Spyke

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Awkward

One time my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I went to pick up some condoms and then we decided to also get some ice cream and the cashier (older lady) gave us like a 3 second look and I thought she was gonna say something but then I said, "the ice cream's for a friend" and it was the funniest thing I've ever said.

Wife still hasn't forgiven me. Cashier didn't say anything. My eyes were watering like crazy as I held in my giggles.

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You can fit two cars there

Both my brother in laws have huge modified trucks, both live in cities, both complain that the road infrastructure and parking doesn't cater to their large vehicles... Also both have (probably) never used the truck bed.

They are so huge, tons of room in the cab. Feels like driving in a living room. Have to ride over curbs to get out of parking lots though

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Reblog if youre american

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Not sure how badly you want it back, but it is possible to restore. Non-sugically. Basically skin under tension causes Mitosis (skin cells dividing to make more skin) - think putting on weight, gaining muscle, getting pregnant, or ear gauges. You tug the skin long enough and eventually have your hoodie back. The results are surprisingly impressive. r/restoring_foreskin has a bunch of info

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*deleted by creator*

My first Pi got me into computing which led to my software career now. Won it from a YouTube giveaway and kept it a secret because I wasn't allowed to have a computer. Put retroPi on it and told my parents it was for gaming. Coded my first game in Python (from a tutorial). I once put it in a crayon box and used that as a portable handheld. Later. Made a janky arcade cabinet. Sad that my kids may need to use a different brand device. I have no love for public companies

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Do you all have any tips on activities to do yourself, instead of consuming content all the time?

I'll list some hobbies at the end but for me, I struggled feeling motivated after work to do anything but eat and be entertained. It got pretty bad until I decided I needed to figure out something different. I thought I was just missing hobbies but even as I picked some hobbies up (usually on weekends) I wouldn't do them during the week.

Most of my issues revolved around stress (from work), turns out.

I still struggle with this so don't expect a magic solution, but what I found was that my job was actually a lot more stressful than I thought. To the point where I'd wake up in the night thinking about work problems that for sure weren't a big deal and that for sure wouldn't be solved half asleep. So now I try and be more productive at work to make sure I avoid deadlines getting tight, and towards the end of the day I make sure my tasks are simple, if possible. I also try and take lots of breaks and I check in with myself "am I relaxed right now?" "would a break make me more productive" - and I unfortunately found that media isn't a good break for me at work. Somehow the stress stays, while also adding in cravings for more dopamine-inducing activities. Good breaks for me include walking, actively listening to music, daydreaming, planning stuff (holidays, dinner, my upcoming evening, weekend), reading (pretty much anything), and learning new stuff (I'm studying Spanish and chess right now, recently learned all of my PLL algorithms on a Rubik's Cube). I'm a software engineer for context.

The largest stress benefit for me has been biking to work. Yeah, I almost get ran over sometimes which is scary (even with bike paths 90% of my route, you still gotta cross roads, and even with a walk sign cars still won't see you), but driving during rush hour is stressful (there are studies on this but I'm too lazy to link any). Biking is just fun. I even bike in winter (studded tires and poggies/bar mits). Since not everyone has the luxury of biking, exercising immediately after work is something to consider. It for sure helps me separate work from home. There's plenty of studies on exercise lowering stress.

And if your job isn't too stressful, there's another issues with not committing to hobbies... For me, it was that I was/am addicted to media. Once I get started with some dinner and YouTube, it's hard not to lose a couple hours. Best advice for easing out of it is audiobooks make it easy after eating to do chores/walk/not get more food. But other than audiobooks, avoid consuming media while eating. Also avoid media served by an algorithm. It's so easy to watch a great video, and refresh the recommendations to look for another. Then you're watching sub-par videos just hoping for a good one... Wasting tons of time. I use an extension to hide video recommendations. I can still search, and browse my subscriptions, but it saves me a lot of time (extension is called unhook I believe).

My username is actually centered around the idea that the more passive an activity, the less valuable it is to you. I personally want more active hobbies in my life. It is weird to me that so many fulfilling hobbies exist, but I regularly waste evenings on YouTube...

If you can have low stress and minimal cravings for YT/Netflix, here's some hobbies:

  • Get a dog (huge commitment, consider a cat if you're too busy) but mine forces me on 3 walks a day, and I've love training her
  • Learn something on your bucket list (I mentioned Rubik's cubes, chess, and Spanish already), cooking has been mentioned by others
  • I enjoy free diving (diving with goggles, but you hold your breath instead of scuba). I enjoy training my breath hold, and everyone thinks I drowned when I first go underwater at a lake or something (I can only dive for around 40 seconds but that impresses people (this includes swimming)). I can also dive pretty deep which is fun. It's also a bit surreal to be deep underwater with good vision and be comfortable
  • I recently dipped my toes into making music, I have a guitar, trombone, and someday I'd like to learn piano
  • Having/riding a motorcycle is a great hobby. Seems like it wouldn't be, but in summer I'm often looking for excuses to go ride.
  • Bike commuting is great fun. Get some saddle bags to pick up groceries and enjoy the weather when you run out of eggs
  • Mountain biking was the easiest hobby for me to dive completely into. Spent loads of money, built my current hardtail part by part. I'm even thinking about traveling south to bike in the winter cause I miss it so much. I live in a place with good trails close to home. Easy for me to go riding before or after work.
  • Camping, Fishing, Backpacking, Hiking, Snowshoeing, Back-country skiing/snowboarding, all great fun. Make great weekend trips too. Go explore your state
  • Check out letterboxing. It's a bit like geocaching but no GPS, just clues/puzzles. My letterboxing journal always makes people ask questions
  • My wife and I like getting hotels in small towns nearby (within 2 hours). We'll walk the town, get food, and have a lot of free time to read or play board games, or other adult activities
  • Read. I try and read a book a month. I find that reading before bed helps me sleep WAY better. If I go to bed early and stay up late reading, I think I sleep better than if I went to bed somewhere in the middle without reading.
  • Write. I love writing. Sometimes don't know what to write about, but even typing out how I'm feeling today and what I'd like to get done - and then deleting it - lifts my mood
  • I'm into software, I run a homelab. Huge time suck. I love it.
  • Video games. Might seem super passive, but I think I actually play less than I want to. For sure different than watching YouTube. Some games are challenging even. I have a huge backlog. Tons of fun to play with friends. My wife and I just started Baulders Gate 3 together
  • Exercise can be great. I love running in good weather. Some friends of mine got big into cycling. My wife likes the gym. My favorite workouts are to run to the college track and then do body-weight exercises there (and practice my handstands) before running back. I also enjoy Yoga, but do a lot less than I'd like
  • Board games/Card games - I enjoy Magic, but the company has made it hard to be a fan (same for DND). Flesh and Blood has been fun, but I haven't played a lot of it. On the board game side; Starwars the deckbuilding game, chess, dominion, and cosmic encounters are all good. You'd be surprised how many people want to play board games. In the few game nights I've hosted we barely got to play anyone's games they brought.

Adventure is out there. Don't waste your youth. Some of these might not seem like ideal after work hobbies, but most are totally doable in an evening.

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Modern life

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Maybe I don't recommend it, but my bus love story is cute so I'll share. Moved from a small town to a big (ish) city for college and took the bus every day. So did one of my neighbors who I recognized to be from a neighboring small town. Whenever the bus was busy we'd sit together, and nearby if not. We are both SUPER introverted but after a year we knew each other pretty well. She would try to catch pokemon when the bus would slow down which was always an exciting moment. Then when YuGiOh Dual Links came out we were both playing it non-stop (I wish that game didn't power creep so much, or I'd still be playing it).

Anyway, we'd sometimes run into each other on walks and then walk together. Share baked goods and all that. But YuGiOh was what actually gave us an excuse to hang out (so we could play each other). We were both busy with college and so we had "the talk" where we basically both said we weren't interested in a romantic relationship at the time. I think we both meant it, but somehow it made us relax around each other more. Suddenly we were best friends (with benefits), going out to eat, doing homework together, making sure we took the same bus as much as possible. It was really easy and not a demanding thing. We both knew we were busy and had goals, we just also tried to spend time together when we could. After probably four months of that we realized we were in love and just pretending we were too busy for commitment. Nothing changed and today we're happily married and still working hard on our careers. But we play Magic The Gathering now.