What's Your Obcession?

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what's bibliomania?
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Last edited by Ante on 09 Nov 2005, 3:21 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Im quite the anti-authoritarian myself.
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I'm starting to get obsessed with zip codes again. http://www.zip-codes.com and http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry/zipdecode/ are really cool. They're going to keep entertained for weeks.

I remember as a kid I used to read a lot of American comic books, and was always fascinated by the adverts in them asking that you "include your zip" in all postal orders..... You won't believe the images they used to conjure up in my mind until I actually found out what a "zip" in American postal parlance was some years later.....

I always used to wonder what "Twinkie" bars tasted like as well (they were always extensively advertised in Marvel and D.C. comics when I read them), and I've still never had one..... Oh the wonders of international quisine I've missed out on all these years.....

Yeah, I probably should have specified US postal zip codes. Although the British ones are pretty cool, too. Last semester I was on a study abroad trip and my address was in OX2 6JU (Oxford, practically Summertown). I started trying to learn some of the postal codes in the area.



Don't worry about never having tried a Twinkie. They're gross. If you've ever tried any other similar creme-filled pastry then just think of one of those, but with so many preservatives you can literally taste them.

Trust me, you don't want to know what a Twinkie tastes like. It has to be the most disgusting thing (yes, a thing, it definitely doesn't qualify as food) a person can consume. Even just thinking about Twinkies makes me want to vomit!

I think my current obsession is steering threads off-topic...... Although admitting that starts to put this thread on-topic again...... Conflict of interest..... What do I do?

Oh, and "Sea Monkeys" - we never had them in the UK either, but they were always in Marvel comics adverts...... And "Coneheads" and "Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders" posters too (I know what both of those things are now though, post the film and teenage turn-on to NFL respectively), although they puzzled me as a nipper.

My obsession is mortgage loan regulations/guidelines and railroads.

I love looking at topo maps and finding the old railroad grades. I will spend hours poring over maps looking along route I knew were once railroad lines, looking for where the grade still exists and is marked on the map. I get upset when I know there is a grade the exists, but it is unmarked.

For example, I was in REI, and they had a huge tabletop map of the pikes peak area. I was annoyed because they showed the Colorado Midland Railroad grade, but they didn't show it where it ran above the South side of Manitou Springs. This is a pretty big omission because there are two intact railroad tunnels there, along with a mile of railbed. They also didn't show the Santa Fe line where it ran through the middle of Colorado Springs.

And right about now is where I realize most people don't care.

foxes
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radio

You could do worse.
What do you think of the "Natural Area Coding" system? I think it's neat, but I'm disappointed that NAC Geographic Products and Microsoft are fighting a patent war over the idea.
I had them. Magic Rocks and jumping beans, too. You didn't miss much.
I love just looking at topographic maps. Lucky for me, I get paid to do it.
I like license plates, too. I learned the international phonetic alphabet by reciting the license plates of cars while driving. When I first started I would phonetically spell the plate of the car in front of me. As I got faster I could do the parked cars as I drove by them. Now that I've been doing it for 15 years I can usually go fast enough to spell the plates of all the oncoming cars, at least in the city. I've been thinking I should switch to Morse code now.
I'm also into useless trivia. When I took my trades training (as an adult) in the 90's my teacher used to call me "Cliff" because I reminded him of the character on Cheers.

Most of my obsessions come and go over time, but there's always something to keep me busy. For one thing, I find I get obsessed with these message boards and spend an unhealthy amount of time waiting for the next post to show up.... Right now my time is split between here, Slashdot and Fark.

Can't be worse than canned SPAM. I could never eat that, EVER.

Yes, heavily processed foods taste manky.
(No, durr...)
My obsessions are art, lo-brow art, outsider art, comic books, etc... music , books, movies...

CockneyRebel, if you ever make it to London, I'll happily show you Carnaby Street as it is today, and take you on a tour of beautiful tube stations!

You can get Sea Monkeys from a lot of different toy shops. I used to wonder what they were until I found some for sale a few years ago (I was about 18). They're basically modified brine-shrimp! They're pretty cool though, you can play with them using light, and they have pretty frondy sides.