What Do You Do for Entertainment?

What do Objectivists do for entertainment? Do you mostly enjoy movies or watching or playing sports or video games? I wanted to get a sense of what people enjoy or do for pleasure or leisure outside of the sphere or Objectivism or Ayn Rand...

[Leave out what you do for intellectual stimulation like learning a new language, etc...I'll ask that on a separate thread..being created in a few minutes...this thread is on leisure and fun.]

Post 1

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 12:16pm

Okay, I'll start:

I do off loom bead weaving. I started lampworking as a new hobby about a year ago, as well. I also love to bake, watch documentaries, and fix stuff around the house.

Post 2

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 3:52pm

Play tennis, folk fiddle, hiking. I also like to visit museums. In the last couple of weeks I've been to the American Museum of Natural History, MOMA, the Guggenheim, the Frick Collection and the Dahesh Museum. If I knew more I guess it would count as an intellectual interest, but for now it's just fun.

Also, eating different kinds of Asian food: Japanese, Malaysian, Korean, Thai and Chinese.

I used to play a lot of chess and backgammon, but I've throttled back on that in the last couple of years.

Jim

Post 3

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 4:31pm

* Video Games

* Opera

* Football (they real-type where they use a foot to move a ball across a field)

* Drinking

* Eating

* More drinking

* Travel

* Traveling to places that have interesting food and drink

* Playing drums in several jazz big bands

Post 4

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 6:27pm

On the other thread I posted intellectual things, so on this one I'll try to stick to more physical activities:
- Tango
- Ultimate Frisbee
- Soccer
- Disc Golf
- Driving fast

Post 5

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 6:29pm

When I was a kid: I used to like to hike, camp, explore the wood, play cards, and watch a few westerns series on TV.

Now, in addition to these: I like to play most kinds of sports (basketball, ping pong, tennis, bowling, frisbee). I like to watch only a few sports: basketball and maybe an occasional football game. and, the olympics, of course. I love to travel and want to see most of the countries in the world over time. Going to the movies. Watching maybe one or two TV series, such as sitcoms or dramas, whichever one is best in a current year. I love some country music...and some classic pop and rock music.

I've recently started to view Antiques Roadshow in the background while I read something or have dinner, because they show really beautiful and unusual artifacts and design objects and they explain and give context for them....things I never even would have known existed had I not frequented the Cooper-Hewitt (museum of design) during my years in New York.
(Edited by Philip Coates
on 2/27, 6:50pm)

Post 6

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 6:45pm

[Pasted from SoloMail has Stopped Working in "Preview" and "Send" mode]

George, Phil, et al. -- Saw Parsifal by Wagner last night at the Kennedy Center. Great! Orchestra, the Kirov, milked the music for all it was worth. The whole Transformation scene in Act I was marvellous. Good sets, singing and staging. Okay, you need to ignore Wagner's mixed up Christian mysticism. But still, it's hours of the best entertainment you could want! That's what I do for entertainment and I'm posting this on the entertainment thread as well!

Post 7

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 7:01pm

In the spring and summer months, I like to be out on the water. This could mean out on my boat (a 16 foot Sylvan, 85HP) fishing, waterskiing or just relaxing, or wading a small stream fishing for smallmouth bass and whatever else might bite. Renting a cottage on the water is even better yet, and I do a few three day weekends each summer like this with my friends.
I will also play golf about five or six times per season.

Come fall, it's football season, and I enjoy taking part in a fantasy football league (I was the champ this year!). I like to watch NFL football on Sundays with friends - always a good time. College football is also fun to watch, but I don't watch it often as I should.

In the winter, I do a ski trip out west. Went to Utah this year. I have some friends back in Wisconsin (where I grew up) who go ice fishing, and every few years I will go up and do that for a day. Hardly ever catch anything, though, and usually freeze my arse off.

As far as non-seasonal activities go, I rent movies on Netflix, and watch about two to three per week. I also get consumed by reading various internet forums related to my interests (objectivism, fishing, saxophone, jazz) - sometimes I think i spend too much time doing this stuff! I also like to go out and see live music, typically jazz these days. Going out and trying new restaurants among the thousands available here in Chicago is also a timeless hobby for me.

Post 8

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 7:53pm

I go to Italy every summer for 45 days. I have a house there.

While in Italy, I go fishing, visit my sisters, and my wife�s family.

I go out to restaurants, and learn new recipes, take my daughters to visit Mount Vesuvius,Pompeii, and Ercolano.

I take the children to Florida to Disney world on Easter or Christmas; I ride my Harley Davidson couple of times a week. I listen to Mario Lanza a lot. I shoot pool, bodybuilding is another passion I have. I can lay ceramic tiles, hard wood floors, I can do plumbing, painting, drywalls and light carpentry. I do lots of work around the house.I go to local winery for wine tasting.

I used to trade stocks on line couple of hours a day, I stopped doing that after a big lost. I am better at cooking.

(Edited by Ciro D'Agostino on 2/27, 8:01pm)

Post 9

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 8:06pm

I think. Seriously, I think for fun. To me, reading is really exciting. I like to talk about the thinking too. Otherwise...

Fun: dancing, exploring, music shows, museums, movies, photography, sewing, etc. I'm pretty much happy almost anywhere.

Post 10

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 8:46pm

Gosh, I no longer know what I'd do for entertainment anymore...;-^

Post 11

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 8:48pm

I agree with Jenna. But my favorite thing is to be tested by non-Objectivists.

You know, that one brief moment when you are challenged by a mystical wanna-be or an altruistic true believer or etc, etc....

That one moment when a fool sets a football on a tee and says "I bet you can't kick it!"

And then, you send it to the moon!

Yeah. Give me a challenge from the ignorant or the foolish and I am beyond entertained.

gw

Post 12

Monday, February 27, 2006 - 8:51pm

Hong,

Damn Woman,

Don't you "Two Step?"

gw

P.S. - Just kiddn'!

Post 13

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 2:11am

Does anyone do ballroom dancing? A number of people I know have started taking classes after watching "Dancing with the Stars".

JJ

Post 14

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 8:48am

I love to dance, but I don't know if I'd classify it under entertainment, unless it's for those who are watching. My dance style is sort of the comic relief from ballroom dancing. People back away and wonder if whatever I have is contagious.

Post 15

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 11:00am

I love ballroom dancing - even taught it many years ago - and am glad to see it gaining popularity, and seeing such wonderful shows as that Dancing with the Stars series. Unfortunately, my bad hip makes doing some of the fancy stuff no longer possible for me, but waltzing and foxtrotting, even tangoing is a joy [and VERY good exercise].

But - reading, and watching good movies, comprise most of my entertainment, tho do enjoy dining at the many different places here in the Tampa area.... and, oddly or not, find my creating my renderings very entertaining too, as well as being also an exercising of the intellect. Living alone makes for often different entertaining than if with someone.

Post 16

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 1:34pm

Robert -- I turned on Dancing with the Stars expecting to see Carl Sagan discussing the beauty we will see as our spaceships travel through globular clusters with points of light spread like sparkling crystals of blue, red, yellow and white against the black velvet background of space, dancing before us in frozen motion as they wheel with gravity through the universe over billions and billions of years. But it turned out to be a show with a bunch of people running around the room. Where's my DVD of Cosmos?

Post 17

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 1:55pm

You're in the wrong thread, Ed - that's intellectual stimulation.... this here's entertainment....

Tho I agree that to an intellectual, such is as much entertainment as is intellectual stimulation - the same with the pile of books next to the chair, and the conversations on forums like this one...

(Edited by robert malcom on 2/28, 1:57pm)

Post 18

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 2:03pm

Robert -- Intellectual stimulation for me is entertaining!

Actually, I went to a big Viennese waltz ball here in DC a few weeks ago, not so much to dance but because some political friends of mine had some free tickets and wanted me to come and smooze. The music and the setting were quite beautiful!

I assume you saw David Kelley's review of Mad Hot Ballroom. Cheers!
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/ct-1575-Review_Mad_Hot_Ballroom.aspx

Post 19

Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 2:07pm