Zombie Cliche Lookout: A Specific Set of Skills
I’ve always said that having a hobby is important for people. Sure, that might just be my little way of justifying why a 34 year-old man needs a huge collection of LEGO®, but it’s still something I fundamentally agree with. Having a hobby does a lot of good things for you. All hobbies give you something relaxing to do to help you focus and reduce stress. Some are social activities, allowing you to build relationships with new people. Others teach you practical skills that you can use to improve your life, career, or relationships. Some involve LEGO® zombies.
Naturally, some hobbies are better than others when it comes to a zombie survival situation. Collecting spoons, for instance, wouldn’t be as useful as, say, competitive shooting. That’s an extreme example, obviously, and I think all hobbies can help a person survive in different ways. Going back to spoon collection: this is something that teaches you patience and attention to detail. Also, you’ll have a whole bunch of spoons lying around if you need them.
About this Episode:
Barb is coming off pretty harsh here. I want to draw her as a character without a lot of tact; someone who considers forthrightness extremely important, even when it’s uncalled for.
Discussion Question: What Are Your Hobbies?
You all know that Ted does some basic woodworking in his spare time, but what about you guys? What do you enjoy doing? Also, what benefits do you get out of this?
I’m going to participate in this one as well. In addition to LEGO®, I also enjoy photography and video, although I’m not particularly good at either of them. While I still have a lot to learn, I do find that these hobbies help a lot with my job, which is in web design and development.
Typo alert: “other teach you” other–>others 😀
Another typo: “improve you life” you–>your 😉
Fixed both; thanks!
I call the way Barb is acting towards Ted right now weird. She’s a nurse working in an emergency department. The same nurse we saw deal with getting away from a person who had just turned into a zombie in the E.D. she was recently working her shift at. It is totally out of character for Barb, and I don’t see why Dave is doing this to her. The only rational explanations that I can think are that either she has gone irrational and is slowly driving herself insane, or she has an extremely bad case of PMS right now! 😀
*”a nurse who was working – sorry, just noticed that minor syntactical failure on my part, there! 😀
I don’t know that I’m doing anything to her. She’s being rude, yes, but she’s also kind of disgusted with the people she’s around. She’s also under a lot of stress, lots of people – myself included – can get rude when stressed out.
By the way, Dave, since Episode 612 over at Harry Potter Comics, there seems to be some variation of a zombie invasion going on, I thought you might like to check things out and see if there’s anything good in it:
http://harrypottercomics.net/612.html
Oh, nice head’s up. Thanks!
I don’t find Barbs behavior at all incongruent with her character. Shes a nurse, and not to promote stereotypes, nurses very often have a brusque, matter of fact, kind of way about them. I think it comes from a combination of having to constantly deal with people who are scared, sick and in pain and look to them for help, while at the same time being treated like waitress or a chambermaid by some of these same people.
My hobbies fall into two general areas. Fist is hunting/fishing. I do a quite a bit of these which has taught me the associated skills of good firearm handling/marksmanship, basic woodsman skills, boat handling and navigation. I can also process and prepare large and small animals and smoke meats. My family owns a nice plot of hunting land in the Thumb that I have actively habitat managed for years. That taught me some basic logging/chainsaw skills, VERY basic farming, and operation of tractors and some other heavy equipment.
As a young man I was REALLY into cars and did a lot of restoration, modification work on several vehicles. I built high performance engines and owned several high performance cars and modified 4x4s. As I got older and acquired a home and family (and lost the time and economic freedom required to be a true “car guy”) my skills morphed into general mechanical/handyman type stuff. I still do most of the mechanical work on the family SUVs (I just replaced the timing chains and intake manifold in my 2002 Ford Explorer) but I have also learned basic carpentry, plumbing, electrical, and masonry skills.
Let’s see the IRS defines a hobby as something you don’t make a profit at so guessing tabletop miniature wargaming and beekeeping would be mine.