What else do you do?

[Desktop Gaming]

Come on, you can't be that sad that you have nothing but attempting to write games in your lives! :D

Couple of my 'hobbies':


Photography - specialise in landscape photography but I've taken a diversion into portraits and weddings on the odd occasion.
Bass guitar - Played bass for 17 years. Next month is the 10th anniversary of the forming of my first band. Its a positive omen that one of the guys who I formed that band with, came to my house last night and asked me if I wanted to play bass in his band. Rehearsals on Saturday! \o/
Egyptology - always fascinated me. Was overwhelmed when I visited the pyramids at Giza Plateau, Cairo, in 2005.
Motorsports - especially MotoGP, British Superbikes. Getting back into F1, too.


And a couple of useless facts:

I once worked as a games tester for Gremlin Interactive, and as a Motion Capture Technician.
I'm a licenced bouncer.
I was divorced twice by the age of 30. :D
I was once arrested for trying to insert a baseball bat into a drug dealer.


Your turn!

[Banditkills]

Does playing games count? :D

I play Snooker and my highest break is 22.

I sometimes draw, comics, anmie, etc...

I sometimes write and have been encourage to write a book.

Next.....

[Spore Man]

Playing games.
Restoring 80's classic arcade machines.
Umm, home improvement?
Movies?
I don't do much........

[Qitsune]

Since I'm an game artist does trying to learn ActionScript count as something else?

I paint (mostly acrylics) http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y201/qitsune/qitsune-grave2.jpg

I used to kayak a lot (I'm trying to figure out how to fit my 14' long kayak on the balcony of my 2nd floor appartment so I can kayak again) I also go sailing with my dad.

I play DDR

I used to be an avid raver (yes I still have my braincells.)

[GBGames]

And a couple of useless facts:

I once worked as a games tester for Gremlin Interactive, and as a Motion Capture Technician.
I'm a licenced bouncer.
I was divorced twice by the age of 30. :D
I was once arrested for trying to insert a baseball bat into a drug dealer.


Your turn!

Wait, you need a license to be a bouncer?

I was engaged once.

Sadly, I'm trying to think about what I do besides work at the day job and work at home on my games, and I can't think of too many things.

I enjoy reading, especially long-lost books from my childhood.
I play D&D.
I use Gnu/Linux.
I write...mostly for my blog.
I used to draw and doodle much more frequently than I do now.
I enjoy logic or math puzzles.
I like watching really old movies.
I like learning about the history of things (last week I spent too much time looking up information on Wikipedia regarding the development of the transatlantic cable simply because I always wondered about it).

I hope to get back into playing soccer. I'm a fan of the United States Men's National Team.

I used to design and sometimes develop board games.

I used to run a somewhat popular QBasic game review website: http://qbasic.gbgames.com

I'm on a vegan diet but am not a vegan.

I still own every video game console I've ever owned. The list: Atari 2600, NES, SNES, GameBoy (original), N64, GameCube. Someone went to Japan and gave me a Famicom. I used to be a Nintendo fanboy, as you can see.

Ok, maybe I'm more interesting than I thought. I'd date me. B-)

[GBGames]

I paint (mostly acrylics) http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y201/qitsune/qitsune-grave2.jpg


Nice! I can't help but want to know the story...or make a game around it. B-)

I painted, but mostly for class. I was more interested in pencil and pen drawings, so while I have my paint supplies still, I found it too much of an effort to justify painting anymore. It's too bad. My mother has my best painting (a cliff overlooking a body of water), and I threw out my second-best painting (my ex-girlfriend).

I only had two paintings. B-\

[Desktop Gaming]

Wait, you need a license to be a bouncer?
Yeah, since 2005 if you get caught working as a bouncer and you aren't licenced, you can get a £5,000 fine and/or a prison sentence.

[tagged]

I've always wanted to developer video games, I remember programming in hypercard while at primary school... but I did once have a desire to do research in the field of genetic engineering. Up until recently I was studying a bachelor of biomolecular science, that was until I realized I was having alot more fun working on my game than studying.... I'm a strange one who loves study, and when I found I wasn't enjoying it as much as I thought I would, I deferred to try developing games full-time.

Umm, there was a stint where I was training for a professional long distance runner.Until injury put me on hold, actually just recently I started light training again and so far no complaints :D

[GolfHacker]

My hobbies:


I enjoy golf, though I'm no pro (hence the monicker)
I used to play tennis a lot in college, not so much anymore
I love computer games (obviously)
I love to read, mostly the Bible and adventure stories (Treasure Island is my all-time favorite, Shannara series, Narnia series, LOTR, Sherlock Holmes, and classics by Jules Verne, Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain)
I enjoy drawing and painting (I've got drawers full of comic books I've drawn)
I find gardening very relaxing, and it gets me away from my computer. I've got a whole English-garden thing going on in my backyard
I've recently started to learn piano, which I also find relaxing


Some interesting (or not) facts about me:

I once interviewed with Disney Studios for an entry-level animation position
I was privileged to see a space shuttle launch once from the press site, three miles from the launchpad (the closest any civilian can get) - took a great photo of the shuttle when it launched that I enlarged and framed
Nearly graduated college with a perfect 4.0 (with an engineering degree, no less), except for that one class... grrr!
Never been arrested or in trouble with the law, not even one speeding ticket
Worst job I ever had: when I was in high school, I worked with my dad in the crude oil fields of Michigan, helping him test and refurbish crude oil meters

[Agent 4125]

Drums. I have an electronic kit in my apartment. I play along to Rush, mostly. I also played snare in a drum & bugle corps during high school.
Drawing, mostly colored pencil, some ink (artwork (http://www.joelesko.com/cgi-bin/art_portfolio.pl))
Reading, mostly non-fiction. The last book I read was The Timeless Way of Building.


Fun Fact:
I used to be a "Cast Member" at Walt Disney World in Orlando. Did a lot of stupid things while I was there but never really got caught. I also dated Minnie for a while, until I heard she was sleeping around. Seriously.

[arcadetown]

I hunt down and beat up computer nerds. Ouch, gotta stop hitting myself.

[cliffski]

I do some archery, play the guitar, and recently bought a piano, which I am hopeless at playing so far.

[Polycount Productions]

Take attention to our dogs. They sure can teach you patience...

[princec]

The Black Hole Of Motorcycling consumes what little money I now have. Got a BMW R1200GS Adventure. Plan to visit Timbuktu on it one day.

Otherwise I do bugger all except read science fiction and fantasy novels.

Oh, and I play Call of Cthulu over Skype on Sunday nights.

I do a lot of cooking. If anyone ever visits me you can be sure of a feast.

Must get a life.

Cas :)

[Pkeod]

Writing short stories, sculpting (though since learning about digital sculpting I've used super sculpey less and my computer more), painting (I have art scattered throughout galleries all over eastern Washington :) ), composing... I also study many topics voraciously (I love books and pretty much any science, craft, or art captivates my interest, unfortunately). That's pretty much my life atm... the pursuit of knowledge and making games.

[jankoM]

I lie on the floor drive colorful toy cars and make noises "brbrbrbrbr". Or I try to make towers from blocks or hide the toy-cat into various spots in the living room.

I have a 14 months old son :)

Otherwise I very much like anything that has to do with water. From which the most interesting thing that I do is whitewater (not extreme) kayaking (I have a nice prijon kayak with a cool name (http://www.wildnet.com/ww.asp?name=embudo))... and most common thing I do this year is going to local thermal park with my wife and son (1 (http://www.terme-krka.si/si/dolenjske/), 2 (http://www.terme-krka.si/img/virtualnaGalerija/burger/dolenjske/04/index.htm))

[Nikos Beck]

My day job takes up most of my time.

I spend some time every morning cooking lunch. Sometimes it's weiners, sometimes it's cans of soup I empty into a plastic container to reheat in the microwave and sometimes it's fish in a garlic sauce and pasta with romano cheese.

I am endlessly walking the dog.

I watch TV and clean house.

I develop games in the time I have left over. There's not too much time left over.

[Karja]

I'm a bit disappointed at the replies... I was hoping for a few "I used to be a spy in the cold war but got sent forward in time. That's when I decided to make games instead." Everyone seems so...normal.

What I do:


I work with embedded systems, and strangely enough I find it extremely interesting. As a stroke of luck it pays better than game jobs as well. Phew.
I've been playing the guitar for 12 years but I still suck at it. Played in a punk band the first years, but no bands since then.
I'm hopelessly addicted to playing old RPGs (Betrayal at Krondor FTW!) and "casual" TBS games (such as HoMM).
I love travelling and I've been backpacking in the US and Cyprus and Europe. Yay for travelling to strange places in a strange fashion!
I've tried a variety of sports, but nothing seems to stick to me. (Karate, taekwondo, trampolining, table tennis, gymnastics, and so on.) So I've given up on that, and watch an excrement-load of movies and TV-series instead.
I have a few things on my todo list: write a fantasy novel, publish a rock album, get one or two more degrees, and become a pretentious whiskey and/or wine connoisseur.


Some potentially interesting facts:


In my life I've earned more money selling strawberries than selling software. (Selling, not writing.)
I've recorded many hours of song material, and most of the time I've recorded my vocals in the nude.
When I was on vacation in Cyprus I got lost while walking in the mountains and had to be fetched by a search party. The police found me in the middle of the night...and that's when I noticed that I'd lost my passport.
I know Morse code. No, I'm not a complete geek - I learned it in the military. .. \ .-. --- -.-. -.-
I'm an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. That's pretty amusing, considering that I'm an atheist.

[Murilo]

I lie on the floor drive colorful toy cars and make noises "brbrbrbrbr". ......

I do similar stuff! Except the cars are pink and I must play the role of some chick using barbie or polly dolls. ahhhh what won't I do to make my daughter happy! :D

[Sysiphus]

-draw comics (abandoned since years, but my real passion.Yet tho, sometimes do something.
-terracota modelling. certainly abandoned.
-Basketball. Was good at it, they said. But had a bad fall, and left it.
-When I had time, weights lifting. During some years , long distance runner (like 10-15 kms, and good velocity, cross country)
-Play games, specially strategy, with an old friend.But also ye good old games of allways (fps, cars, etc)
-Oil paint. A real passion.Not totally abandoned, and I really enjoy it, till some oil bottle breaks inside the bag...
-Read books. Yet sometimes do that thing...
-Writting. Abandoned since the age I prefered to not share the time with doing comics, as was richer experience to tell an story.
-Of course, going out with friends, have some talk, and some cups, but very few, I only need one or too to start saying even more nonsenses...
-Being with the family once a week at least. freaking enjoy that, more than ever before... using a lot of good humour when am with 'em.

...But yeah, if i were fnancially ok, or with a job which was not so hard to find like game artist/web/print designer in my area, I'd freaking leave the computer waaay more hours switched off, and me dedicating to the real passions...

[FlySim]

I'm an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church
My buddy is too - he's actually performed 2 weddings :eek:

My list:

- Kitesurfing -very addictive
- Windsurfing - used to be very addictive
- Surfing - when there is no wind
- Snowboarding - sadly I have turned into a powder snob
- Walking my 3 dogs

Work:

- I have been contracting for the last 6 years - don't think I could go back to a cubicle job. I do work for a company that does real time graphics enhancements for sports broadcasts (i.e. yellow line for US football) and NASA.

[Emmanuel]

I have two daughters (both three years old), so mostly I dress dolls and try to truthfully and accurately answer "what's this?" 60 million times a day.

I wrote and used to market a real-time, embedded OS and runtime which apparently has shipped in a million devices or so by now. It was my hobby before it became my fulltime occupation, so I took games as a hobby, which became my fulltime occupation and passion. I don't intend to dress dolls full-time though.

Best regards,
Emmanuel

[arcadetown]

The Black Hole Of Motorcycling consumes what little money I now have. Got a BMW R1200GS Adventure. Plan to visit Timbuktu on it one day.
Do it before you become and old fart that can't anymore. Can take my Harley only about an hour now before kills me. Just got back from dirt biking in the Vegas desert this morning, now that's fun!

[princec]

Hence riding a BMW GS ;) You should try it! (The 1150 is a bit better than the newer 1200).

Oh, and check your email...

Cas :)

[Qitsune]

Nice! I can't help but want to know the story...or make a game around it. B-)
...

Actually it was for a contest over at ConceptArt.org and the theme was to illustrate a song so I picked Voltaire's (http://www.myspace.com/voltairenyc) song Graveyard Picnic which is basically about Edgar Allen Poe's stories... if it inspires a game go for it! I like dark games.


Oh, and I play Call of Cthulu over Skype on Sunday nights.
...
Cas :)
As in, table top rpg over voip? how many players? How well does it work? One of our (Exalted) players was supposed to move to India for work and he wanted us keep playing over webcam. I'm not sure it would have worked, 6 ppl around a table and him over the cam. We'll never know.

Too bad so many of you once did art but abandonned. It does take a lot of space and time.. *sigh*

[princec]

Yup, tabletop CoC over VOIP! It works well. We miked up the room they're in with a proper room mike (only cost a tenner), and it goes through a mixing desk to get the levels right. It's surprisingly good and it's working out really well. CoC doesn't involve much by way of combat or anything which is a good thing because I suspect that the moment it started relying on maps and lead miniatures we'd have a problem and have to resort to some sort of tool to help.

Cas :)

[TimS]

Interesting thread. Good to see the non-dev humanity of forumites.

hobbies:

Being a Mythology nerd: www.mythmath.com (juuuust getting started there)
Reading (Mythology, Religion, Physics, Nanotech)
Building an online t-shirt selling empire. (No sites up yet... about seven in progress)
Soaking in the fun of speculative futurism.

semi-interesting facts:

I'm writing a Discordian Holy Book (Hey I'm also an ordained minister!). I've got about four sentences and expect to be done around 2050.
Making games is a temporary thing for me. I plan (quite literally) to become a space pirate as soon as it becomes feasible.
If I had $1000 to spare I'd build a rail-gun with it.
I want to republish the Dictionary of Ro so that it's available again. :(


P.S. -- I'm jealous of Cas' VOIP CoC.... PnP RPG's were the fun.

-Tim

[DrWilloughby]

I'm a frisbee nerd:
-Ultimate Frisbee (summer league, winter league on the beach, my fall club team)
-Frisbee Golf (there's a great course here in San Diego)

Reading a great variety of books lately, I'm also a baseball fan (go Padres), and I bodysurf a fair amount in the summer. I'm also a sucker for snorkeling and travelling, going to Santa Cruz this weekend and Baja next weekend.

[lennard]

I walk lots (clears my mind, loosens my back). Swim lots during the two months we are here at the lake during the summer. Loads of online poker as well as a weekly Saturday night game when I'm at home. When I'm here at the lake I read quite a bit - Carl Hiassen and Elmore Leonard are favorite summer time reads and I burned through an old Martin Cruz Smith the other day as well. Took the year off of golfing to fix our fixer upper house that we bought last Fall (see Real E$tate Showdown in Prince Rupert on my blog for the full story) but will get back to it next year - my little brother became a very good golfer (nearly scratch) while I was away writing games in California for 18 years and I hope that on my best day he has an off day so I can beat him at least once before I croak. Not positive it's going to happen but I'm 41 so there's quite a bit of time left, one would hope.

I'm happily married with kids. I read a couple of pages of some fantasy novel or another to my five year old daughter every night at bedtime and sometimes we sing (badly) a variety of songs to mp3's and downloaded lyrics before bedtime as well. We own rental units (6-plex and 3 small 2 bedroom houses on an acre of land) which were instrumental in keeping us financially stable while boot strapping Rusty Axe but which I am really looking forward to selling - my local market is in an up swing so I'm hopeful it will happen this year.

Planning on getting back to baking bread in November - something to look forward to when the snow starts to Fall. My wife and I banish the kids to the rec. room on Friday nights and pretend we are having dinner out somewhere, usually followed by a movie.

[mot]

I like free climbing. Nice feeling of progress as I learn, unreachable places become reachable, lots of fun and the views are nice as well.

[vjvj]

I am a huge mixed martial arts fan, I watch every UFC and Pride FC event I can and train 3-4 days a week. I don't think I'm talented enough to become a licensed bouncer yet, though hahaha :)

I am also a big time karaoke nut and go singing at local bars at least once or twice a week. Coincidentally, one of the karaoke DJs around here is a major computer geek... We always end up talking about computers and programming after the bar closes. Pretty cool.

I also recently started playing X-Com again. I list that as a hobby because X-Com as a game stands alone. Not to mention it takes up the same amount of time as any other entire hobby would.

I'd mention the fact that I've been trying to take up windsurfing as well, but I honestly spend more time climbing back onto the board than I do actual surfing. I suck.