Nothing (well, loaded question… but… let’s say “Nothing” for argument’s sake); they’re just not my team.
I’ve had family in and out of Colorado most of my life (currently nobody living there, but that’s likely to change as my dad is looking to move back). My dad has been a Broncos fan for a long time (since before I was born). And then independently, I was didn’t really start watching football until my early 20s and my best friend at the time was a Broncos fan. I had always avoided watch (NFL) football because I didn’t like the structure of it. But back in the early 2000s, the Broncos were really good at having a running game, an aspect that I learned I really enjoyed when watching. Incidentally, this is why the Steelers are my second team, because at the same time they had an astoundingly good running game among some other great aspects.
Also, my two favorite colors are orange and blue (these were established before becoming a football fan).
So, all-in-all, it just feels natural to cheer for the Broncos, even though they haven’t had a running game in over a decade (I’ve seen small slivers of hope recently though)
Virginia McCaskey will be 101 next month. When she dies, her children are likely to sell, and the bears might get an owner who wants to win, at least once.
Cricket: reading and listening, not watching or playing.
TTRPGs: mostly GURPS, and old types of D&D.
Music: classical, jazz and early metal/heavy rock.
Reading: SF, history and computing.
Cooking: constantly tweaking the ways I feed myself.
They USED to be a winning team in the 80s. Coached by Ditka and had players like Mike Singletary, Walter Payton, Jim McMahon and, of course, William ‘The Refridgerator’ Perry!
(Incidentally, I forgot that The Fridge briefly played for the aforementioned London Monarchs!)
Reading - love to do it in lots of different genres. Sci fi, fantasy, alt history and other spec fix are high on the list; mysteries; “classics;” comic books in similar genres.
Lego - love them. Have a giant closet full of them. Tend to go in waves of build a bunch of stuff then take a break for a bit then decide I’m tired of what’s currently on display and build a bunch of stuff in some new theme. Currently pondering buildings or amusement park for my next theme to put on display.
Jigsaw puzzles - love them and have a large collection of keepers then others that I’ll get, do once, then move along to a new home. I think part of the appeal of both Lego and puzzles is doing them with part of my attention while listening to something (audiobook; podcast - typically board game or RPG actual play related; BBC Radio plays and comedy panel shows) with the rest of my attention.
Collecting Disney enamel trading pins - honestly “Disney,” especially if you include Star Wars and Marvel in that, could almost be its own hobby, but I’ll focus on the pin collection part. I trade by mail, organize my pins, and (like the Legos) put out displays of some theme for a bit then swap out for a new batch from my collection.
There are others, but those are the main ways that occupy my free time and discretionary budget outside of tabletop gaming.
I think this is probably true more generally, and may well be part of the reason why I (I like board games but have zero interest in tech stuff and less than zero interest in metal) don’t find board game conventions fun. Wrong sort of nerds!
(Another part of the reason turns out to be that I have very little interest in playing board games with people I don’t know - it’s the interaction with people I do know and care about that I enjoy.)
I’m very bad at wedging myself into a group, so usually I end up playing with people I know a bit but maybe don’t see very often. Fwiw the conversation rarely revolves round tech or metal iirc.
Gosh, I forgot archery in my teens! I used to go weekly to a club in the countryside with my brother for a good 3 or 4 years between being 15 and 18-19. I used compound bows, and when I started going to Uni the club fizzled out and we lost the lease on the field we were using. In later years I have dabbled on traditional longbow now and then (to the point that I bought a traditional longbow again when I recently moved to NZ) but I was not consistent enough.
To follow up with the NFL, I admit that I cannot stand a full game, same with baseball or cricket. For some reason, when I was a kid in the 80s I loved the Minnesota Vikings. later on in Uni (late 90s) to balance out that I like the Lakers from NBA (Magic Johnson is to blame there, playing always with that smile) I went East Coast with the New England Patriots. Little did I know that they will become such a massive team the next couple of decades…
Something crossed my mind, another collection. I LOVED (love) ski trail maps. Whenever my sister and I flew through a Rocky Mountain state, whether for skiing or not, we would mob the tourist kiosks and get every ski map we could. When actually skiing, I would study the map for days beforehand so I had the mountain memorized. They still have a special draw for me.
One of the most baffling and frustrating developments was this book, which has all the paintings of the mountains but without the trail markings. Just page after page after page of snow and trees?? Who is buying that without the maps on it?
I think there is a game in using the map and designing a ski resort, where you add the runs yourself. You gotta balance the need to build a ski run to attract visitors, with the need to build ammenities to get the investment back…
I also like to read - mostly non-fiction at the moment but I have phases of reading fiction as well. I often listen to podcasts instead of reading because I can do other things at the same time. My current favourites are You’re dead to me, No such thing as a fish, Cautionary tales, and Revisionist history.
My other hobbies!? An ex-partner of mine once said I had more hobbies than some people have hot meals.
This probably makes me a dilettante hobbyist.
Current hobbies: reading, making and painting models, photography, writing. Covid kind of put the kibosh on archery, though I hope to take that back up next spring (too cold now to start this year).
I used to be a keen cyclist, but… I now live in London, and it is difficult to motivate myself to go cycle around where I live.
