Interestingness: A Hobby!
Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills...nunchuck skills... bowhunting skills... computer hacking skills...
Now, I'm not really a fan of Napoleon Dynamite as a movie but the Jon Heder character wasn't lying: you need skillz.
Mad skillz.
I have mad intraweb innertubes type skillz but that's my career. I need a hobby. Ideally, a hobby that involves me doing something that I don't normally do that involves my hands but is away from the computer.
I think I've found it (okay, so I found it on the internet. Baby steps, people. Baby steps!): Instructables.com
Each week, I'm going to pick a project from instructables.com and complete it. I never go to the hardware store and I rarely go to the craft store. I imagine that instructables.com will have me visiting both on the regular.
My first project: Magnetic Refrigerator Lights.
Bonus hobby: I'm a sucker for good documentaries and thoroughly enjoyed Wordplay. So, today, I started working the crossword puzzle on the daily. It's the easy Monday puzzle and I can't get 3 clues:
- Coins for Louis XIII (4 letters)
- At an Inconvenient Moment (8 letters)
- Firmament (3 letters)
My crossword rule? No looking up the answer. Whenever I'm with my grandfather, we do the crossword every day. It pains him to have to pull out the dictionary to check a word. I agree. If I don't know it today, I'll learn it tomorrow. I will beat you crossword puzzle!
Shhhh, don't tell anybody but I'm thinking about subscribing to the New York Times, in large part, to get the Will Shortz Crossword Puzzles.
Hi, I'm a nerd.
Comments
I don't know if I'm into a guy with hobbies or skills, but rather I'm attracted to people with passion. Let's not do things half-heartedly anymore.
Find something that interests you or keeps you busy without being bored and put a lot of self-motivated creativity and passion into it. Good luck on those refrigerator light. Let us know how they come out.
As a woman, I can honestly say, I could give a rip about whether a man has "skills" and I think it's a pretty safe bet that most women feel the same. Woman want ATTENTION!! As long as you notice her, her new earrings or outfit you'll be on the right track.
Suprise her. Not with a helmet and riding gloves (it's a long story) but something you find out she likes from a passing conversation. Ex. "Weren't those the most beautiful carnations? Carnations are my favorite flower you know." Next time you're in the mood to buy her flowers, get carnations!
Men love the grand gesture, woman love the small ones.
Hope this helps.
P.S. I'm a crossword fanatic but without some of the letters I can't help. It's a pretty good hobby btw.
And, thanks :-)
The newspaper, however, is something that I don't like to have virtually. I like the process of opening and reading the paper. Plus, I think the Times is probably worth the price. I just have to decide if that means I'm going to dump my LA Times subscription or keep both.
That's exactly what I'm looking for. I just don't quite know what that is yet and I really want it to be away from the computer. I'm passionate about digital media and I obsess over my music collection and blogs and the like but that all tends to have me end up here instead of not here. I spend way too much time here.
check out will shortz on pbs radio on sat. mornings. he always does an interesting word puzzle there too.
p.s. about your first line, I think woman like man who can make them laugh. For that matter, man like woman who can make laugh too.
People who have hobbies usually have passions and therefore something to talk about other than their jobs and/or coworkers. Plus, it's a way to learn about what makes someone tick (eg, what do you get out of building neato fridge lights?).
Some other random tidbits:
- Another thing I pay attention to is whether people volunteer or do other charity-oriented things. Not only is it a great way to escape your computer, but it shows an interest in the greater world and a willingness to get up and do. If you want to continue the theme of working with your hands, investigate community gardens or your local chapter of Habitat for Humanity.
- I added the MLK Google bomb to my page here and elsewhere; thanks for bringing it to my attention.
- If you're interested in art-type things, I'd recommend keeping LAT.
- Finally, WRT the crossword: Would either sols or ecus fit?
It is quite literally about interestingness.
Ecus was indeed the answer for the coins. Sky was the answer for firmament and I can no longer remember what the answer to the last one was.
My first Interestingness post was actually about volunteerism and how I'm going about that.
Thanks for commenting.
My vote is for knitting. As a (fellow?) web monkey, I can vouch for knitting as something both tactile and programmatic. It gets those hands in motion, it has very little to do with being on the computer, but it's still that same sort of process of discovery and logic that you get from whipping up web apps. It is, as I said in my fledgling days, "Sort of like origami with string."