Do You Have Any Hobbies That Others Don't Understand?

[Allhallowsday]

I'm a collector.  Non-collectors don't understand though most people seem to have a least a bit of the pack-rat in them (the only difference between "collectors" and "pack-rats" is that collectors categorize...)    
I collect vintage paper, lots of old Halloween, 50s and 60s space toys, 60s and 70s monster toys, TV memorabilia... I have too much stuff, really, and a room devoted to it, and much more space taken in my office, basement and garage.  I had a huge collection of golden age postcards, but only have the cream of the crop left.  I was a record collector (as in vinyl) and I still collect recordings but gave up 90% of my records over 10 years ago (could kick myself).  It's also true that I have very few people to share any interest with much of the music I listen to. 

[Andrew]

Bad movies has to be my biggest one, but I do often make an effort to describe why I like watching an all-midget western, or seeing Hasselhoff swing a lightsaber as he fights stop motion robots.

I also play Warhammer and Warhammer 40k, miniature-based tabletop games.  For 40K, which is a science fiction (lasers and aliens) game, I do a good bit of conversion work on some models.  I play the bug-eyed aliens, which have living tanks and such.  Here is one that I did a lot of work on, everything dark green I made from "green stuff" putty:



Further images:

http://www.badmovies.org/wh40k/tyranids/shoggoth3.jpg

http://www.badmovies.org/wh40k/tyranids/shoggoth4.jpg

http://www.badmovies.org/wh40k/tyranids/shoggoth6.jpg

Knives, but only in the way of "what is the best tool?"  The K-Bar is beloved of the USMC, but I tend to break them.  I have two that I am proud of:  my Mission MPT and a Busse Satin Jack Tac.  Both are incredibly tough knives.

My love of old C-64 computer games gets some looks.  Especially from my nephews or other kids raised on PS2 and newer game systems.

My love of Lego often gets strange looks.  However, you have to understand that, for the most part, the people I interact with every day are Marines.  The friends I pal around with usually have diverse interests.

[Ash]

That's a pretty cool lookin' creature Andrew.
Did you just do the green parts or the whole thing?

I have several friends who are also into Warhammer and Warhammer 40k.
They've shown me how to play and I got to play a few games in the past.  Got my butt kicked!
It is fun but unfortunately, it's quite an expensive hobby.
A little too expensive for my tastes.
My friends who're into it have invested hundreds of dollars.

[dean]

One hobby is of course the movies, especially lame terrible ones.  This is of course quite often met with odd looks from people who don't know me well, but I'm lucky enough to have a large team of bad movies fans for friends who share my equally terrible taste in movies.  Still, I haven't had the heart to subject them to Gigli yet... 

The other one is also figurines.  I tend to like movie/anime/tv show/videogame based ones, and at one time had a stash that I kept on my dashboard which included:

Frank the Bunny from Donnie Darko
A Happy Tree Friend figure [The army one]
Moe from the Simpsons
Astro Boy
The tank from the original Ghost in the Shell movie
Buddy Christ
Blanka from Street Fighter II
Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 2
Rodimus Prime from the original transformers movie
A Jawa and Boba Fett. 

Phew!!!!!  It's great because a friend gave me these small red leds for the car and at night they light up in a very creepy way, Franks' face.  I would take a photo but I took them off so that they don't melt since we be in summer, but its' starting to cool again so maybe my army can return...  I have more of course, but my dashboard is only so big really...


 

[BeyondTheGrave]

I used to collect comic book statues and busts, Mostly Marvel, but it got very expansive and I quite it. Now if I go to a comic convention I will pick something up. I collect fliers from shows mostly punk ones. I also collect vinyl and cassette but I wouldn't really say collect as alot of underground punk band still put and 7" and 12" records and they have cassette of their demos. I don't get crazy and go to record shows and such. I used to collect Anime stuff but that just stopped completely.

I also volunteer for punk shows on Saturdays which people don't get as I work for "Free". Still Its a hobby. 

[Andrew]

That's a pretty cool lookin' creature Andrew.
Did you just do the green parts or the whole thing?

Just the green parts.  The rest is the model kit as it comes.  I did some heating and bending of some of the plastic pieces to reposition them.

[RCMerchant]

I collect old papaerback books,movie reference books,,some old comics...(mostly Marvel MONSTERS on the PROWL type of comics and SGT.FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS), weird monster movie or Sci Fi stuff from the 50's 60's and 70's ( aprize being an old Castle films FRANKENTEIN meets the WOLFMAN Super 8 reel) ...but mostly old monster mvie mags and any monster movie books.

 3 of my latest aquistions ....(won on ebay...)

 HORROR of PARTY BEACH photo comic from Warren pub...circa 1964...

 

 from the mid 60's...the FRANKENSCIENCE MONSTER- A compilation of articales on Boris Karloff edited by Forrest (the Ackermonster) J. Ackerman!!!
 

 ...and a dime novel from the 30's of CHANDU the MAGICIAN with yours truly-uh-I mean Bela Lugosi gracing the cover!

 

 ...my mag collection has become quite large...I have over 100 mags dating from 1959 (a JOURNAL of FRANKENSTEIN mag...it was the forerunner of the later Castle of Frankenstein mags ) into the seventies.

 One I regret having lost a few years back was this one:

 It's an old Warren Publishing mag...kinda in the Playboy vein called AFTER HOURS.


 It was made in 1958...and most of the mag was handed over to FJ Ackerman and he basically loaded it with monster and sci-fi film articales...kinda a dry run for FAMOUS MONSTERS #1 . I happened to luck out and find one at a flea market for $1.00.

 Iv'e seen it sell on ebay for over $3000 bucks. THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS.

 I sent my copy to Micheal Weldon in  some years back so he could use it in to do a photospread for his mag PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO. The articale appears,with my name and  credit in #37.

 


 Well...Mr.Weldon never sent my mag back. And later on he went belly up and cancelled my freashly paid for sub renewal. Whatta shmuck. 
   

[Allhallowsday]

I'd be up After Hours if somebody ripped off my treasure like that... 
I scanned these for you BELA... In the early 70s I had gazed at the back issues longingly that were advertised for sale in the few issues of any Warren publication, but I never bought any of the back issues (then).  I collected them in the mid 80s, grabbing them for the covers (my goal was to collect the first 50 issues only of CREEPY and EERIE, didn't finish, but I acquired the covers I really loved).  I converted a closet into storage shelves, so many of my magazines are handy:



That CHANDU is a real treasure! 

[RCMerchant]

I have some old Creepy's and Eeries too...the Vampirellas are worth BIG bucks nowadays. I love the Uncle Creepy mask!   Like Cheezy, my step mom and Dad sold or trashed all my mags when I ran from home in the late 70's...so Iv'e been slowly buying whatta ever I can over the years...before I learned how to use a computer about two years ago,I would find them at yard sales and flea markets on occasion.
 Your right about 'collecters'...most people think I'm nuts wasting time and money on usless old 'junk'...but I don't actually spend a lot of cash on 'em...I just snag up deals from people who consider the stuff 'junk!'

[CheezeFlixz]

I have a rather extensive collection of Bettie Page stuff, books, films, DVD's, original photos, old pin up mags. I also have a complete run of Heavy Metal magazine and a few other cult magazines.

Thinking about it I have WAY to much stuff. And it's not getting any better, I've had the flu the last couple of days with a 102 fever and I laid here in my chair buying cool and weird crap off the internet and ebay ... my wife said she was going to take my laptop away as when I don't feel good she says I comfort shop.   

[RCMerchant]

I have a rather extensive collection of Bettie Page stuff, books, films, DVD's, original photos, old pin up mags. I also have a complete run of Heavy Metal magazine and a few other cult magazines.

Thinking about it I have WAY to much stuff. And it's not getting any better, I've had the flu the last couple of days with a 102 fever and I laid here in my chair buying cool and weird crap off the internet and ebay ... my wife said she was going to take my laptop away as when I don't feel good she says I comfort shop.   

That old AFTER HOURS mag had a photo spread of Bettie and one of Russ Meyer's ol' lady Eve...and of the cover girl Anita (FANGS of the LIVING DEAD) Ekberg.

[MST3KFan]

I have many hobbies people give me looks for.

1. Japanese anime.
Since 1992 with my introduction to Japanese anime through stuff such as Guvyer, Ranma 1/2, and Bubblegum Crisis, all which was initially accidental cause of my brother watching these one time in the same as me while I was playing a video game, I've been a major collector of anime and have many DVDs and tapes littering the entertainment room of the house.

2. Horror and sci-fi movies.
When I hit 18 in 1997 I decided that I would watch all the horror/sci-fi horror films I recall seeing in rental stores I couldn't see cause my parents were the super strict kind of parents about that. (Of course as a small child I used to be afraid to go through those sections of the video stores) The result became that I ended up eventually buying tons of late 70s, 1980s, and early 90s horror and sci-fi films on tape (or DVD if available on it) Aside from the video stores getting rid of many of their VHS tapes and stuff it was because I guess I started hating re-renting stuff I liked and felt buying it would be better. So...yeah, I've got a lot of movies along with anime which I get some nagging on from my parents on.
I have my own rental store practically.

3. Video games.
From my childhood introduction to the original Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 to the present. I've amassed a ton of games and game systems. Most are in storage, but every once in a while I dig one of the older ones out to play for nostalgic reasons. I own a NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, N64, PSX, PS2, XBOX, XBOX 360, GBA, Nintendo DS, and Wii. You don't even wanna know how many games I have with all those systems combined. O_o My reasons being aside from loving playing older games is I look at selling them at places like GameStop as kind of a waste since you hardly get anywhere near what you paid for them in the first place.

4. Action figures.
To this day I hate that I was so rough with my toys as a child as I had quite a few things people seem willing to pay insane amounts of money for nowadays on places like eBay. Today I've collected a TON of figures with the oldest ones I have (not counting the ARAH G.I.Joe stuff I bought off aforementioned eBay recently) being Transformers Beast Wars stuff. Other then that, I've been collecting Marvel Legends, DC Universe, Street Fighter, TMNT, and the recent G.I.Joe 25th anniversary stuff that's been coming out. I have them all on display on shelves too, which I can atest to being a major pain to clean and dust when I get around to it.

Heh. Yeah, I mention to people what I collect or have a lot of they will either give looks or sometimes even be like 'Oh, wow, that's so cool. I remember..." That kind of stuff. I used to collect stuff like comics and card game stuff too at one point but I decided to shelf them as comics were getting silly and card game stuff became insane with things like rare cards and all that.

[Snivelly]

I stopped collecting in the past few years out of a need to unload the things I had no room for.  But looking at those comic covers I have to admit to an envious urge to get my hands on those and read them, they look awesome.

Killer Bees, I gave you karma since I'm a knitter too.  I learned how to knit two years ago, and right now my faves to work on are socks and hats, especially socks.  I live for trips to the yarn store, I can spend hours looking at and feeling the various fibers there.

I also crochet, which I learned as a little girl, I sew, and I know some embroidery and bead work.  I don't have a problem telling people I knit, in fact the restaurant I work at is so slow this time of year that I take projects with me and knit when I have nothing else to do.  Many of the customers like to watch me work on socks and ask questions about how it's done, plus it's a pretty rural area where people still do lots of things by hand.

My other hobbies are the ones I don't talk about often.  I'm deeply interested in the paranormal, and I've written some short pieces that have appeared on websites plus I hosted a paranormal podcast briefly.  Also, I've been doing astrological charts for people for about 20 years now.  I'm not as active with that as I used to be, I've found I enjoy knitting just as much, plus the knitting is good for the arthritis that has settled into my hands.

[Killer Bees]

To fellow knitter Snivelly!   

[Sister Grace]

I collect political propaganda flyers. I have somewhat an obsession with gasmasks, i have a few and collect any pictures of them i can get my hands on. My favorites are those with a family orientated theme.