I got in the habit of taking pills for anxiety and add! I told myself it was just for a little while (i hate taking pills) but here we are! Hahahahahaha! I hate this hobby but it is a requirement with my other new hobby im working on: not having panic attacks, like, ever again. Nope. No thanks. No

I wish I had been able to enjoy the lockdown with everyone else. I’m an essential worker, so aside from wearing a mask all the time, life didn’t really change for me. I would’ve loved a 2 year break from work and people.

I built a basic gym in the basement and started powerlifting. I get excited for every lift day and find it genuinely fun. None of my clothes fit anymore, but I feel incredible, all my aches and lower back pains from years of office work have disappeared. For anyone that’s remotely interested in weight training I would highly recommend picking up a squat rack and barbell, it will change your life

Started getting into coffee with all the snobbish attachments of it.
Still enjoy it. But bought a nespresso machine in the meantime. I just wanna have coffee to wake up, not do the whole ritual.

Started bouldering, still at it. It did wonders for my health (was basically a couch potato before that).

I played video games more often than usual. I still do when I have the time

Used to read a little bit (~3-8 books a year). Now I read a lot (30+ books a year). Love escaping into a fantasy world

I picked up baking soughdough loaves - like a lot of people…

I’ve managed to keep the habit! I’ve made a loaf once a week (pretty much) for almost 3.5 years. Which is a crazy number now that I’ve calculated it.

Feeding/kneading/shaping/baking just became part of my routine and it is now super easy to maintain, especially with the 1 a week low commitment. It makes the best sandwiches!

Disc golf, free to play on courses. Discs are much cheaper than golf clubs. The skill floor is low enough for most people to start having fun pretty quickly and the ceiling is high enough to have an entertaining to watch pro scene.

When Covid came to town I started learning French to do something constructive. I started with 1 hour+ Duolingo a day, then after a year I added comic books (Tintin/Asterix/Spirou/Natacha/etc.). Now I am reading the Maigret novels.

I finished the Duolingo course after ~3 years but they added more content so now I do ~15min a day just for fun, while most of my learning is through reading interesting novels, like Maigret.

I also took the ANUx’s Astrophysics XSeries Program on EdX, it’s spectacular and I learned so much from it. So I keep better up with new discoveries and understand what’s going on.

programming. now I’m getting a university education in the field.

Nightly drinking. At this point, I don’t know what life was like before I started, and as much as I know I’m shortening my life, I actually really enjoy the daily stress relief - I’m weirdly happier overall these days as a result, although I do keep my intake low.

I don’t smoke, vape, trip, weed is a no go, as it triggers psychotic thought patterns, and I don’t take anything else (unless caffeine counts, in which case, I’d rather fucking kill myself than give up coffee.) I enjoy having something to lean on. We’re all dying, some of us slightly faster than others by choice. I don’t think a couple whiskeys a night is all that bad, all things considered. The world is moving in a direction I’m not compatible with on a deeply personal level anyway, so fuck living until 80.

My hobby of home automation, and running a home lab REALLY stopped up.

Pre-pandemic, I had a single server, pretty small, quiet, low energy usage. Post-pandemic, I have a full rack, redundant power, and tons of resources, and hundreds of containers and services.

Home automation: Pre-pandemic, I didn’t have too much. Few security cameras, and a small handful of devices, mostly controlled by alexa. Post-pandemic, I can tell you every time you forget to wash your hands after taking a shit. I know exactly how much energy and instantaneous power nearly every device in my house uses. I have automated just about anything you can imagine. Pools, opening windows, controlling a fireplace, scaring cats away from the kitchen table… you name it, and I have likely automated it and/or built hardware to automate it.

My other big hobby, was working on automotive projects: Pre-pandemic, I build a 1,000hp street-legal “race-car”. Would drive it to work occasionally. Spent a lot of time in my garage with tig welders, plasma cutters, metal lathes… etc. Post-pandemic, I honestly have not touched anything in my garage in years. I don’t really drive anywhere due to being full time WFH. So, I have not had much interest in messing with it. Also, its been really hot the last few years.