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Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get
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I had a conversation with a client yesterday who spent 10 minutes regaling me with a story about his latest high end pen purchase, upon which he spent approx. $5,000. He's pretty rich so he has the cash to indulge the hobby, but I just don't get the underlying fascination, upon which this dude has spent many, many thousands of dollars. I get spending a bit more for a decent pen that works right, but the concept of 'fancy' pens just seems ludicrous to me, and collecting them even more of a head-scratcher.

Similar reaction to a friend of mine who's a sneaker head - she's got upwards of 200 pairs of sneakers at last count, and she acknowledges that some of them she's unlikely to ever wear.

This is a different reaction for me than hobbies like golf. I don't like golf, I think it's sort of silly, but I get that it's attractive to some people due to it being a combo of physical and mental practice, gets you outside, is sociable, etc.

What else is out there that makes you go 'huh?'
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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That people pay $3-5-8-10,000 for a bicycle.
Or pay $800 to participate in an event called a race where most people aren't racing, they are surviving...barely
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [Trispoke] [ In reply to ]
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The obvious answer for this forum, of course. But I 'get' that one, to an extent. I used to race tris, was a decently competitive age-grouper, spent a bit more on my first bike than I probably needed to. I never went totally off the deep end, but I can understand the underlying attraction.
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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The popularity of fantasy football amazes me.

And people who are deep into cosplay.








"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [vitus979] [ In reply to ]
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Fantasy sports is a good one. I don't get that either.

In re: cosplay, I used to work with this guy's wife; nice dude but his campaign got shellacked when this story broke: http://gawker.com/...splay-rap-1556185389
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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Stamp collecting always was weird to me, but then again I collected comics and baseball cards, but I was also younger than 15. My cousin, who I have talked about here, never quit collecting comics or lego sets for that matter. Such a man child despite having grey hair and having a stroke.


"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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Similar to the pen one, expensive watches as a collection. People have posted on here before, $5K, $10K watches.

Anything that's insanely expensive as a collectible, I'll just never ever get. On top of that, stamp collections, coins, cards of any sort (baseball, pokemon, etc). I guess I don't see the point to 'collecting' anything that you dust off every few months or few years and...look at, I guess?
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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Wine in both the sense owning wine you don't drink and the marginal return on enjoyment/ taste between a 100 and 1000 dollar bottle
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]
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Yup, watches are in there for me too, especially since the fancy ones seem to keep poorer time than a decent (and decent looking) battery operated one that you can get for a few hundred bucks.

I collected baseball cards casually as a kid, but mostly because my friends did and collecting/trading them gave us something to do as a group. I think my collection got ditched when I moved out of my parents' house.
Last edited by: wimsey: Mar 23, 17 10:34
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [windywave] [ In reply to ]
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windywave wrote:
Wine in both the sense owning wine you don't drink and the marginal return on enjoyment/ taste between a 100 and 1000 dollar bottle

Maybe some people do it as an investment, like art purchases that just sit in a bonded warehouse somewhere in Switzerland (?)
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [Brownie28] [ In reply to ]
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I collect guns. I've paid 600-900 for some items I just wanted and only shot a couple times.


"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [TheForge] [ In reply to ]
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TheForge wrote:
I collect guns. I've paid 600-900 for some items I just wanted and only shot a couple times.

Until you reach this guy's level, you're just junior varsity ;) http://khon2.com/...alifornia-mans-home/
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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I don't get the appeal of "faux" place like Vegas, Disneyland, etc.

I've got a high school acquaintance that appears to take a trip or two a year to the Disney place in Florida. Will talk about how great it was to have his daughters picture taken with this or that princess after they waited in line for an hour or two.

I don't get the appeal of going to some vacation spot with a billion other people.

Those are my biggest head scratchers.
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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For me it's mostly sports that I don't get - football, hockey, ... wrestling... golf...

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [windywave] [ In reply to ]
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windywave wrote:
Wine in both the sense owning wine you don't drink and the marginal return on enjoyment/ taste between a 100 and 1000 dollar bottle

Or a 10 and 100 dollar bottle...

My friend is an online card dealer. Many of his biggest sellers are not even sport related, but things like actors and such. Other than a Ben Rothlesberger, the most expensive card he ever sold was for a cricket player to some guy in Australia. Neither of us believe that he can make a decent living selling that crap.
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [ThisIsIt] [ In reply to ]
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My wife and I went to the Universal theme park in Orlando when we had a day to kill during a trip. The roller coasters were fun, and the Harry Potter area was kind of neat. Wouldn't have gone out of our way to visit though, and I definitely wouldn't be interested in serial visits. Those places kill your soul even when you're having fun.
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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wimsey wrote:
TheForge wrote:
I collect guns. I've paid 600-900 for some items I just wanted and only shot a couple times.


Until you reach this guy's level, you're just junior varsity ;)http://khon2.com/...alifornia-mans-home/[/quote[/url]]

Wow, that's weird. I wonder how many weren't California compliant. That dude could have armed the eventual (long overdue) insurrection of California.


"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [tigerchik] [ In reply to ]
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People who are avid spectators of golf - what the hell is that about.
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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I don't get collecting things of any kind. I'm not wired to collect things that aren't going to have a function. That function can be practical or decorative (like most people, we have a bunch of artwork in our home), but to have it sit in a box or closet somewhere? Nah.

eg watches. I have a nice watch, a Rolex of some sort from 1993, it was a graduation / birthday gift to me from my parents. No idea what it is worth, nor do I care. I will always have that, and value it, because it is from them. but to go and collect rolex's, nah....

Guns I don't get. (I've gone shooting once, it was meh). Gambling I don't get (same). Or anything to excess.

I don't get the obsession with televised sports of any sort.

I think my problem is that I get bored with too much of anything.

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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [ThisIsIt] [ In reply to ]
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I don't either. Have a family friend that goes there once a year. We're talking the whole shebang. With on site resorts and 7000 in costs. They have kids, I guess a kids joy makes it worth it. We went to Disney one day a few weeks back, between that and having held passes, I'm over that place for a while.

On another note, there always seem to be weirdoes there. I assume a lot of them are pedophiles. There just isn't something write about a grown man with long hair, mustache, sunglasses and a coat on a warm day hanging out at Disney alone with an SLR camera around his neck. And it never fails, that type of guy or many of them are always there. There was a guy in line in front of us last time that I didn't want looking at my kids. Described as above, but also wearing R2-D2 mickey mouse ears and carrying a backpack probably containing toys to lure his victim to a quite place. Weird.


"In the world I see you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Towers. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying stripes of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway." T Durden
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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I know a guy who's been collecting Playboy magazines since the 70s. This seemed like a great idea before the invent of the internet, now less so. Worse, he didn't store them in any sort of protection. He put them in boxes in the basement, which are all moldy (possibly worse).

My mom decided that, since I'm a Star Wars fan, she would purchase me each and every action figure from the prequels. Why? Because she heard that they might be worth something in 40 years.

Another family member collected beanie babies for a while. She gave me one. I cut the tag and used it as a dog toy, not knowing what they were. I got blasted because that one was apparently 'rare' and might be worth something. The dog loved it.






Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [Tri-Banter] [ In reply to ]
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<<Another family member collected beanie babies for a while. She gave me one. I cut the tag and used it as a dog toy, not knowing what they were. I got blasted because that one was apparently 'rare' and might be worth something. The dog loved it.>>



Ha! Best use for them, IMO. I remember when the beanie baby thing was big - seemed pretty silly at the time, even more so now.

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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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wimsey wrote:
People who are avid spectators of golf - what the hell is that about.
drinking
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [SkipG] [ In reply to ]
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SkipG wrote:
wimsey wrote:
People who are avid spectators of golf - what the hell is that about.
drinking

That's a different hobby. I get that one :)
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Re: Hobbies/collectibles/enthusiasms you just don't get [wimsey] [ In reply to ]
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Bronies.

Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb
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