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What Were Your Past Obsessions?

IContainMultitudes said:
I remember that when I was about 12 or so, I was obsessed with Lord of the Rings to the point of carrying all three of the books around with me at all times in a bag with various other things I amused myself with (yes, I was kind of painfully dorky at that age; I'm slightly amazed that I still have those books and that they didn't get stolen by one of the mean kids or anything like that). Funnily enough, I don't think I ever actually finished reading them until I was an adult (that may have been around the time that the second of the Peter Jackson LOTR movies came out).

Video games were another big one well into my teenage years (mainly NES and Super NES games); I also went through a brief period of being obsessed with pen-and-paper RPGs like Battletech and Shadowrun even though I barely understood how to play them and rarely ever got an opportunity to do so (I think I mainly just enjoyed flipping through the sourcebooks and stuff until they started falling apart).
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I never got into novels, but your description of carrying around guide-type books until they wore out sounds exactly like me.
I must have gone through countless dinosaur and solar system books (among other more obscure guides, I could probably make a hefty list) that way.

I also had a Super Mario guide that I seriously loved, even though I wasn't half as obsessed with playing the game.
But I could tell you everything about it.
 
Another of my past obsessions includes, well, maps.

I kept, and still keep maps from all the towns and cities I visited with my family. They include maps of Christchurch, New Zealand (before the earthquake), Perth, Melbourne and Tasmania (of Australia), Switzerland, Paris, London, Rome, Guangzhou (in China), all the states of Peninsular Malaysia, Yogyakarta, North and Northeast Japan plus Tokyo and Seoul.

Too bad, I keep them in a box. It's sealed. :X
 
Having a special interest in dinosaurs at a young age seems to be common, so I don't feel like an odd-ball so admitting I was obsessed with dinosaurs at a young age too!!! It went from dinosaurs, to pokemon, then fish. I'm a big heavy metal fan so that has been a sort of background interest too, it doesn't seem to flare up or die down.
 
My one huge obsession was and still is fantasy- missed a LOT of high-school because all I could think of was reading my fantasy books- and I read these over and over again.

Another obsession, which is kinda weird, is paper/books. I love to look at, smell and touch different types of papers and books (journal-type books). This was such a bad obsession that I refused to write on the paper or in the books/journals because it stained the "purity" of the pages. I'm still like this at times, but push myself to actually write on/in them (especially important since I'm a writer/editor).

In University I also got into Greek/Roman religions/gods/rituals, as well as arts/architecture, politics, history etc. And then the Bible and its accompanying mythologies such as the apocryphal. Then this all related back to my studies in English Literature. Very much into symbolism. It's odd because I wasn't really interested in the characters per se, but in the symbolism/details of the underlying literature. This posed a bit of a problem when I had to choose a specialty for my post-graduate degree because I couldn't choose an age (i.e. medieval, american, canadian, renaissance, old English, etc.) because I enjoyed picking out the symbols/details in all eras of our literature.

N
 
Some of my past obsessions:

Space program (actually, that still is an obsession of mine...but since we no longer have a manned space program anymore, per se, I have to relegate it to a list of "past obsessions."

Dinosaurs
Indy Car Racing (lost interest in this one with the CART/IRL split)
Star Wars
Michael Jordan
 
When I was about 3 to 7, I was obsessed with cars. I had a ton of toy cars and knew everything about them. I would line them up in huge, winding "traffic jams" all around the house. It took hours, but I loved it so much. Whenever we went to Wal-Mart, I would ask the cashier what kind of car he/she drove, if it was automatic or stick shift, etc.
 
buckyboy14 said:
When I was about 3 to 7, I was obsessed with cars. I had a ton of toy cars and knew everything about them. I would line them up in huge, winding "traffic jams" all around the house. It took hours, but I loved it so much. Whenever we went to Wal-Mart, I would ask the cashier what kind of car he/she drove, if it was automatic or stick shift, etc.
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You and I should have a lot to talk about then. I'm in the process of completely rebuilding my '92 Firebird (with a T400 transmission and a classic 350 Edelbrocked small block) and tinkering with my truck pretty much every day.
 
robertwnielsen said:
Some of my past obsessions:

Space program (actually, that still is an obsession of mine...but since we no longer have a manned space program anymore, per se, I have to relegate it to a list of "past obsessions."

Dinosaurs
Indy Car Racing (lost interest in this one with the CART/IRL split)
Star Wars
Michael Jordan
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I just had to make a comment to this because I am still a bit of a space geek in terms of tv shows. I loved and still love:
Star Wars
Stargate SG 1
Stargate Atlantis
Star Trek
Star Trek Generations
Star Trek Voyager
Star Trek Deep Space 9
Earth2
Babylon 5 (though not as much of a fav)
SeaQueset
Andromeda
 
When I was a kid, I was crazy obsessed with Spongebob. I still kind of fixated on television, but only because I'm an aspriing television writer.

Now adays I think alot about sex and heavy metal.
 
Arashi222 said:
I just had to make a comment to this because I am still a bit of a space geek in terms of tv shows. I loved and still love:
Star Wars
Stargate SG 1
Stargate Atlantis
Star Trek
Star Trek Generations
Star Trek Voyager
Star Trek Deep Space 9
Earth2
Babylon 5 (though not as much of a fav)
SeaQueset
Andromeda
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Agreed on Star Trek...I loved The Next Generation, and even Voyager to some degree...never got into DS9, though. :|
 
Arashi222 said:
I just had to make a comment to this because I am still a bit of a space geek in terms of tv shows. I loved and still love:
Star Wars
Stargate SG 1
Stargate Atlantis
Star Trek
Star Trek Generations
Star Trek Voyager
Star Trek Deep Space 9
Earth2
Babylon 5 (though not as much of a fav)
SeaQueset
Andromeda
Click to expand...

I loved Babylon 5 when it first came on. It was on while I was in High School (mid/late 90s), and having a new episode to watch on Friday evening always felt like a little reward for getting through another week of High School Hell. I haven't seen any of that show in a long time, I'm not sure how well it would hold up today.

The X-Files was another tv show I was a bit obsessed with around that time, I think I kind of gave up on it at some point in the last couple of seasons though. Interestingly enough, it has a connection to my current #1 tv obsession, Breaking Bad, since Vince Gilligan, the creator of the show, was a writer on The X-Files (I find that interesting since they're two very different shows that nonetheless have a somewhat similar vibe at times).

I watched the TNG and DS9 Star Trek shows a little bit when they were on as well. I enjoyed them, but not really to the point of obsessiveness.
 
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buckyboy14 said:
When I was about 3 to 7, I was obsessed with cars. I had a ton of toy cars and knew everything about them. I would line them up in huge, winding "traffic jams" all around the house. It took hours, but I loved it so much. Whenever we went to Wal-Mart, I would ask the cashier what kind of car he/she drove, if it was automatic or stick shift, etc.
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I am still obsessed. I once asked a guy in an evolution if he was driving an evolution or was that a body kit on a lancer. I was a bit drunk that time.
He was driving an evolution.

I hate that auto noise. Especially if they got the muffler on. Sounds extremely lethargic.
 
Whales. Oh man was I ever into whales in elementary and jr. high school. I don't remember most of the stats I memorized by this point but I still feel a connection to them.

I've also gone through sitcom obsessions, I think it's because my social life was nonexistent and I would watch how they interact to see how I should behave. Friends and Gilmore Girls were my long time favorites and I have both series on DVD. I have almost every line of both committed to memory. On Netflix I've been going through How I Met Your Mother, Samantha Who? and Arrested Development over and over for the last year or so.
 
mine were vast xD
elementary school: politics,civil war,cities(various cities at different times),etc
middle school: cities,harry potter,etc
high school: judy garland,politics
 
All things geology and paleontology, along with fossil and mineral hunting was a huge interest of mine. I'm still interested but not obsessively any more. I still have my collection though but I never get it out and mess with the stuff anymore, much less add to it.
 
_Josh_ said:
All things geology and paleontology, along with fossil and mineral hunting was a huge interest of mine. I'm still interested but not obsessively any more. I still have my collection though but I never get it out and mess with the stuff anymore, much less add to it.
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I like rocks and geology - it's always good to know the risks of having an earthquake imo :O
 
The Wheel of Time series in my early teens.
The Twilight series in my early twenties.
Harry Potter during all my teens.
Horses in my preteens.
Michael Ende books before that.
Cronenberg movies, horror movies and movies with Viggo Mortensen in them at different periods.
The Lord of the Rings. (I can't even type it without hearing it in a dramatic, ominous voice.)
Languages during my twenties. (I'm currently in the middle of those.)
Luminosity during the spring of 2012.
Methods of Rationality during the summer.
Not even sure what I was obsessed with last fall. Probably languages again.
 
it just so happens that one of my past obsessions I picked back up again, my craft lace. never really had many other obsessions other then cars.
 
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