My friends are pretty great, but whenever we try to plan something we tend to go for the default responses, like going and see a movie or hang out at someone's house, and it's starting to get a little dull. So basically, I'm trying to come up with a list of different things we can do when we're bored, so we don't get stuck in the 'I don't know, what do you want to do?' cycle.
I live in Sydney, but they don't have to be Sydney specific (although location specific things are welcome as well). Some of the ideas we've got going so far are going on photoshoot, donating blood, or visiting the
Museum of Human Disease.
Suggestions?
Posts
Thanks ND, adding them to the list!
Ethnic restaurants with food that you normally wouldn't eat can be fun as well.
Also touristy things can be kind of neat as well. Like one city I visited had a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum which was fun to go through with some friends.
even parking garages are neat.
@ZM: I've actually tried to get in contact with the Sydney Cave Clan a few times, but haven't gotten a reply yet.
You should totally do that then tell us your stories.
They will be things that man...
Was never meant to know.
If you have enough people then playing games/sport can be fun. Ultimate frisbee is pretty popular
Swimming and beaches are fun things too, especially if you make it into a picnic
My friends and I play a shit ton, but if you like board games then there are tons of great ones that you can get (my particular favorite is Dominion)
The Cave Clan were effectively shut down under police pressure a few years back, when a few idiots drowned going into drains while it was raining.. idiots.
I'm sure they're still around, but very underground
(see what I did there)
Mushrooming could be interesting, and going to more concerts would be brilliant if they didn't cost so damn much. There's no shortage of festivals and markets around sydney too, but unfortunately most of them are pretty underwhelming.
Something like that would be great, but it's difficult to organise a large enough group to get a decent game going. Boardgames are a bit easier, we were just looking in to a few yesterday (I hear good things about Betrayal at the House on the Hill). We've also tried running a few D&D games, but they're pretty infrequent and again, it's hard to get everyone's act together.
(Also ultimate frisbee is nowhere near as ultimate as it sounds)
I remember that, but I hadn't realised it forced them to go in to hiding. Seems rather silly since one of their main objectives was to make these activities safer.
Of course, there's always candlepin.
For mushrooming, make sure to do it with a club with at least one veteran, and bring lots of bags (some mushrooms become poisonous if they come in contact).
-D&D is really fun but it takes a lot of organizing, especially on the part of the DM.
-Dominion and Catan are great 4 person games and they're both fairly simple, especially once you get it down. I highly recommend both, but just be warned that most european games have terrible rule translations and you could easily spend a few hours just trying to figure out whats written in that cryptic book
-Betrayal at House on the Hill is fun but some of the haunts really suck and then you're stuck playing a crappy game
-If you like Battle Star Galactica, there's a surprisingly fun board game where you get to accuse each other blindly of being traitors, its a quality game.
lol how do you ever hang out if you cant organize anyone?
if you're looking for cheap fun, buy a nerf ball, go to a nice size playground at night and play a game of ball tag. no kids, and the shadows add an interesting element to the game by adopting ninja rules. it's good times.
Also I know geochaching was mentioned several times, but that's a really interesting game to play. I had to throw my vote in for it as well.
it'd also be really fun to commit yourself to an arts-and-crafty project of some kind and book out a table one weekend.
@nixmix06: Wouldn't be the first time we've hung out in a playground in the middle of the night.
@jedikuonji: I though of that too, when we were looking around for Betrayal on House on the Hill. I've only asked one store so far, and they do them far too infrequently for it to be worthwhile, but I know of a few tabletop games stores around the city, so I'll keep asking.
@Zombiemambo: By concert I was really referring to much bigger events, but there's no reason we couldn't go check out some smaller gigs either.
@splash: I love hiking, but it's sad to say that most of my friends don't feel the same way. It's possible to convince them to go occaisonally, but not as often as I'd like...
@Trentus: I know of the Basement, but I've never been there myself. Although now that I think of it, I also remember someone entering in to The Magic Club one time, although I couldn't go and see them on the day, so that's another reason to check it out!
@bsjezz: Hm... Never thought of setting up a store before. It wouldn't be too hard to find people willing to make something for it either, since I hang out with a lot of arty/designy people.
Oh, I thought of some other things - there's a laser tag place in the Entertainment Quater that will let you have unlimited games until midnight if you go there after 8:00 or something (have to check out the details). If you keep your ear to the ground there are also occaisonal flash mobs that happen in the city too. There was a giant water-pistol fight in a city part just a couple of weeks ago, and there's a sydney no-pants train ride that goes on every year which I think is happening this weekend (last time there were 50 or so people, and there'll probably be more this year).
Thanks guys, keep up the suggestions!
As you can see a lot of people use this as an excuse to talk about their personal history. It's been really fun, though, and the friend circle is about 20-ish people for each talk. It requires planning but it's super fun and people talk about them for months afterwards.
But to reiterate its worthwhile to actually learn about what your friends are actually like (during hiking and camping, for a longer day bike ride this can be true too). You see different sides to them, talk about different things, do different things, and are in a totally new environment. I hope you keep encouraging them to do something like this. People can always enjoy staying indoors and shopping, watching things, blah blah blah.
I mean, some people find them to be really suburban and old for their taste but
fuck that they are super fun, especially with games like Munchkin
alternatively: organize a camping trip, go for a hike!