I look for hobbies that do more than kill time. Challenge you. Stretch the creative muscles. Connect you to people. Contribute to a community. For me right now that means piano, teaching myself to draw, and making videos about other people’s hobbies — often from life in Japan. Follow for finds, attempts, and the occasional flop. The Pursuit of Hobbiness.

Day 30 - A room in perspective Getting a better feel for distance and depth. Surprising how a bunch of straight lines take up more time than you realize.

Day 29 - Cats Tried a few different poses, then finished out the curled up and sleeping one.

Tell me you're in Japan without telling me you're in Japan.

Practically every week, the main train station here has a different setup promoting local products, a collaboration with an animal, or featuring another city/prefecture to boost tourism and sales of their local goods. Today is the town of Takahata, who has two cute, rotund ogres as their mascots.

Day 28 - Body Core in different poses Getting more of a feel for the positions and proportions. Wanted to try a stretching pose, and went with a guy reaching for a tennis ball. It wound up looking like he's trying to keep the stick figure guy from falling down.

All I see is "No!!!!! USA KINGS!" It's good to know America has the support of these people to be in charge of the rest of the world.

Zoom in, keep the camera steady. Yell, "お～い！" so they turn to look up at you. Then say, "Thank you very much! Now I have a clear shot of your faces to show the police!"

You'd better act fast. Only 68 days until Chirstmas Eve. Give us your money before going somewhere else.

I can't help shake the feeling that, technologically speaking, Japan may not be the global powerhouse it once was. Elon Musk's Tesla revealed a car that can use jet propulsion to perform its own Hollywood stunts, then only a few hours later, Japan's earthquake warning system had a glitch and sent out a false alarm about an apocalyptic-sized 9.9 earthquake that actually never happened.

"Thelma & Louise" would have ended much differently had they been driving the new Tesla Roadster.

Ouch. That community note.

Quite a few people are upset that there was a false alarm of a 9.9 earthquake. I'd be upset if there actually were an apocalyptic earthquake and we didn't get any warning.

Drawing Day 26 Shapes and observation, used towards drawing a person again. I think I got her proportions right for the most part. I'm not so sure about the face, except the auto face finder on my camera picked it up! Small victory!

Drawing Day 25 - Curves and lines Wasn't sure what to draw. Wound up with some raindrops, a stroopwafel, and a baseball hit by a bat.

Drawing Day 24 - contour lines Trying to gain a better perspective of shape, then using the object's form to shade in color.

If there's going to be an apocalypse, how will it happen? Zombies? Gigantic asteroid? Nuclear war? An incurable virus? Man-killing robots? I suspect it will be accounts like this. With their brain-numbing, meaningless fluff, they suck in more and more victims by the day, draining them of their vital juices, which they use to create more spawn. Feeding off of mankind and themselves, they will slowly overtake the algorithms, suffocating the more thought-provoking posts, and eventually draining AI servers of processing power for more meaningful tasks like balancing fiscal budgets or advancing cancer research. 800 posts in less than 2 weeks!? No Japanese person is able to rapid-fire 70 posts a day in English! Heck, most native English speakers can't even do that without using AI! There seems to be a new one every week, and no sign of slowing down. Unless someone with the knowhow stops them, our world is doomed. Time to start shopping for a bunker.

Learning to Draw Day 23 - Observation: shading Walnuts are insanely challenging and satisfying to draw. The abstract shapes, the lines that the "veins" make, and the shading in the dips, bulges, and crevices. All good times, but impossible for someone at my level to get perfect.

Good morning, America. It's Columbus Day. This is coincidentally the one holiday that the US and Japan share every year (aside from New Year's Day). Here it's Sports Day. Japanese aren't particularly obligated to do any sports today, though many schools across the nation held their Sports/Field Day on Saturday, so today is a good time for the students and teachers to catch up on much needed rest. As we're winding down our day, some of you have the whole day ahead of you. Hope you enjoy it!

Music has the power to bring people together.

Chances are, you are potentially more capable than you think. You've just got to make a committed effort to improve.