Are we old codgers with weird hobbies?
- This topic has 30 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 1 week, 2 days ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Sometimes when I look at myself talking here about soundtracks and my disc collection I wonder if people would look at me like I as a teenager used to look at old codgers who had a huge model railway in their cellar or a big collection of tin soldiers in their cup board and who were drinking rasberry syrup with water. Is this what we are now? What do you think?
That’s a rhetoric question, isn’t it? 😉 Given that nowadays no one uses physical media anymore – even if there is apparently a renaissancec under the young people right now outside of LPs – people that had larger collections were always a rarity even back then. I hardly know or knew anyone who ever had a a kind of collection. Films a bit more but also rather few.
Oh yes, we’re weirdos alright!
Old codgers too. Up until about a decade ago, when I was in my late thirties, I felt young at heart. Not because I was up-to-date on whatever was trendy for young people, but because I led a lifestyle that was very “20s”. But after I turned 40, health deteriorated rapidly. As I’m now approaching 50, I’ve just said «fuck it!» and embraced it — including preoccupation with dying formats and habits and attitudes.
Would anyone here like to buy my collection of digital music? Any takers? Seriously, you can’t resell it. Those suckers have been scammed. (don’t get me wrong, if it’s the only way to get a score I might dish out cash).
So I don’t think the physical media collecting is weird at all. Most of us grew up in a time where these formats are introduced, and we saw the birth and launch of streaming and digital music. Japan technologically is around 10 years ahead of a lot of countries, China even. But Japan recognizes the value of the CD, and the importance of physical media.
I was born in the year E.T. came out and have had my share of health issues, but one of the biggest game changes for me was switching to a plant based diet over 7 years ago. I also really stopped drinking alcohol for the most part just a few drinks a year.
Another good discussion from that podcast I mentioned previously was with a group of luddites. Basically those not embracing streaming – going back to MP# players, physical media – using DUMB phones – not smart phones – and having more positive effects on their daily life and enjoying things more rather than being sucked into a world of doom scrolling.
We’re the smart ones.
For me the disappearance of a lot of CD or record stores over the years has really been a bit of a downer. So it’s part of the reason I try to buy up stuff that’s cheap and I have a lot of unopened or un-listened to stuff in my collection. In a way I am sort of creating a record store of my own within my own collection, and can even have the experience of discovering new things in my own way.
I also don’t tend to buy new tech – I still use an Macbook Air Laptop from 2012. I recently bought my spouse a 2013 one. I still use a 160GB silver thin Ipod – I found in someone’s garbage around 8 years ago. I live for garage/yard sales. I also have a bunch of video games in a backlog, and plenty of paper books.
Hell I use that crap out my library. Nowadays librarys stock blurays, graphic novels and even video games.
Good post, Ryan! We really ARE our own record stores in a way, aren’t we? I’m about to play my CD collection for the first time in years, and for each CD I play, I will place the case on one of the speakers – “Now Playing”, like they do in record stores.
It takes AT LEAST our generation for this “weird hobby” to die out. And I’m not sure it does with us either, when you see these older formats being picked up by young hipsters. In fact, I cleaned my late uncle’s house last year, and he had a bag of old walkmans. I took them all, intending to keep one for my own cassettes, but maybe selling the remaining three to those hipsters. 😀
Speaking of hobbies, do any of you have any beyond films and film music? Weird or not?
To answer my own question, I can’t really think of any. I used to travel a lot in my 30s, if that can be called a hobby. I would still love to travel more, but finances and health have come in the way.
I was a big beer buff for many years, and no other beverage can still match the best of the micro brews, but again, health has come in the way. It’s mostly wine now, every weekend.
If we go back even further, to my “glory years” in the late 20s and early 30s, I was a bit vain. Spent a lot on clothes and stuff. Going out and hitting on girls was a “hobby” of sorts. But that, too, is dead.
So yeah, I can’t really think of any other hobby at the moment.
Speaking of hobbies, do any of you have any beyond films and film music? Weird or not?
Where should I take the time for that? 😉
Would anyone here like to buy my collection of digital music? Any takers? Seriously, you can’t resell it. Those suckers have been scammed.
On physical media you buy the media and the right to listen what is contained within it, you don’t buy the music. That is that you actually loose the right to listen to it if you see CD. Keeping digitial files of it is technically a rights violation. You can do a private copy but strictly only if you own the media yourself you make if from.
And with digital media the same: You also don’t buy the files or music but the right to listen to it and in a not transferrable way. That indeed would be good if that is transferrable.Being designer it makes sense that way for intellectual property owners. They are normally paid for use and not so much for creating things. (Speaking of European and German law, the US copyright is quit different in parts).
And yes, I also still buy phyiscal media and miss scanning through record stores – here are still some 2nd focussed ones, I need to do that again – but less and mainly because of prices. And I don’t really do streaming besides Youtube and my public library service.
I also don’t tend to buy new tech – I still use an Macbook Air Laptop from 2012. I recently bought my spouse a 2013 one.
While it surely still works great in general, I used an iMac from 2011 until 2024, it gets seriously insecure especially if you do things online. You cannot update the system anymore and software does not get updates either. It especially gets problematic when browsers are not updated anymore because of that and if you do online banking or anything that involves more senstivie stuff online. Not to speak that old browser will start to behave wonky with newer websites, too.
Well, sorry for that excursion 😉
Would anyone here like to buy my collection of digital music? Any takers? Seriously, you can’t resell it. Those suckers have been scammed. (don’t get me wrong, if it’s the only way to get a score I might dish out cash).
Not sure that’s so.. I mean, I did not buy my digital downloads to sell them, so I don’t feel scammed. They are mine to keep and play in my collection. Sure, a good LP/CD collection has more resell value. You cannot officially “sell” a collection of digital files when you don’t own the copyright. But other than that, I have no problem with a digital download collection. I must have bought hundreds of titles as digital download (including some like EXTREME PREJUDICE and Donaggio’s DOMINO which were later withdraws from all streaming/download platforms).
I suppose most of us here have a considerable collection of some form of physical media, be it CDs, maybe some LPs or Blurays/DVDs/whatever.
Music is important to me, always has been, and when I started to be interested in music, the only surefire way to listen to “your” kind of music was to buy it. On LP, on CD, you had to buy a particular album (regardless of film score, soundtrack, pop) to listen to it.
Nowadays, that is in many cases no longer necessary. Platforms like Qobuz, Tidal, Deezer, etc. offer high-resolution music sound delivered straight to your streamer… you subscribe, and there are millions of albums you can just listen to… So in a world like that… would I still have spend to much money on a music collection as I have? Would I still have a shelf in our living room filled with CDs? Not sure, maybe not. I mean, I could just pay my $20/month to play the catalog of Warner, Decca, Universal, BMG, Sony, DG, and, and, and… not every album I want would be there, certainly not all film scores and film score albums, nope, but nevertheless more wonderful music most would hope to hear in a lifetime.
Of course, not all music I want is available for streaming/download, yes, albums can be withdrawn (has happened to albums I bought digitally), but to be able to buy purchased music, you need a setup to do that. If you want to play LPs, you need a turntable, and amplifier, and speakers/headphones, if you want to play CDs, you need a CD-player, and amplifier, and speakers/headphones. If you want to stream music, you just need your smartphone (which you probably have anyway), and speaker/headphones. So your overhead is low. Sure, if you really want high-quality sound, you may want to set up yourself with a high-quality streamer, an amp, and high-quality speakers, but most people don’t care that much about sound quality once it’s reached the “OK” level. So the overhead for streaming is low, and the return is enormous.
Speaking of hobbies, do any of you have any beyond films and film music? Weird or not?
To answer that question, I have to consider what is a “hobby”, because I never even considered music a “hobby”… it’s an essential part of what I intake from the world.
According to Google/Gemini, a “hobby is a regular activity pursued for pleasure, relaxation, or personal interest during leisure time, distinct from professional work. It is done by choice to provide enjoyment or mental balance, rather than out of necessity. Common examples include painting, gardening, sports, reading, or collecting.”Well, sure I do lots of (regular) activities distinct from professional work, but I am not sure they are hobbies. I do lots of things apart from collecting and listening to music. I love to read, sometimes I play a video game, I have two dogs (they are family, not “hobby”), I do sport (I used to play tennis, then badminton, nowadays it’s just gym a few times a week and some swimming), I’m interested in computer technology, A.I., politics, philosophy, religion, languages, history, biology, generally science (astronomy, physics, math), I am co-founder and treasurer of a theater club, where we currently rehearse a new play that will premier in May, I have all Duck Comics by Carl Barks… and so on… so lots of stuff besides music… but I don’t really know if I consider any of these “hobbies”.
Hobbies? I would say that I am a bit of a birdwatcher in the sense that am happy to spend a few hours at a bird reserve seeing what is there. I am reasonably good at identifying the birds I see, and I spent £2,500 on a spotting scope to help me see distant birds.
But I am not a committed birder who will travel the country to see a rare ‘tick’ to add to their seen bird list.
I think that counts as a hobby (and I have seen a hobby too!)
I have a few interests in addition to music; the films themselves, the politics of mid-20th century Soviet Union, watching football (Leeds United fan, accident of birth), and since the kids flew the nest, we’ve been fortunate enough to do some modest travelling, during which time we’ve been “collecting” world class art such as in The Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Van Gogh Museum, the Uffizi Gallery, the Royal Academy, the Tate Liverpool.
Hobbies are a different thing altogether – to me they’re physical activities, and that’s limited to photography (with a small p) and a bit of gardening. I wouldn’t call it a hobby, though; I find that sitting back and looking at it with a glass of wine is much more enjoyable than actually doing it.
Old codger? Heck, yes!
I did have a few more hobbies as a child and youngster:
I collected fancy, exotic rocks (my dad, who was a geology teacher, gave me a starter collection, which I built on).
I collected stamps for a little while, before it bored me to tears.
I was heavily into comics. Collected them and even drew them myself.
I was into computer games, especially point-and-click adventure.
I latched on to various fads in 80s and early 90s (marbles, yo-yos, sticker comics for He-Man and Masters of the Universe etc. etc.).
In addition to all things film and music, of course.
But not so much as an adult. It’s more about passions and interests now, than the more pastime-oriented ‘hobby’ (I’m well aware Geratewohl used the term tongue-in-cheek…it’s healthy to be self-deprecating with this little niche of ours). And some of them are under heavy threat from things like money and health (and time).
The definition what is an actual hobby is interesting. What is the hobby aspect in collecting certain items? Just buying regularly certain items doesn’t make it a collecting hobby. Then a newspaper subscription or my regular food shopping at the supermarket would qualify as a collecting hobby, too.
It is about hand picking and hunting for rarities. But also that I would hardly call a hobby. The hobby aspect is more about dealing with the subject intellectually. Becoming knowledgable about it, growing an educated opinion. Things like that.
If I should name my hobbies, it were always these: drawing, writing (poems, short stories etc.), making music, writing songs. I used to do impro theatre and had a reading stage with some friends once per Month in a bar. But those times are gone.
In the past few years I became a little rusty with all of this.Since I was a teenager I was collecting records and CDs. Never saw that really as a hobby.
I collected stamps for a little while, before it bored me to tears.
Yeah, me as well and coins from all over the world for a while. I also had a model railway layout for some years as a kid. It was most fun as long it is was not ready and something to tinker. But then the computer – C-64 – took over fast. Games of course but I already started some coding in BASIC. In fact the first music dabbled was coded in BASIC on the C-64 (nothing surived sadly/gladly) 😉
I would define a hobby generally as something you like to spend lots of your spare time with, that you don’t do for a living and that is not directly related to daily needs like shopping (although for some people that is hobby ;-)). Being designer/webdev things often mix between work and hobby. But music – and some making aka dabbling around to a lesser extend – is certainly huge part and it is for sure “time cosuming” by itself. And since it is film music, watching filme/series is tied to it naturally.
I would define a hobby generally as something you like to spend lots of your spare time with, that you don’t do for a living and that is not directly related to daily needs like shopping
I think that’s a good a definition as any. With perhaps the addition that some kind of physical activity should be involved, as others here have mentioned. But I would say there’s a blurry line between “hobby” and “interest”.
For my part, playing the clarinet (in a wind orchestra) is clearly a bona-fide hobby. I would think that collecting film soundtracks (and other music) on physical media would also qualify. But that is something I do because I want to listen to this music – which is more of an interest and passion than a hobby.
Then there’s hiking and running. Definitely physical (duh…), and something I like to do in my spare time, but hardly a “hobby”.
Finally, my interest in astronomy and other sciences is not really physical, but then I sometimes go to science festivals or conferences. But does it qualify as a hobby? Not really sure. 🙂
By the way, Malte, I just became grand uncle to a little boy called… Malte!
Malte is definitely not a common name in Norway (but more so in Germany and maybe Denmark?), and as far as I know there have never been any Maltes in my family, so I’ll have to ask my nephew where that came from. But I like it!And I guess that ties in somewhat with the “old codger” topic of this thread: some of us are actually grand uncles now – not just uncles. 😉
I think anything that you are passionate about qualifies as a hobby. I would draw the line between “hobby” and “interest” with the extend of contribution. For example being interested in politics itself is not really a hobby. Or anything else.
Doing sports – which I am not that into 😉 – is surely a hobby if you love doing it. My father played tennis several times a week and als in club competitions and it was clearly a hobby. For sure hiking and running therefore can be a hobby if you love doing that regulary.
Physical or not is not really a measure I think. Is reading or watching films or listening to music and talking about like here physical? Not really but it’s clearly a hobby 😉
By the way, Malte, I just became grand uncle to a little boy called… Malte!
Congratulations, Nils!
Malte is definitely not a common name in Norway (but more so in Germany and maybe Denmark?), and as far as I know there have never been any Maltes in my family, so I’ll have to ask my nephew where that came from. But I like it!
Yes, it is apparently from old Northern German and Danish (well, related languages of course). I don’t know how my parentst got to know it back then. But funny is that a friend of mine I went to school with is also called Malte. Was quite funny, to differ us wie always had the first char of our surnames appended 😉 Nowadays it is quite common here and given my “overused” surname there are even several namesakes (name twins?) even here in my city.
And I guess that ties in somewhat with the “old codger” topic of this thread: some of us are actually grand uncles now – not just uncles. 😉
So a sibling’s children got children? Yeah, we’re “old codgers” 😉 I can’t become grand uncle since I don’t have siblings. I am 2nd degree uncle as one of my cousins has daughters. And I am a kind of non releative uncle – a term for that is “Nennonkel” here, maybe translates as “named uncle” – to the son of a friend who sadly passed a few years ago.
As I said, I sure do lots of (regular) activities distinct from professional work, but I am not sure they are hobbies.
I suppose it depends on what you view as a “hobby”, I don’t think all past times are necessarily “hobbies”. Take music for example. I enjoy music, I obviously enjoy it enough to have amassed a large music collection with thousands of albums over the decades (far more than most, but not as much as some), I enjoy it enough to have read books about it, and to discuss it online on various forums over the years… but is it a “hobby”? Some might say it is (which is fine, of course), other might not, I guess it depends on your point of view.I consider “music” a vital piece of human existence, music is like bread or wine or literature or enjoying sunshine, or swimming… and I suppose you could consider all these activities, music, eating bread, drinking wine, reading books, or sunbathing as “hobbies” if you are so inclined or if they are done at the expense of all other things.
Yet many people who know me, colleagues, neighbors, etc., have no idea I enjoy music or what kind of music or that I know anything about classical or film music. Because even though I love and enjoy music, I love and enjoy many other things as well, I don’t steer discussions in the direction of music, and I don’t mention music in discussions unless it’s a warranted subject. So while music is very important to me, very important even, it’s not necessarily something that “defines” me… there are phases where I hardly get to listen music, where I perhaps even listen to less music than some other people for whom music is less relevant, simply because I don’t listen to a lot of music “in the background” (though sometimes I do that to).For me, a hobby is perhaps something that is done more diligently (though some might argue that the meticulous way I have curated digital musical files could be considered “diligent”). Of course, music can be a hobby, just like food can be a hobby, or wine can be a hobby, or swimming can be a hobby, on the other hand, listen to music but is it a hobby? I eat food but I’m no foodie, I drink wine but I’m not really an expert or connoisseur, and love swimming, especially in open water, but I’m not a trained athlete and only get to do it sporadically, so for me it wouldn’t feel right to call any of these a “hobby”. Perhaps because if I would say “swimming is a hobby”, people would expect me to swim a lot more than I actually do, if I would say “wine is a hobby” or “food is a hobby”, people wouldn’t expect me to be as ignorant about these as I really am.
I still have my collection and enjoy it greatly, from all those CDs I’ve acquired since the mid-80s to the books/magazines/comics that have grown alongside those CDs (and from much earlier).
We moved house in late 2024 (first house move in near 30 years) and that gave me an opportunity to prune/whittle a stack of stuff that had just been gathering dust in the loft (converted) all that time.
I did keep things that were especially dear or nostalgic to me (complete set of Fantastic Films mags, Soundtrack/MFTM/CinemaScore/FSM mags, movie brochures and collectible mags/books, complete Stephen King/Robert McCammon etc works + trading card sets and whatnot) and re-housed them and enjoyed leafing through/saying goodbye to the dead wood stuff (some of which I bagged a nice fee for on eBay…ker-ching).
I’ve always known I was a weirdo and collectible-minded since an early age and had an obsession with keeping ‘my stuff’ in pristine condition when I was buying Starburst magazine and the like, way back when.
I’m fortunate to have a partner (36 yrs and counting) who is the complete opposite, materialistic-wise, but happy enough to indulge me as long as I ‘keep it neat and tidy’ and go along with the odd holiday or 7 every few weeks/months.
We have two grandkids to occupy us during some slow times, which is cool and we like our jobs enough to keep things tiding over (she only does 2 days a week anyway).
Health-wise I’m doing okay, although at 61, I’m sure stuff will start falling off soon enough.
I can still manage a game of footy now and again and the boys keep me energetic in the garden and parks.
I do drink, but not as mad as I used to and actually find Benedictine and Glayva quite medicinal 🙂
But yeah…deffo a weirdo.Congratulations, Nils!
Thanks!
So a sibling’s children got children?
That’s right. Malte is my third grand nephew. 😊
Yes, congrats, Nils! My niece and two nephews are (thankfully) still small kids. I wouldn’t want to be “grand” anything anytime soon. Although one of my mates is a grandfather, and he’s barely 50. But he got a kid early, and that kid got a kid early as well.
I intend to influence my sister’s kids with the art of film music (or at least film) at some point. In fact, that’s a question I posed in the “origin” thread — but sadly received no replies.
I intend to influence my sister’s kids with the art of film music (or at least film) at some point. In fact, that’s a question I posed in the “origin” thread — but sadly received no replies.
I did previously once mention a little influence here:
To influence kids today with the art of music requires them to be interested in music at all in the first place. That’s not a given today. Anyway, good luck with this!
My boys were interested in music when they were children. Now as teenagers they have other priorities. The cool kids today are not dealing with music.
With a few clicks and some ideas you can create your own multimedia content. Music is there just a tiny aspect. And e.g. in the movies they watch today music plays a lesser and lesser role.
My so called nephew learns piano and had even organ lessons. He is a huge Michael Jackson and Elton John fan. He recently showed me his favorite track from a 70s Elton John concert and it was not one of the biggest hits. There is still hope but we’ll see what are his later priorities. Teenagers always have other priorities I guess 😉
With a few clicks and some ideas you can create your own multimedia content. Music is there just a tiny aspect. And e.g. in the movies they watch today music plays a lesser and lesser role.
Well, with AI it is not really “your own” but recycled material of others. But that’s another discussion! But is that that really so? I feel especially songs are still huge. Those K-Pop Hunter Stuff seems huges with many kids. As we discussed here often our kind of music and especially instrumental stuff was not huge in my youth and probably still isn’t. As is classical stuff. That may come later or never…
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.