Hobbies, Interests and Hates

Inpsired by Lynn, who nicked it off Samantha.  

Hobbies:

Games - Oh my I love to play games. Tabletop roleplaying games (runnning a 3:16 campaign right now), board games (loving the Lego games like City Alarm and Heroica), card games (UNO!), and even the odd video game like Minecraft and Professor Layton. I love the social aspects, and I love the aesthetics of a well made boardgame or what-not, but mostly I love pitting my brain against a puzzle. Particularly if I have latitude to solve it my way rather than the way the game designer intended.

Cosplay - A natural progression from my love of fancy dress parties and costuming is to make costumes to emulate specific characters. Often from Japanese cartoons, but not always. My current projects are a dinosaur from a friends webcomic, and Jerry Springer's Inner Valkyrie from Jerry Springer The Opera. I'm mostly self taught, but my Mum, girlfriend, and a few select friends have all contributed to my education.

Karaoke - Singing before an audience is an amazing feeling. Even if they're all scratching their head wondering what on earth I'm singing! I love to play with voices and accents, so its natural that I tend towards the more unusual songs - Sid Vicious's version of My Way is great fun to sing. The reaction of the crowd is an added bonus.

Dancing - I like to stomp and sway at my local goth/ebm/metal haunt. I never really liked dancing but I guess that's more to do with the music I used to hear in clubs, or maybe the clubs themselves. Dragging-up and letting the music move you is nothing at all like grinding to some repetative nonsense in the hopes of ending up with a drunk girl! I've also taken some Burlesque classes with Burlesque Norwich which was great fun, a heck of a workout, and really good for self esteem. I can't see myself on-stage anytime soon, but you never know. And I can always pilfer the dance moves and techniques for other purposes.  

Interests:

Steampunk - I've got some retro clothes and I listen to Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer and Professor Elemental, but I still don't feel like a Steampunk. I will get around to attenting The Asylum, and getting some actual brass goggles rather than my Blue Peter-esque ones made from mrecycled stuff. For now I follow Facebook groups and look at the pretty clothes.

LARP - Live Action Roleplay is a bit like tabletop gaming, but you dress up like your character, act out yourn actions, and fight with rubber swords! Its always looked fascinating, but the expense and the sparseness of events has kept me an observer rather than a participant.

Hates

Television - OK its a cliche, and it makes me sound like a snob, but I dislike 99% of what appears on TV these days. I have a lot of DVDs of the final 1%, be it retro classics like Bagpuss and The Prisoner or newer shows like Burn Notice and The Wire, but I stopped actively watching TV a long time ago. I'll sometimes veg out at friends if we're all watching, but I have no interest in the soaps, or Britain's Got Talent.

Sports - Or rather the tribalness of sports fans. Its a game. It happens every week/year/four years. Most fans don't support the local team, have no input into them winning, and gain to real-world benefits if they win (or real world penalties if they lose). So why is it a big deal? I sit there baffled as workmates taunt eath other over who's team beat whom. And as for sports stats... I don't care who won this week. Why should I care what happened last year or further ago?