I had one video game phase after I dropped out of college. I played Skyrim (I had played / watched my brother and high school boyfriend play Oblivion in High School and loved it) and Mass Effect and eventually Final Fantasy. Keep in mind, I'm not good at video games in general so I usually play about 30%-50% through until it is too hard or I'm too bored. Mass Effect kept my interest for the longest. I still occasionally sit back and explore Skyrim. Final Fantasy - I got maybe 10 hours in and ditched it. It wasn't that it was slow or the story was bad - it was just not enjoyable to actually play and let the dialog play out but it wasn't fun to run from place to place and level up all that jazz. I couldn't figure out why I was tediously walking through this world. Then I realized I was playing way to many video games and got a second job and everything turned out okay. As far as what I hated and now love - conversations with older people. Those stories that grandpa used to tell you every single Christmas or that drunk oldschooler at the bar who keeps interrupting your story to tell you. They're crazy. They may not be entirely true. There may or may not be a point. They may ramble until oblivion and miss 4 different points and end up on Mars. But fuck - if you stop thinking about all the better shit you could be doing with your time and questioning every sentence's validity, they are the most informative, interesting, fun things to listen to. I have one dive bar that I go to solely to get hit up by lonely 85 year olds and listen to them talk about their experiences in the workplace or their bizarre viewpoints on women and all the shit that's changed. I met one guy a few weeks ago that told me a story about how he was an accountant and eventually started his own business and was very successful. The computers kept getting better and better but he never took the time to learn how to use the computer because he was rich and powerful and didn't need to - he had people to do that for him. Then he retired, got sick of not being able to keep up with his grandkids and Facebook, took a computer course at the local community college, realized the power of excel, and now is back running a small business shorting stocks or something intense by computing things in excel. That's amazing.
I'm with you on this one. I used to find those stories so boring. Old people are awesome, and I've learned a shit ton from being around them. I love that they can answer questions like, "is this reaction to Benghazi very different from the Iran embassy hostage thing in '79?" Their answer may lead into a tangent about some significant other they decided to hate in hindsight, and they may go on a tirade about how Obama is a "jive-ass motherfucker from Chicago" afterward, but it's always interesting and often funny nonetheless.As far as what I hated and now love - conversations with older people. Those stories that grandpa used to tell you every single Christmas or that drunk oldschooler at the bar who keeps interrupting your story to tell you. They're crazy. They may not be entirely true. There may or may not be a point. They may ramble until oblivion and miss 4 different points and end up on Mars.
I used to co-moderate a small subreddit with a very nice lady in her 50s. She gave up on Reddit because she got sick of all the missed opportunities. The basic facts of life that, to her, were self-evident, were called into question every day... and in order to add anything to the conversation, she'd have to go "okay, I'm 50, I've been on the planet two or three times as long as you, and I've learned a few things" and then put forth her notions for defense, not for edification. Not to say "respect your elders" but I find that if you are open and interested and accept what someone who's been around longer than you has to say, you'll get a perspective you likely haven't considered. And to say that one of the primary hindrances to Internet communication is that in person, we know whether we're talking to a kid or a grandmother. On the Internet, we have to assume we're talking to a grandmother that acts like a kid or a kid that acts like a grandmother or a grandmother pretending to be a kid or a room full of preschoolers that know how to type. it's a hindrance to legitimate information transfer.