What do you do besides role-playing?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

So, here's my "gettin-to-know-ya" topic?

What are your hobbies and passions?

Mine - I read like most people sleep. Six hours a day, probably. The last book I read was Studs Terkel's Working, consisting of interviews with people about what they do for a living and how they feel about it. So far, it's the best book I've read this year. I'm a huge Jonathan Lethem fan, and also devour any Ross Macdonald (thanks, Ron!) I can find.

My other hobby is the ukulele. I play every day and do two open mikes a week. I tend to switch genres a lot, and am practicing a bunch of punk songs right now. I write my own songs as well, and sometimes rearrange others'. (My rendition of Fugazi's "Merchandise" is pretty killer.)

[Chris Goodwin]

Work, take care of my son, surf the intarweb.  Occasionally have friends over for board games.  I'm going to be doing some roleplaying this weekend (PTA) for the first time in a year and probably about the tenth time in six years.

[TonyLB]

I'm a stay-at-home dad.  For sources of cash (other than my lovely wife and bread-winner) I am also a web designer, animator, video-wrangler and jujitsu instructor.

For recreation I contact juggle, sword-fight, collect comics, dabble in anime and manga, draw, kick absolute ass at Crazy Taxi, play the piano, cook foreign bachelor foods (did you know that people in america will be impressed if you can make a pizza?  or sushi?  or stir-fry?  or dim-sum?  as I understand it, these are just the other-continent versions of grilling a hamburger and popping open a beer), ski, work number theory proofs in my head and devour Netflixed TV-series in syndication.

[Shreyas Sampat]

I'm a linguist, a fiction writer, an artist and designer.

I love to cook! I love to eat! I play card games and board games and I used to do taekwondo before my studies ate my taekwondo time.

I like to read about martial arts and dance (as those of you following Mridangam may have noticed).

Looked at from sufficient distance, all my interests are the same.

[Judd]

I'm a soccer goalkeeper when time allows, I study Modern Arnis once or twice a week and I write short stories while working on a novel.

I begin my master's degree in Library Science this summer and my current job is in a university library as a late night supervisor.

[Andy Kitkowski]

I just started a highly paid, highly interesting, high stress tech job that requires more back-training than I've ever seen before.  I just finished up two weeks of computer training and took a standardized test, and currently have begun two weeks of at-work 8-hour intense lab training, also followed by two more tests.

So my current hobbies have all been ditched for "Keep my head above water".

BUT, that's not too interesting, so instead I'll mention that I read a lot of manga in the original Japanese, usually before bed; do some web design with my wife; play Playstation 2 games (again, mostly Japanese imports: Japanese langauge games = Japanese training = Work skills preparedness = I deduct all my PS2 games and manga as work expenses on my taxes).

I would like to say that I'm also into martial arts and camping, but I haven't been doing too much of either these past few years.

[Matt Wilson]

Hmm...

I like pretending to do graphic design. I don't really have any training in it, but I buy books on typography and play around in photoshop and stuff. Sometimes I think I write game stuff just so I'll have a reason to experiment with layouts. In that same category, I'm now teaching myself how to draw, which is possibly laughable.

I've played guitar for about 15 years, and when I had functional equipment I used to write and record songs (and play for the occasional drunken campfire crowd). Now I just set it next to the computer and pick it up when I need a break.

I also spend a lot of time with my dog, who is the coolest dog in the world (no, yours is not; you are mistaken). We go on a lot of walks and to the dog park, and we tear up cardboard boxes together and ride around in the car and other fun stuff.

In the fall: back to school, if all goes well.

[Jason Newquist]

The thing that gets the most stares: I'm a father of 10 month-old triplets.  Totally and incredibly rewarding, and sometimes exhausting.  My wife never fails to astonish me.  :)

I like to take telescopes onto remote hilltops and hunt for galaxies and other faint fuzzies.  Quiet, peaceful, subtle.

For money, I'm a NASA contractor right now on a science mission hosted at Stanford.  Pretty fun stuff, especially since I'm permitted to learn new programming languages.  Yay!

-Jason

[Alan]

My current hobbies are reading fiction, gardening, and working for a living.  

Highlights of my work "hobby" include Amazon CS ( and union organizer there!) and fireman on a steam locomotive.  I've also been a tech writer and html coder.  My current stint is as an English tutor at North Seattle CC, but I'm looking for a full time job.

My passion is writing science fiction.   My story "Schrodinger's Mousetrap" won the Writer's of the Future grand prize in 1994.  I've finish "Tithonium Rising," a novel of far future revolution and am trying to sell it.  I've started my next novel, "Cage of Future Past," about an interstellar colony stranded in the past.

[JamesNostack]

Right now I am working full time (medical non-profit)  and applying to law school!  It sucks mightily, especially if you enjoy being lazy, which I most sincerely do!

I live in Philadelphia, but I've been exploring Manhattan a lot lately because my GF lives right next to Battery Park with a great view of the Statue of Liberty.  She's teaching me Mandarin.  She's tolerant of my gaming!  She makes me very happy in every way.  (I sure hope I don't mess this up!)

I practice aikido 4 or 5 hours a week.  It's fun!  I wish aikido had crazily poetic names for moves, though.  Also: it turns out that everything in life is better with swords.  I didn't know this before.  Try doing what you're doing... and then do it with a sword nearby.  Instantly better.

I read Russian literature, Silver Age comic books, and articles on quantum physics.  The last good movie I saw was A Very Long Engagement.  I love to cook, though on worknights I never have the energy.  I love to ski too, but can't afford to do it more than once or twice a year.

Ages and ages ago, I wanted to write fiction!  What the hell happened to that goal, anyway?

[Brand_Robins]

I used to be a teacher, 3rd grade, and then I moved to Canada. Now I professionally wait for immigration to let me work in the country while they go through a teacher-shortage in the local area. My lord but nations are stupid things.

I also read. I read everything, endlessly. That is when my other big hobby, my wife, doesn't object to the fact that I'm reading instead of spending time with her.

Besides that I muss about with culture studies, rheorical theory, anime, and theatre.

[Ben Lehman]

Right now, I'm in that ambiguous place between graduation and finding a job.  I'm taking the chance to travel around the country.  It's really been a great experience -- running around, meeting a lot of you, getting to know people in person, making good friends into better friends.  I am consistently impressed with the quality of people that the Forge attracts.  The gaming skills are amazing, of course, but also as people.

My hobbies -- I read and write just a metric ton.  My gaming writing is really only a small footnote compared to the fiction and essay writing I do.  Present Projects: a short-epic about a Sumerian king questing for enlightenment, and a sprawling allegorical SF novel about a culture of immortals.  I've been recently reading through English versions of the four Great Chinese Novels (Dream of the Red Chamber, Journey West, All Men Are Brothers and Romance of the Three Kingdoms) and I'm three down, one to go.  I've also just finished Book of the New Sun and am trying to settle down in reading Gormenghast.  I read mythology, religion, and anthropology a lot, too.

My college degree is in Physics, and while I'm not pursuing it as a career, it holds a great interest for me, particularly theoretical cosmolgy (the study of the universe as a whole.)  I still read physics abstracts sometimes.  I'm also interested in particle physics, string theory and other theories of everything, meteorology, astronomy, and oceanography.  Earth-based astronomy of the sort that you can observe from your backyard has always been a hobby.

I've been studying Chinese on-and-off for about two years, and lived in China for much of 2004.  I was going to go back right about now, but Vincent, Emily and Meg convinced me to stay for GenCon to handle the Polaris release, so I'm doing that.  If all goes well, I will be back there this September, for at least a year.  I absolutely love the language and the people.

Apropos of that, I am a slowly developing tea geek.

I used to be a big anime fan, but learning Chinese I kind of had to stop watching that, 'cause it got me linguistically confused.  I've been picking that up again recently.  I still read comics -- Japanese and Western -- voraciously.

I've been hoping to get more into backpacking and canoeing trips again.  My family still does that every summer, although I haven't had the chance to join them in a while.

For a while I was teaching myself C++ in my spare time, but that's sort of fallen by the wayside.

yrs--
--Ben

[hix]

Script-writing and blogging. Half my day is all about creating and solving problems, then I actually relax by blogging about the process of writing & TV series design (and how to improve it).

I'm also a sucker for marathon video nights, large parties with lots of new people to meet and taking every 4th day off to do whatever I want.

[Andrew Morris]

What I do besides roleplaying:

Work
I hate what I do, but t's a job, and I'm good at it. I don't wanna do it no more! Nuff said.

School
I'm going to school at night, trying to get a degree, so I can change fields and get into a new career -- one I might actually enjoy.

Hobbies
Camping, canoeing, hiking, target shooting (not hunting), bartending, reading, learning new languages, eating vegetarian and healthy, preaching about the benefits of vegetarian diets, smoking, being preached to about the dangers of smoking, and avoiding sleep.

In my free time...
Yeah, right. I've heard about that "free time" stuff, but I don't know what's it's like. I try to keep my time filled.

[joshua neff]

I'm finishing up grad school (Library and Information Studies) and looking for a job, preferably in a public library. I wrote a novel in the month of February, and I've got an itch to do it again--sooner, rather than waiting for NaNoWriMo in November. I read when I can, surf the web a lot, watch a hell of a lot of DVDs (movies and TV series), work part-time in a bookstore, and hang out with my wife and daughter.