Hobbies you picked up by accident...

iqoniq

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I'm just wondering if there are people who have hobbies that they've picked up by accident. What I mean by accident, is the fact that it wasn't originally in the game plan, but you found out you liked.

Mine is DJing and was kind of discovered by accident when I was about 8. I discovered that with skilful use of volume control, and slowing records down with my finger I could blend records together. This then progressed to other areas of the EQ and was something I did when I was bored. When I was about 14 the rave scene was in full swing, and one of my mates brothers had decks and a mixer. I took one look at it, knew more or less instantly what everything did, and just started mixing. The addition of the decks and mixer (monitor was a godsend to me) made it feel completely natural, and I started DJing. It did have the side effect of bumping me up a couple of years in peer groups, and giving me a bit of kudos, but I mixed because I enjoyed it and could make records sound different.

My dad learnt to knit by accident. He used to travel a lot with work, and one day he was sat in the hotel bar and got talking to another guy on business. Somehow the conversation moved to killing time, and the guy said he knitted. My dad was like "wtf?", but the guy went and got a ball of yarn and needles and showed him how to do a row (still in the bar), and then said to my dad he could have them. My dad said thanks and had absolutely no intention of using it. The next day he had time to kill, and surprise surprise he decides to pick up the knitting needles. I remember this mainly because the weekend he got home, he went out and got a beginners kit for knitting, and my mum being really suspicious that he'd come back with a class A knitting habit. Since then he's done some really intricate stuff, including a load of stuff for my niece when she was small.

This has also been contagious and my housemate has also picked it up on his recommendation as something to relax. She does lot of small outfits, which look like the could be for dolls, but are for babies who are either to premature to make it, or babies who are born asleep. She then donates these to funeral homes as there is sadly a need for them, and she also includes a tiny knitted teddy with each one. If anyone here knits, and fancies doing something nice, it might be worth contacting a funeral home and seeing if they need any. It makes a massive amount of difference to the families.

My housemate has also developed a World of Warcraft habit because of me. I was a player when she met me, and for a while called me a nerd because of it. One night I asked her could she follow me through an instance (she just hung back so she didn't get attacked) on a second account I had and just loot everything as I needed the gear and some of it was bind on pick up. She then discovered she liked it, and downloaded a trial account, and a few days later I was boosting her around instances for her own characters. I sacked it off a few years back (although I do have an active account for occasional play), but she still plays it.

So do you have a hobby you picked up by accident?
 
I don't know if it's a Hobby or an affliction;

In our council building is a big tub in which they collect the ring pulls from beverage cans (apparently worth about a third of a penny

So I started to save the ring pulls in a mug on my desk, I drink a lot of diet cola,

Now I can't throw away a can without removing the ring-pull and invariably have a dozen or more in a coat pocket at any moment
 
they collect the ring pulls from beverage cans (apparently worth about a third of a penny)
If the ring-pulls are worth that, what would the whole can be worth?
 
when we had a family of foxes move into our garden 3 years ago I thought I should try and get some photos of them so we'd have something to remember them by when we're old. It seems to have developed into spending a lot of time in the garden taking thousands of photos of plants, bugs, anything really. Mostly foxes and flies, though
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Move to Wales, free bus pass for men and women at 60 :)
 
Years ago, my mom said she would like to have a go at doing some sort of art, but she didn't seem to have the confidence to get started by herself. I had the idea of buying her a couple of painting by numbers kits, as I thought it would be an easy way for her to get started with painting, and maybe that would then give her the confidence to try doing her own paintings or drawings. She seemed genuinely pleased with the kits I bought her, and even asked me to get her a magnifying glass to make it easier for her to see the numbers. She never seemed to get round to starting on the paintings though, and after she died a couple of years later I was clearing her house out and I found the 2 painting kits on top of her wardrobe, untouched. I decided I'd have a go at doing them myself, and found it to be a really relaxing hobby. I've bought myself several painting by numbers kits since then, and completed the paintings.
 

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If the ring-pulls are worth that, what would the whole can be worth?

Oops sorry didn't see the question until this topic popped onto the front page.

About 1.8p a can. Tabs are popular because they're easily collectable, Somewhere like a library can have an old sweet jar for people to bring their tabs and someone can collect them once a month

Cans are harder to store, even when crushed so someone needs to come and collect them more regularly negating the extra money you get for the can
 
Running.

Before this year, I always used to think that runners were insane.

At the start of the year, my wife wanted to lose some weight before the wedding so wanted to do the Couch to 5K thing. She didn't want to run alone, so roped me in for some support.

I'm now running 4 times a week.

I still think that runners are insane - I'd much rather be at home eating Doritos in front of the TV, but I'm out there in all weathers 4 times a week.
 
Running.

Before this year, I always used to think that runners were insane.

At the start of the year, my wife wanted to lose some weight before the wedding so wanted to do the Couch to 5K thing. She didn't want to run alone, so roped me in for some support.

I'm now running 4 times a week.

I still think that runners are insane - I'd much rather be at home eating Doritos in front of the TV, but I'm out there in all weathers 4 times a week.

l agree runners are insane and so are couch potatoes.
 
Headphones. It’s bordering an addiction as I wish I had more ears!

Also the older I’ve got, the closer I’ve got to becoming what some would call an audiophile.

Ironic as the best time to be one is when you’re much younger and your ears work properly but you don’t have the money for it as a hobby.
 
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Oops sorry didn't see the question until this topic popped onto the front page.

About 1.8p a can. Tabs are popular because they're easily collectable, Somewhere like a library can have an old sweet jar for people to bring their tabs and someone can collect them once a month

Cans are harder to store, even when crushed so someone needs to come and collect them more regularly negating the extra money you get for the can
It used to be 5p a can when I was 10. When recycling started to become a thing, the local council had promotions in various places over the summer holidays. It was for things like can banks, and getting people into the habit. They also hit upon the idea of giving people 5p for every can they turned up with. For most people it's a meh amount, but for a 10 year old it's gold mine, and they made the mistake of telling the schools in the places where it was happening before the holidays. A few of my local peer group missed the news from a teacher because we went to school in a different area, but enough of the local school kids started to mention it for it to sound legit. I swear I've never seen an urban area so devoid of discarded drinks cans, and we'd even toured neighbours to see if they had any.

Come the day it opened there was a massive line of kids with bin bags full of cans (this was repeated in several locations). The first day they ran out of money, the second they slapped a limit of 5 cans a time on (still worth repeat queuing if you're with mates), and then on the third they slapped on 5 cans per day. To make matters worse the cans had to be processed (crushed) and they had special machines. This meant that the kids were getting twice the bang for a can because they got to do it themselves, but it also took time to do so a bag of cans would take about 10 minutes. We did start squishing them ourselves when the fun of crushing the cans with the machine wore off (or the kid behind you threatened you with his older brother if you didn't hurry up), though. The council hadn't thought it through, and there was a bit of a panic when they realised that the kids could just as easily dump then en masse. Fears of huge can mountains having aluminium avalanches came to naught, but I think it was wound down within just over a week despite having been scheduled to run for a month.

Seriously, what did they expect to happen? Kids have higher levels of what they'll tolerate or do for monetary reward. We were all mercenary little b@stards, and the fact that they gave us in excess of 24 hours notice with a week of school holiday prior meant it was obvious what the outcome would be. Even if they'd paid us in stickers, they'd have ended up as some sort of commodity and traded between kids for sweets or something (anything that could be collected en masse would be used as a status symbol regarding how many you had).
 
While off work with flu some years back (long before covid) I stumbled across the quiz site Sporcle my word that was addictive

I even managed to get 100% on the one naming every Capital city in the world (though I had to open a new tab and copy and paste a couple like Tegucigalpa, N'Djamena and Ouagadougou ) :)
 
While off work with flu some years back (long before covid) I stumbled across the quiz site Sporcle my word that was addictive

I even managed to get 100% on the one naming every Capital city in the world (though I had to open a new tab and copy and paste a couple like Tegucigalpa, N'Djamena and Ouagadougou ) :)
Cheat.😃😃😃
 
I came into possession of some oil paints and tiny 5x7 canvases, so a year ago I thought I’d give it a go. I’m disappointed that I haven’t attempted anything for the best part of a year now. I find it as frustrating as it is rewarding.
 

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Apart from the photos of animals that come into our garden...
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I collect knackered old pipes and refurbish them for my own use. It's actually very satisfying to get something old and crusty and give it a little TLC and make it almost as good as new. One of my favourites is about 120 years old. I don't think the previous owners of most of them even knew pipe cleaners exist
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Fish keeping.

Was given a rescue fish at work and they were going to flush it down the loo (people for you)
So I decided to step in and brought it home, a crazy fish which I had no clue in how look after. That was 2017.

Nearly six years on...what started as rescuing one.. I have rescued eight and moved from a glass bowl to a high tech 70 gallon tank with heating and filteration.
Share my experience and knowledge with newbies on social media platforms who are starting out.

It's definitely a science keeping these sentinel sensitive creatures healthy and fit...but well worth it...

Peace.

😄
 
Running. I got hoodwinked into it by my wife.
 

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