What do you do for fun on Friday, Saturday nights? | Hacker News Reader

What do you do for fun on Friday, Saturday nights?

16 pointsjaytee_clone59 comments

I love meeting entrepreneurs and hackers, or just motivated and brilliant people in general.

From my experience, the best time to make friends is during recreational activities as suppose to conferences. I could be wrong since I have been to far less conferences than "parties".

Thus, I'd like to conduct a survey to see what fun and social activities you guys do on Friday and Saturday nights.

Eventually, it will be nice to have a comprehensive data set, but let's just start with activities and places first.

Thank you for your input.

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Living in NYC, Friday and Saturday nights tend to revolve around restaurants and bars. Although drinking is generally involved, this doesn't mean that it isn't a good time to get to know and engage in conversation with other entrepreneurs and hackers.

From my experience, the best way to quickly become friends with someone is to share a couple beers with them. Plenty of business, coding, and good general technical discussion can follow later.

Who would downmod that? It's not original, and I suppose it could sound like a call to alcoholism, but it's been a highly successful model for acquaintances and friendships for as long as beer has existed.

If that sounds like a call to alcoholism to someone, then I submit they don't understand alcoholism.

beer is a religion ;)

I'm an introvert.

Friday night I head home, cook dinner, play with my dogs, fire up the woodburning stove if it's chilly, and read a book. Maybe call a friend or an out of state family member on the phone.

Saturday night I head out to "Guy's Night" with one or two friends - grab dinner out, head home, watch a DVD.

It sounds boring as hell, but it's exactly what I want to do.

no time with the ladies?

either dating them, or chasing them around?

Here in Seattle we have a group called Saturday House (http://saturdayhouse.org), its a great meeting place, for meeting smart people who are working on great projects. (The tag line is a barcamp every weekend.) Usually at the end of Saturday House a group tends to head out on the town and have dinner at various locations.

Also there is the Six Hour Startup Group that I run, http://sixhourstartup.com which hosts events on Sundays at one of the local bars.

We also have a Startup Drinks organization (Last Friday of every month, http://seattle.startupdrinks.com) and Hops and Chops www.hopsandchops.com (Every Thursday Night).

FYI roberte3-

Found this in the FAQ of http://sixhourstartup.com "frequently the best results come from the .NET developer who tries his hand at writing web copy, or from the marketer who’s never done any marketing before."

A marketer who's never done marketing before! Impressive!

why oh why can't Stamford, CT have stuff like that?!

I suppose you could start it yourself. :) If you feel so strongly that way, I bet there are others out there like you, too.

I like your roll-your-own approach. We are entrepreneurs after all.

I used to roll my own weekly salsa dance social. I was surprised how many hackers showed up regularly.

Now that I moved to Berkeley, I have to start from scratch again.

I started climbing indoors every week last year and have been keeping up with it since. It's very social, fun and develops your body in ways few other hobbies can. There are rock gyms in most densely populated areas I believe.

Plus there's less of a tendency for awkward, quiet moments as you get a break from eye-to-eye contact when you're actually climbing.

Isn't that expensive? Do you go by yourself or others? The one near me is inside a big sports store and no one is ever using the wall. I feel like all the shoppers would stare at me if I climbed there.

The ones inside big sport stores aren't really climbing walls. They're more like attractions.

I pay $60/month for climbing (in Maryland), or it's $16 to go once. Rental harness and shoes is about $9. The prices fluctuate depending on the gym you go to though. Mine offers classes sometimes too, so if you want to take those it will be more money, but by all means they're not required. Try to find a local rock gym; googling works fine and searching climbing forums.

I go with a few coworkers who also caught the climbing bug, there are also always regulars at the gym who you get to know after a while and I sometimes meet new people at the gym to belay me. (You can't really climb by yourself as you need a person to support you on the ground ['belay'] unless you're bouldering. Bouldering is close to the ground and is generally more inventive and harder as the problems (a problem is a set of hand/foot holds that you have to traverse to complete a route in bouldering) tend to be very technical. For more actual explanation on how everything works, wikipedia is a great resource, or alternatively, you can just contact me.

It's a great hobby, in my opinion. Good for physical development, good for meeting new people and very rewarding as you see yourself progress to harder climbs.

Shoes and harnesses aren't too bad. You can get a good pair of entry level shoes for 60-80, an entry level harness/chalkbag/ATC will run 80 to 100 dollars. That will at least let you climb at gyms with your own gear, or go out with friends who have rope.

I know a few hackers who are also rock climbers.

I'm seriously considering taking it on.

You've got nothing to lose.

There's also parkour: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkour

It's a hell of a lot of fun, keeps you in shape, gets you outside and away from the computer, etc.

Pretty much every major city, and many smaller cities, have local parkour communities. Just search Google for "parkour MY_CITY".

And if you live in Toronto, Canada, come join us at pkto.ca

Friday and Saturday are the two nights per week that I go to bed early. I'm in bed by 9pm on Friday and not much later than 10 on Saturday.

Social scene is during the day. Saturday I spend playing rugby and hanging out with the club, no working. Sunday I have no-pressure brunch with my closest friends. Sunday afternoon I get a massage, and Sunday night is one of most productive coding sessions of the week - decompressing your brain for a couple days does amazing things.

It's more like a 3 step plan:

1) Go to a tech event on a weeknight, meet with people in a "formal" setting. 2) Conversation drifts to non-tech interests, comraderie develops 3) THEN on a Friday or Saturday night, I meet up with some of these same people in a more social setting

In addition:

4) ??? 5) Profit!

Kudos. That's the model I'm going for, except that I'm trying to skip the first part. (Low on cash)

Reading HN is the cornerstone of any fun Friday night

I usually reserve conferences for weekday evenings if at all possible; it makes me feel less guilty if I end up drinking during the week at a conference than at a party or a bar.

Friday nights, we usually have band practice or a show somewhere, followed by drinking and hanging out with fans and friends. Saturday nights are usually filled with more partying or taking my girlfriend on a date.

I've spent many many weekends over the past few years working straight through on my startup, but since we've started to turn the corner of profitability, I've stopped doing that.

I used to play in a band too.

Now that I'm working on a start-up I stopped playing music.

Hopefully I will get to the position you're at now.

On a good Friday night, I go to the local comic shop and play a collectible card game. (One that's sort of like Magic: the Gathering, but different.)

I know, I know. Wild times, right? I enjoy it a lot, though. You get to use your brain, it's very competitive, and the social interaction is great.

Which one? Is it The Spoils? Cause I've been thinking of trying that one out.

I haven't tried Spoils. It's the World of Warcraft TCG. Very fun.

EDIT: It's been out a couple years now, and is going pretty strong. Check it out if you get a chance.

I don't play either WOW or the card game based on it, so I'm wondering, why would you play with cards over the online version?

It's such an apples-vs-oranges comparison, and it's also largely a personal choice. I do play the card game over the online game, though, regularly.

People who've played lots of Magic say that the WoW card game is a better game than Magic, for what it's worth.

EDIT: Oh, I misread your question. Why? Well, it's sort of like the difference between driving a car and riding a bike. A bike isn't a crappy car, it's fundamentally different, with its own set of strengths.

Also, the collectible card game is NOT a simulation or re-creation of the online game. It's more like Magic set in the WoW universe.

i live in the valley. i go to tech parties paid for overfunded startups where liquor is free... wait those times are over.

I take it you missed the Yelp party yesterday?

was sick :-(.

Cool. Where do I find out about these parties?

I really enjoy the local Contra Dance scene. Most populous areas (and even some rural areas) hold regular dances.

For those not familiar with Contra Dancing, it is a called set dance vaguely reminiscent of Square Dancing, but the scene is very different. A very eclectic group of people from all walks of life attend. Most everyone is friendly and it is a great way to meet people.

I never heard of that dance before. It does look quite eclectic.

I usually go out and salsa dance once a week.

I... I work.

Being a student (hs) means weekends are prime time for working.

I watch Kung Fu Panda with my kids.

lol! No man you should be playing board games, reading stories and teaching them to code !!!!!

I usually spend one evening at home with my girlfriend and the other evening going out with my girlfriend. We usually go out for dinner, or out with friends... Sometimes we just have dinner outside on the patio with a bottle of wine.

My wife is an artist so tech talk is banned, at least it is if she doesn't have someone to gossip with.

We live in San Francisco and tend to go see friends for dinner or drink, or meet them out some where. Sometimes we go to tech-event after-parties. I know and work with a bunch of guys who bring their wives/gfs who talk to each other while we talk shop.

If you're in Chicago, tomorrow night we're hosting a meetup on the north side for local writers, photographers, "twitter people" and anyone else who likes beer. http://www.mypunchbowl.com/parties/407573-windy-citizen-dece...

Kudos. I'm not in Chicago, but I applaud your effort.

One of our writers http://www.twitter.com/annatarkov decided to get on twitter about 2 months ago. She's now got almost 1000 followers, including just about anyone who's anyone in the media in Chicago. She's been promoting the heck out of our little meetup. I'm pretty stoked. Motivate the right people and they'll spread the word about your project!

This weekend i plan to just read "python for unix and linux system administration". Anyone else read it? Is it good?

The following keep me sane after the normal insane workweeks: Swing dancing on Friday night, and hanging out with my girlfriend on Saturday night.

Agree. I make sure I dance once a week too (salsa).

Unfortunately. (or fortunately depending on the perspective) I still don't have the time for the second one.

I live in Waterloo, and all my friends from highschool / college are pretty much in Toronto or other areas so hanging out with them is pretty tough but generally:

Friday - Sit at home with the girlfriend, relax, watch a movie, just appreciate that you've completed a good week of work. Oh wait, too bad we both work on Saturdays! She works 100% of the time, I work every second Saturday so basically Friday's are a way to relax and go to bed early as usual :)

Saturday - We like clubbing on late Saturdays as it's close + good music. Sometimes invite friends over, or go out to a restaurant, or try to check out any events going on in the city (sadly, good night-time events are rare here)

Most of my outings in the past year have been during the week. Concerts and other events which I go to a lot during the week. Geek meets on Mondays, etc.

If you are interested in having a date on Friday or Saturday nights, check out http://flowmingle.com

During the week we guide you through an introduction process with a group of around 20 other local people. The introduction process ends on Friday. When you find someone you are interested in we help you set up a meeting.

Cool site, but my intent for this post was more for non-romantic socialization.

I code; we're in hardcore startup mode.

Quality time or so I like to call it.

Usually spent with the girlfriend, at friends, or very alone. I use the time to relax and turn my brain off. I usually avoid alcohol and stick to things more natural.

If I'm not doing school work, I'm typically freelancing. School + Paying the bills + Entrepreneurshipping is hard to maintain. Especially when two of them are mere formalities.

Stay in and work / experiment / play. Why? You have no phone calls, no "urgent" e-mails, or any of that when everyone else is out having fun :)

I either spend these nights playing dota (I cram these into a binge dota session), reading (If I find something) or playing the violin.

Having fun on a Friday or Saturday night would be nice... :(

What prevents you from having it?

Heh, I prevent myself from having fun and I am the greatest obstacle of all to surmount.

bestofyoutube.com

I start gathering women for my one man orgy at about 8pm and am good to go for the night with about six come 10pm.

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