Oh my god I just remembered playing infection in Halo too and so many good memories. This post actually made me boot up Black Ops 1 yesterday and play the campaign and it's crazy to me how much I remember and how much fun I'm still having. Definitely feeling like I'm gonna finish the playthrough. Just in time to help me not buy the new COD lol

Halo Reach capture the flag with a buddy. Game winning point without much time, he got the flag and I picked him up on a mongoose and he was screaming the Indiana Jones theme on his mic as we barely made it back to our base in time. I had to do some great driving. Not sure why it stands out so much.

We also used to beat the Easter egg on all cod zombies maps and since my group broke apart I've always wanted to form another group or something to beat the new maps.

Wife, brother, and I have had some awesome moments in Ark Survival Evolved.

Don't get to play all that much these days... Damn job...

I guess this is specifically illegal according to the Hatch Act which is supposed to prevent using public service websites from being used to smear a political party.

I made myself a butter knife holder by using a magnet

"I'll vote for him again because he isn't like the other corrupt politicians"

-My dad

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.

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

France is literally protesting better than the USA over our own issues...

Cycle to work every day, 3 miles one way, I know in my bones from repeated experiences that the bigger the vehicle, the less likely they see you

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

Wish Democrats in the House and Senate could also do something...

Only thing historically significant about the 10 commandments is that the founding fathers didn't want them in classrooms

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

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.

It's actually an amazing feeling when this happens. Makes me pedal way harder.

I'd bet a bunch of them would rather be on their bikes with you if there were decent bike infrastructure...

Last weekend I talked my wife into trying Linux on her desktop on an extra SSD I had, she loves it. Loves that she can customize everything, says it's faster (especially boot time), we put it on her laptop last night

Try a used laptop. Cheap, power efficient, built in UPS, small. Can be quite powerful and some are even upgradable

At this point I just stopped buying chips. Feels like such a waste to fill the bag less than half way...