I kind of rotate my hobbies and get really into different ones for stretches of time, but can also jump in an out of them. I like maintaining a variety of different things to do. Aside from Magic I'd say my big hobbies are basketball (both watching and playing), woodworking, listening to music and podcasts, collecting/reading manga, and keeping up with movies/television.
Basketball is bigger to me than Magic, has been a mainstay in my life for the last 20+ years, and I've been playing and watching since I was about 10 years old. I don't get to play as much as I did in my younger days, but in my late teens and early 20s there were some Friday nights where my friends and I would just run pick-up basketball from 6PM-1AM at the local courts. Nowadays my physical activity is more just going to the gym for weight lifting and shooting around, but I still love the game whenever I get to play. I'm a diehard fan of the Los Angeles Lakers but really just NBA basketball in general. Aside from that I read a ton of basketball literature (currently reading Blood in the Garden, a recap of the 90s New York Knicks squad), keep up with a bi-weekly podcast covering league news, follow along with daily updates on the NBA subreddit, and I watch most every marquee matchup I can. During the season it's mostly following my team and any big matches between teams with great records that season, come the postseason I'll tune into most every game when I have a chance to watch. I make sure to watch all Finals games regardless of which teams are playing most years.
Woodworking is something I picked up around 4 years ago on a whim and it's been a fun way to decompress and get away from screens. My normal job is as a PM/Sr. Systems Analyst for an anatomic and clinical pathology lab that does a lot of patient care and research with cancers and other diagnosable diseases. A lot of my work is technical and maintaining our lab infrastructure, developing new workflows and improvements as necessary to optimize, and deploying + testing out new systems within the digital pathology realm. It's involved work but there's enough variety that I keep occupied and avoid boredom. That said, it is mostly working off a screen for 40+ hours a week so I like to get away from it with something more tactile and hands-on which is where most of my hobbies come in.
I mostly work with smaller pieces as I rent out a room in a house and only have access to a patio as my workspace here in San Diego, but I've gotten pretty good at making cutting boards, charcuterie and household items over the years. My biggest project was an outdoor patio set when I first got started that has been sitting pretty for 4 years now, build a few bookshelves two years ago, but most recently I'm researching and figuring out how to make watch boxes. I make things on request for people and also do restoration jobs like I did recently for an antique chair for a coworker and a wooden dog bowl set that needed refinishing. Usually I'll plan out a weekend for a bigger project where I'll just be out working with wood and my various tools for 8-9 hours each day. It's very rewarding and I like to make things for others so it's been a fun little side hustle whenever I come up with a new product that friends/coworkers might be interested in. I maintain a
small IG page that I mostly dedicate to keeping up with my projects.
Finally I've always loved a good story and that's where movies, books, manga and podcasts all fall into that same niche and scratch that itch for me. Movie-wise I have the Regal pass so I see somewhere between 3-4 monthly by virtue of living really close to a Regal Cinema nearby so I'll watch most every big release that comes out. TV wise I'll jump in an out often binging shows trying to catch up, but there are a handful of shows that I keep up with as they release. Right now I've just completed Atlanta S3, binged the whole of Succession about a month ago, and I'm keeping up with Barry on HBO and I Love That For You on Showtime. My next catch-up show is going to be Better Call Saul as I haven't had a chance to watch any of Season 6 yet.
Finally manga is something that I've read since my teenage years and it's a shared hobby between myself and my younger sister where we've amassed a pretty large collection of our favorite series. I purchase new releases to keep up with ongoing series every 2 months or so and it looks like we're over 1200 now with most of them having been purchased in the last 5 years once we each had more disposable income. It was a goal of mine as a teen to one day own my favorite series and I'd say that I've definitely made that a reality at this point. My absolute favorite series of all time are Berserk, Vagabond, Monster, Slam Dunk and One Piece. I've been an avid reader of online scanlations for years and while I'll binge a series now and again, nowadays I'm only really just keeping up with One Piece and Kingdom on a weekly basis.
Feel free to take a look at what I've got logged online, I love discussing any and all of my hobbies with anyone interested.
