More Help With Hobbies
Build a stereo system, fly a kite, embroider a pillow, waste time at a weird Web site.Steve Bass
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There's no accounting for taste, especially when it comes to hobbies. Me? I love spending time doing magic--mostly close up, the kind I think is most intriguing because it happens right in front of your nose. If magic interests you, there are plenty of sites to explore, most with good links to other sites. For starters, check Ricky Jay's Magic Newswire. And you can go to the All Magic Dealers Guide to find shops where you can buy magic.
Before you go on, take a quick look at last week's column about hobby software. And then peek at something I wrote nearly two years ago, "Use Your PC to Start a Hobby."
Hobbies: Odd, Strange, and Unique
I recently asked subscribers of a list I moderate to tell me about their PC and Web-based hobbies. Talk about diversity... for instance, some people identify, photograph, and track buses (mainly in Canada, but also in the United States).
What I find really exciting about all this (and something I've come to take for granted) is using the Internet to communicate with others who have the same interests, no matter how obscure or weird.
Read on for other ways in which people spend their time.
DIY Audio Equipment: You can spending countless hours building your own speakers and stereo equipment, including ones that still use--get this--vacuum tubes. Want details? Check out these sites: Aaron's Homepage Forum, Bottlehead, and Wayne's Speaker Building Page.
High-Tech Embroidery: More than a half dozen people wrote to tell me about machine embroidery. Basically, you create designs with digitizing software--say, animals or logos. Then use an embroidery machine to stitch it onto shirts, baseball caps, throws, and shower curtains, for all I know. According to embroidery expert Susan Smith, the most popular sites include: AnnTheGran, for free designs; Embird, for embroidery software; and Baby Lock and Brother, for equipment. You can also browse over 200 Yahoo Groups dedicated to the hobby.
Go Fly a Kite: You can join the hordes of people designing and building their own kites. Start with kitez.com. Once you've seen the site, use this trick: Insert a word before kitez.com in your browser's address field--say, http://www.plans.kitez.com or http://www.dragon.kitez.com. You'll get a list of links leading to sites that cover that specific kiting topic. Other words to try: high, foil, Chinese, and fighter.
The "Into The Wind" forum is another good source of info. You can also check out the assortment of kiting Yahoo Groups.
Dig This: I like weird--and this site has plenty of weird. Start at the main page for a Web site created to coincide with the Whitney Biennial 2002, then click on ENTER THE WHITNEYBIENNIAL.COM. When you get to the "museum," slide your cursor along the bottom of the words. If you see something you like, click the word--or sometimes the image on the screen. (I told you this was weird.) Try Fox (drag and drop the ditzels on the left into the grid) or Clinger, the super-loose guy.
More Hobbies to Try
Get Out and ID the Flowers: If I had my way, I'd spend more time outdoors, smelling the flowers and getting away from my PC. Before I get out, though, I'd like to have a program to help me identify not only flowers, but all of the common plants in southern and (to a lesser extent) northern California. The Common Plants of Eaton Canyon and the San Gabriel Foothills CD costs $15 and is packed with 700 photos with descriptions, including common and botanical names, as well as plant community information and uses in the home garden. Check it out at the Nature at Hand site.
Improve Your Cooking: I get a kick out of cooking--I make dinner at least three times a week (and as a home office worker, I also run the laundry at Bass International). The premier site for recipes, including a neat way to store my favorites, is Epicurious. Some of the best spots on this site, IMHO, include Tips From Great Cooks and Tools of the Trade. For example, Tools of the Trade has really useful info on sharpening knives.
If you still don't have enough ideas, browse our "Top Downloads for Your Hobbies."
Dig This: Some of you may be interested in looking at old computers at the DigiBarn Computer Museum. OTOH, many more of you might take pleasure in the Illustrated Guide to Breaking Your Computer.
Privacy Note: I recently wrote "Learn (Almost) Anything About Anybody" for PC World magazine. In it I promised details about paid "find anything" sites. Dozens of you wrote asking if you missed it. Nope, you'll see it here in another few weeks--and I promise, it'll open your eyes.