What Were Your Past Obsessions?

[Ricardo L]

Hacking
Heavy metal
Learning languages
Getting rich

 

[SchrodingersMeerkat]

Same ones I had as a kid. I never grew out of mine.

 

[Nervous Rex]

Monty Python, in College. I almost had the entire script to Holy Grail memorized.
Firefly, Serenity <wistful sigh>
Doctor Who, 2004 to about 2015
Science Fiction books from age 12 to 36. In high school, I read two books a day. At 36, I cut that back to reading only when I know I will have a lot of free time for several days in a row (like during vacations), since I completely withdraw from reality when I read.

Magnets, forever. I will always play with magnets. I have a ton of BuckyBalls from China (keep them away from kids!).

Temple Run. I got Every. Single. Achievement. Even after I got everything that required any skill, I still played it to get the 10,000,000 meters run and 10,000 games played. It was a painful, boring slog and I hated it, but I knew I was going to do it anyway. After that, I banned myself from even starting any game that has achievements.

I have to be very careful about what hobbies, games, and TV shows I get into, because there's nothing I can't take to a seriously unhealthy level.

 

[pjcnet]

Before I was introduced to computers in 1979 with the Commodore Pet at the age of 10 I was into playing chess, I played for the Birmingham under 11's team that travelled around the UK, I also used to play in serious national chess congresses for various age groups and I also used to play in adult club tournaments beating most adult serious club players. I was originally taught by my grandad at around 7 years old, but he soon found himself regularly losing against me despite being pretty good himself.

When I was in the Birmingham team they provided professional induction tuition which made me become even better, to qualify for the team to begin with I had to go through various tournament trials and players were regularly retested in trials against other potential new players who wanted to take your place so it was very serious and highly competitive all the time.

Birmingham team games and any tournaments / congresses were extremely serious, you played in halls with adjudicators walking around watching your every move, in congresses I've also known lots of spectators watching with opera glasses from a nearby balcony with seating. The rules were extremely strict, E.g. there was a strict touch piece move rule and if you let go of the piece in a legal position there was no taking it back under any circumstances, when the game was in progress and you'd shook hands you were only allowed to say essential game related things to your opponent that were officially recognised such as "check", "check mate", "I resign" while knocking your king over, "do you want a draw?", "I accept", "I decline" Etc. and if you needed anything else you had to call over an adjudicator by raising your hand. For instance if a piece wasn't correctly positioned in the centre of a square and you wanted to adjust it without being told you'd touched the piece and had to move it, some players would say, "adjust" before touching it, but if it was possible to legally move the piece, to avoid any possible dispute it was always best to get an adjudicator to oversee it. You'd think it would be stressful, especially for someone on the autistic spectrum, but I would retreat into my own world when I played chess and I'd sit with my hands around my eyes like a visor so I could only see the board ahead of me and nothing else, I would actually slowly dig into the middle of my forehead with my thumb nails which always meant I had a nasty wound there that kept scabbing over. What also helped was there was no actual time limit on individual moves within reason, E.g. if you'd taken 30 minutes something would be said by an adjudicator, but it wasn't unusual to take 5 minutes on average to move and sometimes up to 10 or even 15 minutes on an especially difficult move. There was an overall game time which was usually around 2 to 2.5 hours and if you were still playing at the end an adjudicator would come over and then judge the game. He or she (it was virtually always a man in those days) would then speak to both players giving them each a chance to discuss what moves they had planned and argue their case, often the adjudicator would start making the likely moves while discussing them with both players and then the adjudicator would decide who had won or whether it was considered a draw. On most occasions both players would agree with the adjudicator, even if a player had lost and it was a quick + easy job if one player was obviously losing, but there was some long debates and discussions when games were close, then often more than one adjudicator would get involved before making a final decision.

I was always seeded no 1 in my school after repeated knock out tournaments and challenges to the title, but I began hating playing there as just one stupid mistake could mean losing my title which I was doing nothing but defend (it was very negative as I could only stay where I was or lose), it never happened though because I barely ever made mistakes, but at school the games weren't as serious and it would annoy me when players or other children watching started talking causing distractions Etc.

Ever since being introduced to computers this completely took over and even though I can still play chess quite well I have barely played since I was 10 and wouldn't be anywhere near as good as I was back then, plus I'd be expected to play even better as an adult. I'd probably now only be at a reasonable adult club level being so much out of practice and I'd be beaten by the best 8, 9 or 10 year olds, where as a young child I was in the top few in Birmingham for my age and I was beating most adult club players (I apparently caused quite a few adults a fair bit of embarrassment since they were beaten by a 8, 9 or 10 year old, I didn't see it at the time, probably because of being on the autistic spectrum and for some reason I didn't even feel like a child, but was later told by my Dad when I was older that some people really weren't happy after losing to me).

 

[GrownupGirl]

Pac-Man, Super Mario, Sonic, Garfield comics, Disney, Loony Tunes, Troll dolls, Harvest Moon, Animal Crossing, The Sims.
Of course even now I still have occasional "relapses" with those obsessions.

 

[Nervous Rex]

Science Fiction, Monty Python, The Tick, Star Trek, Lewis Carroll, C.S. Lewis, David Brin, Firefly, Dr. Horrible, Doctor Who.

All past obsessions. I now try to avoid going full fanboy on anything. I'm not 100% successful.

 

[Mr Allen]

Lego sets when I was about my Niece's age (7) and the original Star Wars figures (apparently if in the packet and in good condition they're worth a bundle nowadays).

@Nervous Rex I was a BIG fan of the original Doctor Who, one of the best was Sylvester McCoy IMO, but I only liked his era because I was in love with Sophie "Ace" Aldred, and I Googled recent pics of her last week, she's still gorgeous 30 years on.

 

[pjcnet]

Lego sets when I was about my Niece's age (7) and the original Star Wars figures (apparently if in the packet and in good condition they're worth a bundle nowadays).

@Nervous Rex I was a BIG fan of the original Doctor Who, one of the best was Sylvester McCoy IMO, but I only liked his era because I was in love with Sophie "Ace" Aldred, and I Googled recent pics of her last week, she's still gorgeous 30 years on.

I used to love Lego for a good while too as well as Meccano before I moved onto electronics at literally around 7 years old before I was introduced to computers with an 8K Commodore Pet in 1979 at the age of 10, I've never looked back.

Regarding Doctor Who, I thought Sylvester McCoy was an utterly abysmal Doctor Who, the worst out of the 7 original doctors by far and I'm not surprised the series came to an end for a long time after only making a handful of stories, there was no tension and the comedy aspect of it just didn't work unlike Tom Baker who pulled it off brilliantly, the late Jon Pertwee was in my opinion the best of all however, they were excellent good stories with real tension, it wasn't like a children's programme in those days. Sophie Aldred who played Ace wasn't exactly a great actor in the Sylvester McCoy series either, even in situations where they were about to die she showed no genuine fear of expression, it was all some sort of a silly joke, although I partly blame the poor script writers. Anyway it looks like the only reason you liked the series was because you fancied her lol, you definitely didn't love her however because you didn't know her in real life.

My ratings for the original 7 doctors:

6 out of 10 - William Hartnell
6 out of 10 - Patrick Troughton
9 out of 10 - Jon Pertwee
8 out of 10 - Tom Baker
5 out of 10 - Peter Davison
4 out of 10 - Colin Baker
2 out of 10 - Sylvester McCoy

PS: I also hate the modern Doctor Who after it came back with Christopher Eccleston, now it really is just a children's programme in my opinion, I gave it a chance, but it's just not the same and I couldn't get into it at all.