Eilif wrote:
Complicating the issue is two kids under 3.

Oh yes...I feel like that guy who before I had kids was always saying, "Having kids will change your life."

My thought had always been, "Yea, I get it man, things are going to be different, duh."

Now I'm that guy looking back and thinking I had no idea what I was talking about. You thought you knew it all, didn't you? You thought you had it all figured out...

Still, at least with kids under 3 I haven't yet lost my hobby room, and my weekends are not absorbed in soccer games and piano lessons...yet. With interest rates still pretty low and my son turning three on Saturday, my wife and I are definitely planning to move to a bigger house next year. I can see that other shoe hanging up there, ready to drop. I want my hobby room, darn it. Where am I going to put all of my stuff otherwise?

Ok here goes

Wife
Job
Gaming PC
House
Wargaming
Paintball
Kendo (starting shortly)
Sports cars
Motorsport

I tend to paint in the evenings whilst on the pc

That's about it lol

The problem is that there is too much cool hobby related stuff out there these days. Luckily I manage to find the time for the following outside of friends, family, GF and work:

- 40k/FW heresy stuff
- non-wargaming model kits - gundams, 1/350 scale warships
- video games (LoL, diablo 3, MWO, and BF4 soon!)
- cycling

I'm always finding out about new cool things and adding projects to my hobby list though. Things I'm looking into at the moment:

- Infinity
- robotics - wouldn't mind a little bi-pedal/quad walker project
- 501st legion - a friend from work and his brother are storm troopers, wouldn't mind working on a biker scout

 Eilif wrote:
Yes, though at first it doesn't seem like much.

Wargaming
LEGO
Electric Bass Playing and Building
Rock Climbing.

Bass Playing doesn't take much space and Rock Climbing brings in a bit of $. However it's tough because Wargaming (I play lots of games and build lots of terrain) and LEGO take up alot of space and it not surprisingly bothers my wife. Complicating the issue is two kids under 3.

Awesome to see another LEGO fan. I thought there would be more of them. I guess with mini gaming and LEGO both having little plastic men.

I've got, in no particular order:

Wargaming (too many armies in too many systems. I do not, however, have more than 2 armies in any given system besides 40k)

Boardgaming (this is almost at an end, though, as I really can't ever get a game in due to time)

Gunsports (mostly Skeet, but we've shot a few games of Sporting Clays recently)

Excercise (I guess it's a hobby; I go to the gym at least 5 days a week for at least an hour a time. That counts as a hobby, right?)

Media Entertainment (TV Shows and Sports, mostly)

Bourbon & Beer Tasting (Most often happens with the above)

And my buddy is trying to get me into Golf. I don't mind it, but I don't love it.

 cincydooley wrote:
& Beer Tasting (Most often happens with the above)

I've got this as a little hobby too. Though I currently can't afford to buy too muich beverages in Sweden (monopoly = ridiculous prices) and having moved away from the coast I don't often find the time to go to Germany to buy it cheap there. I always have at least one bottle of bourbon/whiskey at home, but rarely several at a time like I used to.

Get married. This will dramatically lessen your free time & hobbies. Seriously.

Unless you can convince the wife and kids to share in your hobbies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

weeble1000 wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Complicating the issue is two kids under 3.

Oh yes...I feel like that guy who before I had kids was always saying, "Having kids will change your life."

My thought had always been, "Yea, I get it man, things are going to be different, duh."

Now I'm that guy looking back and thinking I had no idea what I was talking about. You thought you knew it all, didn't you? You thought you had it all figured out...

Still, at least with kids under 3 I haven't yet lost my hobby room, and my weekends are not absorbed in soccer games and piano lessons...yet. With interest rates still pretty low and my son turning three on Saturday, my wife and I are definitely planning to move to a bigger house next year. I can see that other shoe hanging up there, ready to drop. I want my hobby room, darn it. Where am I going to put all of my stuff otherwise?

I still have my hobby room too ... I just share it with my kids and the cat. One son goes to Saturday night painting events at the LGS and plays LOTR. The other one doesn't paint, but loves WH40K and knows his stats forward and backwards. Wife just rolls her eyes ... but joins us to paint every now and then. She's developed her own sculpting skills making cakes and we may expand to an airbrush as well.

Some... interesting perspectives, here. Wonder how many girlfriends/wives would take offense at being relegated to the role of "hobby."

Personally, I have somewhat varied interests, but generally find my hobbies naturally limited by my situation.

Started playing soccer when I was six and continued through most of high school. Eventually had to trade my varsity spot for physical therapy when my knees gave out and never went back to it. Sloth and several years of heavy smoking (in the past, but damage done) mean I likely never will.

I'm fascinated by medieval arms, armor, and combat. Dabbled in armoring, for a time, but that was put on hold years ago, as I lost access to a shop (been in apartments since leaving for college - most tools are sitting in my dad's basement, awaiting the time when I have my own garage/basement). In a similar vein, I did Markland/SCA sport combat for a spell in college, since there was a group on campus (kendo before I found them, but scheduling stopped that after a year). Now, I'm in no physical shape to practice with a local-ish group, could I manage the scheduling.

Still get a hike in, every now and again, but scheduling and differing levels of ability mean that, since my wife and I go together (with our young, short-legged dog, no less), more arduous hikes and backpacking are more or less out of the question (even I would find them quite strenuous, now, but I can still walk/climb more readily than I can run). Same with mountain biking (plus, we'd both need new bikes).

Nowadays, the low-key hobbies have taken over, entirely - ones that can be done at home, started and stopped at will, require little physical exertion, and don't require the production of a ton of noise. I paint and model. I play video games, both computer (low end PC limits gaming options - I play World of Tanks on low settings, a browser-based MMO, and that's about it, beyond the odd flash game) and console (360, but I stay well behind the release curve to keep costs down, as games drop significantly in price or friends pass off old ones that they won't replay and aren't worth selling). I watch a few episodes of anime each night as a wind-down before bed. Used to try and keep up on reviews and new releases (fan-subs), but now I just burn through series available (in completion - hate waiting for weekly releases of new episodes) through conventional streaming sources like Hulu (which stomps all over Netflix, at least for that genre).

I did finally start brewing a while back. That had been on my "to do" list for quite some time. Space is still an issue, so I'm sticking primarily to small runs with mostly extract, for the time being. I do plan to start overlapping batches and move to all grain, in the future, once I have room for the extra necessary vessels (even a 5 gallon cooler for a mashing tun and an extra carboy or bucket would be a strain, now). Would like to try my hand at mead and cider, too - that's much more doable, as I just have to source ingredients (already have all the necessary equipment).

Setting aside brewing as a singular hobby anomaly, I'm generally getting lazier and more reclusive as time goes on, but still hold on to the illusion that I'll someday have the time/energy/money/strength to act upon most, if not all, of my interests and will then lead a productive and fulfilling life. We'll see how that goes. Curmudgeon, out.

[edit:] Almost forgot about Dakka. I spend enough time on here that I think I can call it a distinct, if closely related, hobby from miniature P&M. And regarding spouses, am I the only one that found marriage to change nothing? That may be a simple product of circumstance, as we lived together and shared finances long before the actual wedding, but that sort of arrangement can't be that rare. To those for whom things did change - was it a result of suddenly moving in together or did some switch in your spouse's head get thrown the minute vows were exchanged? On the downside, while marriage didn't suddenly turn my wife against my hobbies, it didn't push her towards sharing any of them, either. For a generally artistic person, she's pretty strongly against ever working on minis. Entertained the idea, once upon a time, but that mini sat primed for a year before I gave up and painted it, myself. I hold no illusions of shared hobby time, anymore.

weeble1000 wrote:

Skyrim was my last big investment in a video game in terms of time. Before I had kids I played plenty, and did wargaming stuff too. Now...I have to prioritize. And honestly, video games started to feel a bit like drugs. Not in a bad, addictive sense. I don't really have much against drug use, though I don't indulge personally. But in the sense that I would stop playing a game and feel like I had been sitting around doing nothing for hours, and the weight of all the crap I had to do would come rushing in. I can assemble miniatures for 4 hours straight, stop, and not feel like I haven't done anything. It's weird. Accomplishing things in a video game doesn't really "do it" for me anymore.

Holy gak, that hits true. I'm in the same boat, and I'm only 19...I start playing and can't stop unless I've played for at least an hour, and afterwards I get steamrolled by the amount of things I need to do. I'm kinda trying to quit and start working on my music instead of gaming when I get the urge. I just feel good and like I've accomplished something after most music sessions. Plus music is a much more social experience than gaming.

~Tim?

"Too many Hobbies"?

Yes, yes, oh god yes.

Miniature Wargaming:
-Warhammer 40K
-LOTR SBG
-Gripping Beast's SAGA (Anglo Saxons).

Video Games:
-Battlefield franchise
-LOTR Online MMO
-GTA V
-Defiance (xbox MMO)
-Elder Scrolls Skyrim
-Sims 3 (pc)
-Total War series
-Half Life

Books:
-Lord of the Rings
-G.R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones etc).
-Horus Heresy series (Black Library).
-Bernard Cornwell (Saxon Stories - Uhtred of Bebbanburg).

TV and movies...
Game of Thrones
Walking Dead
Sons of Anarchy
Hell on Wheels
The Hobbit trilogy


I have so many ongoing interests its a miracle I ever get round to painting.

weeble1000 wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Complicating the issue is two kids under 3.

Oh yes...I feel like that guy who before I had kids was always saying, "Having kids will change your life."

My thought had always been, "Yea, I get it man, things are going to be different, duh."

Now I'm that guy looking back and thinking I had no idea what I was talking about. You thought you knew it all, didn't you? You thought you had it all figured out...

Still, at least with kids under 3 I haven't yet lost my hobby room, and my weekends are not absorbed in soccer games and piano lessons...yet. With interest rates still pretty low and my son turning three on Saturday, my wife and I are definitely planning to move to a bigger house next year. I can see that other shoe hanging up there, ready to drop. I want my hobby room, darn it. Where am I going to put all of my stuff otherwise?

I've still got my hobby room too, but I share it with the wife. Honestly I feel pretty guilty because the amount of stuff in there really crowds here. Good luck on the house buy. Hopefully your hobbies get a nice space.

Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:

 Eilif wrote:
Yes, though at first it doesn't seem like much.

Wargaming
LEGO
Electric Bass Playing and Building
Rock Climbing.

Spoiler:

Bass Playing doesn't take much space and Rock Climbing brings in a bit of $. However it's tough because Wargaming (I play lots of games and build lots of terrain) and LEGO take up alot of space and it not surprisingly bothers my wife. Complicating the issue is two kids under 3

.

Awesome to see another LEGO fan. I thought there would be more of them. I guess with mini gaming and LEGO both having little plastic men.

Or you could wargame with LEGO. Here's what I did with a few members of my LEGO train club:
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2012/07/song-of-bricks-and-lego.html
Honestly though, I've done very little building since the birth of my son 2+ years ago. I still participate in club shows and Brickworld and such, but when you have to pick a hobby to work on with limited time, is it going to be reworking a layout display for a few yearly shows or painting up some figs and terrain for the bi-weekly wargame club meetings?

 Devoted-to-the-machine wrote:
Awesome to see another LEGO fan. I thought there would be more of them. I guess with mini gaming and LEGO both having little plastic men.

Don't worry, you aren't alone! I still have every LEGO set I had as a kid and I still buy new ones from time to time, mainly the Star Wars sets.

 captain collius wrote:
Brand New Mustang (Hell every month i fork over a payment that could buy me most of a new army.)

I also have a Mustang, so I know how you feel. I live in the outer suburbs of DC at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains so there are plenty of nice empty roads full of curves I shake off the cobwebs on. It is quite fun!

I watch tons of football (Washington Redskins!) and hockey (Washington Capitals!). I also spend a lot of time with video games (360, PS3, and PC), mainly RPGs and shooters. I also recently started playing WoW again after about my 100th break, so that's been sucking up a lot of time too. I have my guns, which I don't shoot as much as I used just because of how expensive it has gotten. Same goes with playing paintball. I recently pulled my old skateboard out of the garage and started riding that around again. Even though my house is small, it always seems like it needs something done to it: I will have to replace the AC before next summer, I need tile the kitchen and basement, I need to redo the kids' bathroom, and I want to put hardwood on the main level (but I might hire someone to do that). I have two girls, 4 and (almost) 2, so I spend a bunch of time with them. The older one does gymnastics and the younger one is built like a linebacker so I hoping she will want to play hockey, she would make a great enforcer. Since I live near Virginia wine country, there are plenty of quality vineyards to go, which is surprisingly fun. One we frequent even makes beer and BBQ, which makes it even better. I try to get some TV shows in as well and I started watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which is surprisingly funny. I also watch South Park, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead (10 more days!), and my wife and I watch New Girl (trust me, it's pretty funny).

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
This is something I am wondering for everyone. Do you have too many hobbies?
I currently have
40k
PAthfinder
Warmachine
Video games.
Entertaining the idea of a WHFB army.
Now anyone ever feel like they are too overwhelmed by what they want to do or have?

Those are really all the same hobby, but I get your point.

I have Warhammer night, two nights dedicated to working on my startup (i.e. programming), Shadowrun night, and a Sunday afternoon I usually spend playing Pathfinder.

Mondays and Saturdays are free, though those are when I work in my other hobbies, namely baking, video gaming, camping, beer brewing, reading, drinking, and painting, just to name a few. I want to pick up a musical instrument again, and maybe get into leatherworking, but where's the time?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
This is something I am wondering for everyone. Do you have too many hobbies?
I currently have
40k
PAthfinder
Warmachine
Video games.
Entertaining the idea of a WHFB army.
Now anyone ever feel like they are too overwhelmed by what they want to do or have?

The older i get it's not so much overwhelmed, but just lack of time.

I play 40K, WHFB, video games (though more and more, only ones that REEEEEALLY draw me in), i have a semi regular RPG group, and also some non-nerdy hobbies. It's honestly more like "Okay, i have 4 hours on this day, and 3 hours on this day in this two week period.... how'm'igunna'spend'it !?"

 scarletsquig wrote:
I'm trying to kick the timesink of online games.
Steam is helping immensely, since it shows you the total number of hours spent on a game every time you play.
When that starts to hit 4 figures for any given game it really makes you have a hard think about what else you could have done with the time. Especially when the servers get deleted due to the games company not giving a toss and you lose all your stuff.
Going to be some veeery unhappy people losing 10-20 years of their life when WoW eventually gets its servers wiped by Blizzard (after they've moved on to phablet games or whatever).
Whereas once you put together and paint a mini, it's yours for life... same goes for anything creative.

I've played MMOs on and off for the last 14 or so years (not playing any atm). Some of that time was a bit of a waste, and sure, there's a lot of timesinks in there. But. It's in many ways no different to saying that your life was wasted because you watched all of Big Bang Theory, or Glee, or Firefly. If you're enjoying your time, then it's all good. Would I trade in the time in EverQuest with my Brother and RL friends? Nope. Would I trade in the time in WoW with my wife? Hell no? With my wife and RL friends LANing it up in Alterac Valley, pwning Horde just by being coordinated and cat-herding the Alliance simply be being 10% of the raid? Hell no. Some of my best times in gaming are wrapped up in there. WoW has a long life ahead of it. After all, UO, EQ, even DaoC are still around. There's something to be said for owning your own IP (and not being run by EA, for the most part).

Licensed games, however, clearly have a use-by date on them.

I know what you mean, I have fond memories of failed raids of orggrimar.
I still think my "for The Alliance" before Cataclysm was my greatest acheivment because of the movement of the boss

The upside of wargaming as a hobby is it's easy to drop and pickup different games. It's not like your Battletech miniatures and rulebook from 15 years ago wears out or can't be used today.
So whenever I feel like I have too many sticks in the fire, I take a step back, shelve a few games, and refocus on what's fun and important.

Gaming;
- Role-Playing (too many to list, currently in the middle of a Shadowrun game)
- Wargaming (mainly 40K but want to try Bolt Action and Hail Caesar)
- Board Games (again, too many to list. We played Galaxy Trucker tonight)
- CMGs (Star Wars Mini, D&D Minis & Heroclix. Really trying to give up CMGs)

Sci-Fi.
Just general sci-fi films and TV series, DVDs and general merchandise. Mainly Star Wars and Doctor Who but I also love Buffy, Blakes 7, Lexx, Firefly. Another long list.

Motoring
The most expensive hobby. I call this a hobby because I don't really need a car and I see my car as a big toy. I love classic British cars. I've owned a couple of MG BGTs and am now on my third Land Rover, a 1975 Series 3. I've done some 4x4 off-roading too but can't really afford that at the moment.

I have two hobbies: Tabletop Wargaming and reading History books.

Everything else is things I need to take care of before I can read or do tabletop wargaming stuff.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
There is no such Thing(™) as too many hobbies, just not enough money!

If your career takes off then it swaps. If I could retire today and keep the same income levels and not sleep ever again I'd still never fit everything in.

Those with kids it does get easier as they get older, mine are teenagers now and far too cool to be hanging around with their parents so we have much more free time than we did.

I alternate what I do in cycles as I get bored easy, my hobbies include:

Climbing
BJJ/Kickboxing
Powerlifting
Video Games
Drawing
Mountain Biking

lets see
ball jointed dolls
my little pony (all gens)
writing
what little miniature games I still play
reading
going to various churches for a weird personal learning
goes like that

Guess who is now entertaining ANOTHER game(Dropzone commander)

Too too many things that have my time divided

Reaper Bones in need of painting

finish on the rest of:
Grey Knights
Orks
Spess Marines
Tyranid Genestealer Cult

My immense lego collection
Model train display
Catching up on 40k fluff (books and HH novels)
Mastering the art of casting and my greenstuff skills
finishing huge game board
Adding to my gun collection
Creating a proper display for my WW1 through to vietnam uniforms


And I'm about to jump on the Bones 2 bandwagon.


The ride never ends.

A lot of my hobby/video game time got replaced by exercise
a long time ago. I think it was a fair trade.

I also have a kid on the way. I'm trying to think of ways to modify
my painting times to accommodate sudden starts and stops
in progress. Mostly tha will mean cutting down the number of
models/projects I'm working on at any one time.

I have a bunch of hobbies and interests, but I tend to focus on different ones for longer periods (usually 1-2 years), while keeping others on the backburner - it tends to depend on how many people I have around I can share them with. Currently it's wargaming - which accounts for my posting here.

After a rather long period of active wargaming in the 90s, 40k was for quite some time more of a secondary hobby for me, mainly browsing ebay for interesting models I might like to paint at some point in time or to complete my collections of 40k publications. I only recently started playing actively again, mainly because some friends at work turned out to be hobbyists as well.
Right now I try go get at least one evening per week of painting in, listening to audiobooks at the same time.

Board games have been a constant presence over the last couple of years, but that's mainly because I've got three entirely separate groups of friends who are all rather enthusiastic board gamers (preferring them over wargames because there's less hassle and monetary investment involved) - so most of the time (which is around 5-10 times a month) I'll just have to turn up and bring some snacks...

After getting my first gaming console I started to get highly interested in videogaming as a hobby - including reading secondary literature and magazines focused on video game history and "gamer culture" - but after a couple of years I've lost interest in playing solo - so I'm only picking up the controller, when a couple of friends decide to play a game with a decent co-op campaign.

Most other forms of media intake (I can't really go for long without any kind of input) take place either while commuting to work (books, newspapers) or in the company of girlfriend / other friends (TV series, documentaries or cinema).

Having dabbled in whisky and beer tasting for the last two or so years, I'd really like to try my hand at a bit of home brewing myself - but that involves quite some logistics concerning storage and constant temperature that make me shy away from that so far...

Oh, and then I'd like to actually start painting on canvas - but right now whenever I pick up a brush I look at the stack of unpainted models and decide to concentrate on those instead. Maybe after I've finally painted my last miniature... pffhahahahaha! Just kidding!

to many hobbies, yes sir!

girlfriend
warhammer
skieing
mountainbike
video games
tv-series
masturbate
playing bass guitar
drink beer

Controversial as always, I honestly think that people who wargame seem to be more intelligent than the average Joe, and as such, their minds seem to need stimulation, everyone I know who is into the hobby, has plenty of other hobbies to boot.

The guys I work with who don't, are nice fellas, but their only hobbies seem to be boozing and watching TV, the type of people who say "I hate reading" aren't likely to be into wargames, so people that wargame seem to also be big readers, novel/comics, as well as playing other interactive hobbies, be they roleplaying games, video games, or gak like that.

As such, I reckon the vast majority of people who wargame have too many hobbies, because it seems like to be into the one, you will very likely be into all the other things, I don't know a single guy who plays who doesn't also enjoy reading for example, and thats pretty time consuming.

So yeah, I have far too many hobbies as well, I play, model, read, paint, I also draw and piss around with digital painting, go to the gym, play video games, get leathered regularly, watch sports, Its definitely hard to fit it all in.

-40h/week job in customer service, just enough to drain the batteries.
-40k army I got to build and paint many models
-Fantasy Empire army I got to paint
-Shadowrun game I play in on wed.
-Dark Heresy game I GM on Thursdays
-Alternating Fantasy RPG/Only War game on Fridays I play in/Run respectively
-Pahtfinder game I play in once a month
-Playing 40k at the local store
-Family obligations