Your obsessions

Post Reply New Topic

Me too. Do you trace yours the the timeline of film? The automoton entertainment devices of the 1st century Heron, pinhole techniques of Renaissance artists, to Niepce and Daguerre, Edward Muybridge, the Zoetrope, Lumieres, Dickerson and Edison, Eastman Kodak, George Meillies, "The Great Train Robbery", David Warks Griffith, the Silent Film Comedy Giants, Pickford and Fairbanks and Chaplin United Artists, Mack Sennett, Orson Welles, Frankenstein, Dracula, and King Kong, Marx, Abbott and Costello, Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Erroll Flynn, Rudolph Valentino, William Pratt aka Boris Karloff, The man of a thousand faces Lon Chaney, Hammer Studios, Lucas, Spielburg, Carpenter, Coppola, 1951 (The Thing, The day the Earth Stood Still), Forgotten Planet, Tron, Star Wars, The Abyss... I could keep going, but I am getting bored typing all this.

I have many interests, I don't think I can match Kim Peek, but some articles indicate he is savant and autistic.

Past and current obsessions:

Pilgrims
Abraham Lincoln
Pioneers
WWII
Civil War
Shakespearean England
Charles Dickens
J.M. Barrie/Peter Pan
Harry Potter
Wizard of Oz
Will & Grace
Shoes (particularly Chuck Taylors or boots)
Large families
Multiple births (i.e. twins, triplets, quadruplets, etc.)
Genetics
Human Anatomy
Showtunes
Acting
Writing
Dancing
Four/five star hotels
NBC

....that's all I can recall at the current moment

ok Recently... lets see

The sims/ the sims 2
website making ( has yet to actually finish one)

writing
Harry Potter
Peter Pan
Imaginary Friends
aspergers
Guinea pigs.....

Although I'm 'NT' I do get pretty obsessive. My obsessions tend to go in cycles- I'll be stuck on one for a couple of weeks and then I'll move on to another one.

Current ones in the cycle of obsessiveness:
Reading- I read a lot anyway but sometimes I just cant seem to read fast enough and I struggle for longer than usual to pick what to read next cos I wanna read them all. Or I'll get obsessed with reading a particular type of book.

The sims- sometimes I'll play this for hours everyday and then I won't bother at all for a few weeks.

Message boards- I can spend hours waiting for new posts whilst playing solitaire.

The doors and Jim Morrison- another obsession I've had for years that keeps coming back. I'll listen to the music whilst reading a biography lol.

There are lots more too but I think that's enough to be going on with

[quote="Melvis"]Although I'm 'NT' I do get pretty obsessive. My obsessions tend to go in cycles- I'll be stuck on one for a couple of weeks and then I'll move on to another one.

Melvish, I noticed in your signiture that it says proud to be aspish. whats that mean?

what mel means is that while not AS she is fairly close - so 'aspish'...

hope this clarifies her joke for you

dunc

Hi- like Dunc said although I am not AS I have a lot of AS traits and can identify with a lot of issues mentioned on here. So I good naturedly call myself Asp-ish. Sorry if that caused some confusion- it made perfect sense when I was joking with Dunc about it but I can see how it might not be very clear.

Mel

Just putting a note in here so I don't confuse new members- I have since realised that I do have AS.

Last edited by Mel on 04 Jan 2005, 8:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

These are things that are not just passing interests, but have been obsessions at one or many times during my life :

airplanes (aviation in general)
birds
hockey stats/transactions
politics (US)
Disney (primarily Walt Disney World)
typos/grammar
dictionary.com
watching hockey games on TV
watching soccer games on TV
purchasing CDs (used to spend $100-$150 a week on CDs, which at the time was at least half of my wages)
selecting/watching programs on the TiVo
DirecTV
satellite TV industry in general
NASA (primarily the STS/Shuttle program)
messageboards
IRC
drum and bugle corps (history of Drum Corps International as well - I knew 20 years worth of scores and placements for virtually all DCI competitive corps)
b-movies, particularly the horror movies
studying ant colonies
canoeing (one summer I routinely skipped college classes and work to go canoeing on a nearby lake)
asperger's syndrome (particularly obsessed about it today, which caused me to register here and read/post instead of working...I'm doing all this on the clock... )
tv listings
airline timetables
aviation communications frequencies
Drudge Report (there was a time when I always had it open on my laptop and would scour it for new stories every hour)

PC Games
-----
Championship Manager (CM2, CM2 97/98, CM3, 99/00, 00/01, 01/02, CM4)
Football Manager 2005
Front Office Football (FOF2, FOF2001, FOF2004, FOF:TCY)
Rise of Nations
Flight Simulator
Project: Space Station

Surely, the list is incomplete. These are all things that at one time or another were a significant driving force in my day. I effectively lived for that item/activity/area of study/etc. As much as I enjoy all of my obsessions, I almost always end up regretting the things I've missed/lost/etc while indulging in them, although that does not prevent another round of days/weeks/months spent obsessing about them. My wife has learned to accept them and recognize when an item is in my 'obsession slot.' Apparently, I make similar comments/excuses for why I must spend all my time on it, even though the obsession may be a new/recycled one.

I will have to add to and edit this list as I remember more...It is chronological.

chickens sitting on a nest
Mickey Mouse
Superman
Guinea Pigs
garbage-I had this idea that there was no such thing as garbage, that everything was useful in some way, and I was devoted to finding those uses...
Leviticus and Deuteronomy
Unicorns
Cabbage Patch kids-mostly I was interested in making clothes for them and also my own versions of the dolls)
World War II, from the nazi's point of view
Sewing- clothes, stuffed animals mostly.
Michael Jackson
a boy in my school: Roosevelt
codes- I came up with a sign language of my own...but noone wanted to learn it from me, so I made it into a code. I still use and am still developing that code
unicorns
my mom
forts
cats
Horses
George (a boy I liked)
Rocks
Othello (the game)
Woodsmanship/survivalism, edible plants, herbs, that sort of thing
Mike (a neighbor)
Science,microscopes
Matt
Splitting wood
Dogs
Self sufficency/homesteading
Sheep
Cooking
Squash, pumpkins, gourds...any kind of cucurbit
Daniel Haugen...I became engaged to him but that didn't pan out
Vegetarianism
Judaism, the holocaust, World War II from the Jew's point of view....
Goats
Gardening, heirloom vegetables, seed saving
Citrus- planting citrus seeds
Chess
The idea of being a surgeon...entailed reading anything medical, Gray's Anatomy included.

To be continued......

Right now at this time i cant begin to think of all my obsessions i have had, I will have to come back and edit this as i think of them, but i can tell you the one i have currently, her name is "chamoisee", and its one of those that i feel will last a life time and goes way beyond being just an obsesion, hehe.

ok, let's go in reverse chronological order:
AS
Expanding our house
HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning)
Insulation (ongoing)
Ground source heat pumps, alternative energy
Peak Oil (the idea that we're about to reach the half-way point of using all the oil the earth has to supply)
Neural Networks / AI
Fire-fighing robots
SETI
Astrophotography. Specifically, using CCD cameras to take high resolution images of Saturn and long exposures to get the faintest stars possible
Bicycle racing (ongoing)

going back a ways in my adult life...
Superballs (drove my office mates crazy bouncing the ball while I was thinking!)
Rollerblades (I wore them around the office. Good think I was boss)
Darts
Understanding social interaction and my psychological development
Programming (that one lasted from about 1975-1995 and periodically resurfaces in various forms)
My imaging company (1984-2001)

High school
Spectroscopy / astronomy
Programming the Atari 800
Video Games - Asteroids addict. Donkey Kong. Missle Command Master....
Simon and Garfunkle
Astronomy. Ground an 8" telescope mirror (but ultimately never made the telescope). Went to college...

Junior High
surviving JH

Grade school
Pinball! Could I ever play pinball! Oh, and Tommy (The Who). That was my theme album. "See me, feel me, touch me, heal me"....
Photography. Built my own enlarger in 4th grade and processed my own film.
Astronomy
Deep Purple
The Who
Electronics - building stuff, fixing TVs. Radio Shack. I used to go in at every opportunity to ogle the TRS-80. I'd take anything electronic apart to get the components starting about 4th grade.
Stereos - I used to collect literature on Marantz and other receivers and could spout off all the details. The highlight of grade school was going to Japan and visiting Akihabara.
Record players - built my own out of tinker toys in 4th grade
Trash cans - I used to construct paper trash cans in 3rd grade. I'd tape them to my desk and build elaborate chutes for the trash to move through before dropping into the trash.
Tape - I'd use it for everything. My 4th grade teacher told me that if I was reincarnated, I'd come back as a roll of tape.

that's all my 40YO memory can recall now....

MY OBSESSIONS

Lord of the Rings
Inuyasha
Gravitation
Forgotten Realms
elves
werewolves
cute children with animal ears
WW 2 (i don't know why)
role playing

and that's all i can think of for now

My fascinations: (I prefer this term; I hate the word "obsessions" with a passion.)

CHILDHOOD (age 3 to 9):
Chandeliers, due to the one in my apartment that I was terrified of
Internal workings of electronics, such as circuit boards
Human anatomy
Astronomy
Computers

PRE-TEEN AGE (age 10 to 13):
Sea mammals
Environmental ecosystems
Video game characters, not necessarily the games themselves
Anything having to do with science

HIGH SCHOOL (age 14 to 17):
Transit systems
Subways
Urban planning
Methods of capital punishment, due to the bullying I've dealt with
Way of life in college dorms

CURRENT (after high school):
Railroads and trains
"Mechanics" of dating

Ironically, after years and years of hiding my interests from my peers, I'm returning to my roots. I'm now quite open about my interest in trains; but I only talk about them when appropriate, and even find ways to joke about it. Apparently, no one gets annoyed as a result.

Yeah I hide or just don't tell people about some of my interests because I get fed up with the prejudiced remarks you hear from people. There is a stigma around trains and model railroads especially.

- music (patterns, patterns, patterns!! !)
- car number plates
- aeroplanes
- aeroplane crashes
- computers

WW II
early church history
dinosaurs
freemasons
organ music
liturgucal music and cantillation (any religion)
botany
September 11 conspiracy theories
stencilling
wallpaper patterns
textile patterns
Pre Columbian civilizations
developing/ finding the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe