[The Defiant Biscuit]

Being gamer geeks pretty much denies us the credibility to complain about other people’s hobbies in the eyes of the masses. I know what I’m going to write here will probably make me sound like a major asshole, though I'm not saying that ALL followers are bad but fuck me, for the most part there are some hobbies I just don’t get.

Warhammer

For years I’ve been trying to get into the Warhammer tabletop game, Warhammer 40K to be precise (pushes up geek glasses) due to my love of science-fiction and blowing stuff up but the geeks of the Warhammer universe always put me off. Case in point whenever I walk into a Games Workshop store the staff are always brilliant, friendly and helpful but the second my eyes deviate to the tables I’m greeted with a hoard of angry stares from the hardcore crowd who look at me with the same amount of disgust as if I had dug up the corpses of their dead grandmothers and proceeded to stick my penis into their hollowed out eye sockets. Perhaps I wouldn’t mind so much if they went back to what they were originally doing afterwards but it seems that rule dictates every new person must be stared at until they run to leave the store because new people are outsiders and evil and smell funny and don’t know the difference between a Space Marine G65 Plasma Gun and a Space Marine G66 Plasma Gun.

All I want is to learn about the game, I know not to touch anything (not like I have a chance with the way they use their arms to block off the table) or to ask any noob questions that will cause untold amounts of stress, I just want to look and learn, nothing more. I remember one man in particular was painting an Imperial Guard figure and I told him it looked great only to have him let out a high pitched scream to the staff because I was ‘disturbing his art’ fucking prick.

Anime/Manga/Japan Geeks

Oh boy, where do I start with this one, these people are, for me at least, probably the most inane class of geek I have ever encountered. In fact if frustration could manifest itself into a human form then I’m convinced it would end up being a white 12 year old anime fan whose knowledge knows no bounds due to it watching an episode of Bleach one time. Just for the record I’ve done the whole Japan thing, I lived there for seven years, married a Japanese chick, ate the food and learned the lingo so as far as I’m concerned I’m done but even when I was just starting out, I was nowhere as bad as the kids doing it now. All I used to do was watch old samurai films and read books.

I made the mistake of going to an anime expo some months back and even my wife was sad to see a large number of disturbed grown men lurking around dressed as fuck knows what while letting out embarrassing renditions of “kawaii” and “desu” in a weak bid to out ‘Japanese’ each other. A big fucking no-no in using a foregin language. The Chinese kids pretending to be Japanese to sell off their over-priced snacks to white folks were amusing I admit but the cherry on the cake was when some fat little kid who had never left his own bedroom let alone been abroad was lecturing me on Japanese etiquette because anime "taught" him everything and thus my seven years of actual experience was wrong. My wife didn’t fare better. She was talking with a group of young women (in their early 20’s) who were drawing a manga set in a Japanese girl’s high school but were stuck on what the uniforms would look like. My wife, having been an actual Japanese school girl, went to help them out but was told that her suggestions were also wrong because one of the girls had read “a shit load of manga” so automatically knew better. Pikachu fucking wept.

For the record these people aren’t loved in Japan either, learning about different cultures is always a good thing but acting like superior little pricks afterwards is always a downfall but then what the fuck would I know, I never read it in a manga.

[HappyFerret]

Golf. Nothing can be such a pointless pretentious competetive male bonding ego massaging cultural tar pit as golf.

[JT IceFire]

Originally Posted by HappyFerret

Golf. Nothing can be such a pointless pretentious competetive male bonding ego massaging cultural tar pit as golf.

Seconded to a ridiculous degree. Every time I look at a golf course, I ask myself just how much low-income housing that land could have been used for. Hell, you could fit four entire sports arenas and their parking lots on the space it takes to play this wasteful, elitist pasttime.

Oh, and Biscuit: if nothing else, anime cons have one saving grace:

[Princess Megatron]

Twilight.

I do not understand people who read, and especially people who lose their fucking shit over, Twilight.

[JohnnyViral]

Originally Posted by Princess Megatron

Twilight.

^This

And Id have to say getting the latest gadgets every time one comes out, for example iPhones, I cant understan why people HAVE to have the latest.... its just weird to me.

[chris24680]

It's not really a hobbie, but ties, I just don't get them they serve no purpose at all. They just make no sence to me.

[JT IceFire]

Originally Posted by chris24680

It's not really a hobbie, but ties, I just don't get them they serve no purpose at all. They just make no sence to me.

Ugh, agreed there, too. Where most people see a tie, I see a collar.

And since this is my second post in this thread, I should at least throw something new out there. Settlers of Catan. No matter how many times I see it, I just still can't see the appeal.

[The-Excel]

Originally Posted by HappyFerret

Golf. Nothing can be such a pointless pretentious competetive male bonding ego massaging cultural tar pit as golf.

I was going through the channels on the cable box and I saw an entire HD channel dedicated to golf. I laughed so hard I don't even know.

[Mr Kite]

Originally Posted by HappyFerret

Golf. Nothing can be such a pointless pretentious competetive male bonding ego massaging cultural tar pit as golf.

Nothing wrong with golf, it's just an excuse to wander around outside drinkin' beer and hitting shit with your friends. Plus after you're done can feel like you did something "productive" for once.

[Bango Skank]

How about Nascar? Who the hell finds enjoyment in watching a bunch of idiots drive around in a circle a few hundred times?

[Zodiac Eclipse]

LARPing. Adults who dress up in costumes and overrun local parks role playing their characters. I've grown to appreciate some forms of cosplay, because when done well it can be impressive, but combined with a hardcore roleplay fetish and accents that are only accurate in Sci-Fi original movies, shit gets a little weird.

[cubingmelons]

Originally Posted by The Defiant Biscuit

Anime/Manga/Japan Geeks

Oh boy, where do I start with this one, these people are, for me at least, probably the most inane class of geek I have ever encountered. In fact if frustration could manifest itself into a human form then I’m convinced it would end up being a white 12 year old anime fan whose knowledge knows no bounds due to it watching an episode of Bleach one time. Just for the record I’ve done the whole Japan thing, I lived there for seven years, married a Japanese chick, ate the food and learned the lingo so as far as I’m concerned I’m done but even when I was just starting out, I was nowhere as bad as the kids doing it now. All I used to do was watch old samurai films and read books.

I made the mistake of going to an anime expo some months back and even my wife was sad to see a large number of disturbed grown men lurking around dressed as fuck knows what while letting out embarrassing renditions of “kawaii” and “desu” in a weak bid to out ‘Japanese’ each other. A big fucking no-no in using a foregin language. The Chinese kids pretending to be Japanese to sell off their over-priced snacks to white folks were amusing I admit but the cherry on the cake was when some fat little kid who had never left his own bedroom let alone been abroad was lecturing me on Japanese etiquette because anime "taught" him everything and thus my seven years of actual experience was wrong. My wife didn’t fare better. She was talking with a group of young women (in their early 20’s) who were drawing a manga set in a Japanese girl’s high school but were stuck on what the uniforms would look like. My wife, having been an actual Japanese school girl, went to help them out but was told that her suggestions were also wrong because one of the girls had read “a shit load of manga” so automatically knew better. Pikachu fucking wept.

For the record these people aren’t loved in Japan either, learning about different cultures is always a good thing but acting like superior little pricks afterwards is always a downfall but then what the fuck would I know, I never read it in a manga.

This is possibly the saddest thing I have ever read. Anime kids simultaneously creep me out and piss me off. I knew kids like this in high school and I see them roaming around my college campus. It's pretty terrible.

[The-Excel]

I almost ended up like that, but then I learned just in time what that entails so now I spend a lot of my free time convincing others that I hate them too.

[Changston]

I like the philosophy that people are entitled to their hobbies, so long they can exist outside them for a bit. I enjoy my games and talking about them too, but I gotta get out and do other things too. I don't really feel like I should judge anyone if they have a weird hobby. Even the weird anime kids that start their freshman year in college eventually mellow out or stay out of my way that I don't notice them.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuut, I've got one thing that I really don't get. And it's just kind of a funny story too, since it involves my dad.

As a little bit of background, my dad came to the states in the early 70's for grad school in doing some sort of semi conductor physics. He became a professor at a local school, which isn't top notch but also isn't a pushover school either, and now he's dean for both the math and physics departments. Several rooms in my family's house have been filled to the brim with various physics textbooks, his hero's Richard Feynman, etcetcetc. So you got an image of him in your mind?

He's obsessed with watching Professional Wrestling. He hasn't gone one week without watching it unless he was on vacation elsewhere. He's watched it since I was a kid (nearly 20 years ago), and probably watched it even before then. Despite the fact that it's gone through several changes in how they market it, he will still watch it. It is also probably the sole reason why he has cable.

One time, a couple of years ago, I remember that he was watching one of the wrestling shows, and there was a wrestler who was a pimp. He had what he called a "ho train" and it was two or three ho's that paraded in front of him. The announcers were going crazy about the ho train, and then he asks in an innocent manner, "Jonjon...what is ho?"

So yeah, if you watched professional wrestling all the way through the years, why do you like it? I don't think my dad knows any more, and it's just a force of habit...

[Dexter345]

Originally Posted by chris24680

It's not really a hobbie, but ties, I just don't get them they serve no purpose at all. They just make no sence to me.

Originally Posted by JT IceFire

Ugh, agreed there, too. Where most people see a tie, I see a collar.

And since this is my second post in this thread, I should at least throw something new out there. Settlers of Catan. No matter how many times I see it, I just still can't see the appeal.

A tie is there to hide the buttons on your shirt.

And Settlers of Catan is an incredible board game. The part that makes it so much better than most other board games is the trading mechanic, which can really make or break a strategy. I knew a guy who won way more often than not, not because he was a particularly good strategist, but because he was a salesman.

[BulletMagnet]

Originally Posted by Bango Skank

How about Nascar? Who the hell finds enjoyment in watching a bunch of idiots drive around in a circle a few hundred times?

This one I must second - I think most of the people who watch are just hoping for some huge flaming crash to happen and wake them up. Monster truck rallies never impressed me much either - the mere sight of a Really Big Machine isn't really enough to entertain me, especially if it's just making lots of noise as it moves around.

While I also agree to some extent with golf, especially watching golf on TV, I think that watching poker matches on the tube is even more ridiculous.

[Ashley Davis]

Originally Posted by BulletMagnet

This one I must second - I think most of the people who watch are just hoping for some huge flaming crash to happen and wake them up. Monster truck rallies never impressed me much either - the mere sight of a Really Big Machine isn't really enough to entertain me, especially if it's just making lots of noise as it moves around.

I actually went to a monster truck rally a few months ago just because I could hold my curiosity no longer -- I had to see what the big deal was about for myself. I found out that the events are even more of a bore than I'd originally deduced. I expected all of the trucks to go out and smash cars and one another, but no dice. Most of the event was devoted to races. I still have no idea how that could ever attract enough people to fill a stadium.

I also second Twilight, but then again, it seems that people have always been drawn toward horribly written love stories, so I may as well say I don't understand people who are way into romance novels.

[JT IceFire]

Originally Posted by Changston

I like the philosophy that people are entitled to their hobbies, so long they can exist outside them for a bit. I enjoy my games and talking about them too, but I gotta get out and do other things too. I don't really feel like I should judge anyone if they have a weird hobby. Even the weird anime kids that start their freshman year in college eventually mellow out or stay out of my way that I don't notice them.

This is true. I think I should bring up about now that I'm both an anime fan and a LARPer, and with very few expections, the people I interact with in both are generally mellow and down-to-earth, with a sincere appreciation for how ridiculously silly they're acting.

Zodiac: Sci-Fi network accents? You're being way too kind there. I'd say the accents are more akin to those in freshman acting classes.

Originally Posted by Changston

So yeah, if you watched professional wrestling all the way through the years, why do you like it? I don't think my dad knows any more, and it's just a force of habit...

For the same reason people like action movies- the ludicrously stylized action resembles what we wish two people fighting actually looked like. That's about the best explanation I can muster.

[Phantomile]

Definitely gonna go ahead and second NASCAR.

I understand why people like to watch cars race, but eventually its just gonna be the same thing...turning left, forever.

And I don't even want to think about all of the gas they're wasting on it.

[RiotMonster]

Originally Posted by Bango Skank

How about Nascar? Who the hell finds enjoyment in watching a bunch of idiots drive around in a circle a few hundred times?

BO-RING!!

Also, people who paint with their PERIOD BLOOD.