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Mine is... well, it's... this is hard... My name is foundling, and I'm addicted to Americas Next Top Model. I sit in front of the TV (which I claim to despise) every Tuesday night and I yell, I laugh, I cry, I mock most cruelly, I revel in my obvious moral, intellectual, and fashion superiority. And yet, I cant stop. I despise Tyra Banks with the vitriolic fire of a thousand burning hells, I pity the girls who are molded into the warped ideal of perfection that this society demands, and I laugh hysterically at the "truly deep and meaningful" confessions of shallow minds. But I CANT STOP. So, thats my somewhat shameful confession. Whats yours?
Posts: 499 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I keep watching sitcoms I hate, despite the fact that I hate them... It's really stupid. Worse is watching these dumb reality shows hoping they will ne good but they never are.
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Food. I know it's not good for me. It's good for other people but for me it's a bad thing. This has been demonstrated again and again. Yet even after I've given it up for months at a time, I still let myself think it's going to be different this time. This time it will be okay, like it is for other people. This time it won't make me sick.
Also hatcrack, though I don't have to say a word there. You all know what I mean.
This thread makes me happy because though I am still in base and craven thrall to some addictions, yet I have thrown others off (like tv) and can feel the winds of freedom blowing around my heart making it soar like a kite. Yet I sympathize profoundly with those still in tv's vicelike grip. Break free, my dear friends! You can do it! You can be free!
Posts: 5509 | Registered: May 1999
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Agreeing w/ aka. Nothing good on tv anymore anyhow. Addictions/vices.....reading (anything. I know it's not scandalous), Hatcrack??? Not as much as some of you. Cars, if not working on one reading about one or planning what to get next and build, then I tend to be a little unhappy. And, like Alucard, I keep going to work averyday. I claim to hate it (because I do), but I love it all the same. The line I hear most: "What the he*& are you doing here still?"
[ March 21, 2004, 12:13 PM: Message edited by: Stan the man ]
Posts: 2208 | Registered: Feb 2004
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We have begun a serious all out assault on TV addiction in our household.
We now have a rule that the television doesn't get turned on Saturdays until 5:00 pm. If the weather's nice, we should be outside doing things, like working in the yard, riding bikes, etc. If the weather's not nice, there are plenty of options like reading, playing games, etc. We had a rousing game of "I Spy" this morning with the twins.
We had to stay home from church because three of the four kiddoes have sinus infections and so does Daddy.
WE also don't let the tv stay on during meals, we turn it off and turn on some background music and talk to each other.
All that said....I still have a confession.
American Idol. I know, I know. But, in my defense, I don't vote. I just watch the show, I haven't crossed the line into participation.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Hello Stan it has been 1 week since my last confession. I too am addicted to cars. I have bought 17 of them in the last 10 years, and I know I have a problem, but refuse to address it. Sadly, the last time I went to the dealership, couldn't make up my mind, so I bought two. I need help.
However, nothing sickens me more than the thought of how my life is inexorably tied to going to work, the whole charade of economics that forces us to be slaves to our jobs. Then again, I only have myself to blame, and buying cars will not help me in the retirement department. I am truly my own worst enemy.
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Fabric and patterns. I'm addicted to the fabric store. I like to browse patterns, then look at fabric, sometimes I even buy both.
But, my fascination mostly stops with the design phase. I like imagining the possibilities much more than I like sitting at the sewing machine and actually making the items.
Usually, I keep the fabric and pattern for a couple months, realize I'm never going to make it, then sell both on Ebay for a fraction of what I paid for them, so I can go buy something else.
It's a sickness. I'm trying really hard to stop - I'm now forcing myself to buy fabric and actually make something with it before I buy any more.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Hah! The trick is that I keep trading in the one I tire with and get another one. So right now I have 2 SUVs, a motorcycle, 2 4 wheelers, a dirt bike and a big tractor. I have numbed myself to the prospect of buying big expensive toys!
However, the new car I drive, a 2004 Avalanche is nicer than I deserve, with every option, including the on-board DVD player! These should be standard on any car containing children!
Posts: 1870 | Registered: Mar 2003
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The car thing reminds me of a addiction that I am still very much recovering from. We used to, as one of our happiest forms of entertainment, go to the guitar store regularly and spend hours playing all the different guitars, deciding which ones we liked best, which ones were most fun to play and had the best sound, which had the best electronics and the coolest features and so on. This is really great fun, cause you can just hang out there and also meet other guitarists, swap songs and licks, play for each other, and so on. But the thing is, I tend to fall in love with certain guitars, and then I buy them. My only electric guitar now is one I bought one day when I had no plans to buy a guitar. It said to me "take me home" and I did.
I'm doing so very much better than I was. There was a time when I had three guitars and a bass. Now I have confined myself to only one electric and one steel string acoustic. I don't even have a classical (though hmmmm.... I sure would like one.... they have the greatest sound). But I realize I'm not really in control of myself when it comes to guitars. My only hope is total avoidance.
Tools are another addiction. I do not have to have any use for a cool tool in order to feel a deep need for it. What I would really love now is one of those infrared temperature sensors that you aim the little laser spot at something and pull the trigger and it reads the temperature. Those are just so cool. But they're expensive and I can't stretch my imagination to think how I'd really need one very often. But still.... they are just cool!
Posts: 5509 | Registered: May 1999
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RPG video games. They are a lovely distraction from just how much life sucks... Like a good book or a an excellent movie in interactive form lasting 40 hours if you just follow the basic story and 80 if you do everything. They are so cool. Best ones- Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9 and 6 Chrono Trigger Chrono Cross Parasite Eve
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Doh! Did you have to mention tools, aka? I was trying to hide that. Do you have a brand that you specifically go with? I alomost always buy Craftsman. However, $$$$ sometimes gets in the way.
Alucard, nah, mine is more along the lines or restoration or ground up projects. I am restoring a 1964 chevy, planning to build a 1932 Ford roadster with a Hemi engine (size TBD). All of this on military pay. Oh and still making payments on my 2000 dodge p/u. I think I just lengthly spelled out B-R-O-K-E. I wonder how I expect to buy my parents' house off of them when my dad retires. oh well, that one car garage off to the side will be completely devoted to my car projects.
Mrs.M : sure you can.
[ March 21, 2004, 01:11 PM: Message edited by: Stan the man ]
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Good luck on the projects Stan, and as for money, I give all mine to the banks to pay off the price on my head.
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Fish. I only have three tanks, two of whitch are full, and one that's waiting to be set up for breeding, but I just can't stop going to the pet store.
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Yes, for hand tools I love Craftsman. For power tools I'm fond of DeWalt or Black and Decker. I am really hurting for power tools now as I have only the hand sort and none of the shop ones.
I don't even have a cross cut saw or a drill press. I have to use my handheld circular saw or a hand drill when I need to saw or drill things. I have no table saw, no router, no bandsaw, no belt sander or nail gun, no lathe or milling machine. I don't even have an air compressor, alas. My shop is in poor shape.
Home Depot is another place I have problems. They just have too much cool stuff there I really need to buy. Posts: 5509 | Registered: May 1999
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I have real problems with Borders. I can't go in without BUYING something. I have this issue with my CD collection and the vision I have of it being monumental, eclectic and very fun.
Yeah, it's a bad addiction. I've been beefing up my 60s/70s collection lately and nothing, not even the fact that I am POOR, will stop me.
Because of this (partly) I'm also addicted to Amazon.com. I love going in and rating items I own, updating my recommendations...and ultimately ordering something else I can't afford! My wishlist is absurdly long and unbelievable. Definitely addicted to Amazon.
I'm also addicted to Hatrack. But I think all of you are as well.
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I binge on books. Not just any books. Out of print, obscure, hard to find books. I crave them! Ebay and online booksellers have made this a much more available drug than it used to be.
(I just got my copy of Platypus at Large delivered to me this week. But it had an important cartoon in it I hadn't seen since I was 11 or 12 years old!)
I am so powerless. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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sndrake, If you like really old and obscure books that are not necessarily online, my dad's best friend has a bookstore, and he is very old fashioned. He has been collecting for MY whole life, and more than that, I am sure. he might even be online now, but I doubt it.
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*Old book store, hours worth of crawling around breathing in 100 years worth of mold from different places. Hands are shaking. Must-not-ask-address-of-bookstore. Must ask higher higher power for help. Help!*
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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aka, if there is a Harbor Freight around you I would try that. They have some really cool stuff. Including an engine puller w/ electric winch. *drools* I need to get one of those someday. I only have 3 power tools: a battery powered 75th anniversary drill, a mini sander, and a 4 1/2 inch angle grinder. I don't do woodwork. No air comressor, need one of those too. Loan from Bank, need that.
edit: sndrake, I did buy some antique books a couple years ago online. found it longaeva.com
[ March 21, 2004, 06:50 PM: Message edited by: Stan the man ]
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Harbor Freight is like a Chuck-a-rama for tool junkies. I need a half moon edger, but I'm afraid to go buy one...
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Driving and books. Every Sunday I take an afternoon drive and I always end up at one of the bookstores in town.
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Yes, books are another problem. I like alibris.com for used out-of-print books. I just bought a complete Nevil Shute collection. Though his are still in print, as it turns out, yet the used ones are much less expensive.
Barnes and Noble: all the employees in the two nearest me know me by name, as I do them. <laughs> We don't have Borders in my town yet, but I've browsed them while traveling and I think I still prefer the selection at B&N. Don't even talk to me about Books A Million. They are yucky. Sure they have lots of books, just not very many I want to read.
I sold a bunch of my old SF paperbacks at a time when I was moving and going back to school and needing to lean down, and I've regretted it ever since. So now I don't ever get rid of them. I also made a policy decision after paying some large fine (I'm terrible at getting library books back on time) that I would just buy my books in the future. Our public libraries here suck anyway.
So the problem I have is that I keep having to move into larger and larger places to hold all the books. Now I am in a four bedroom house with shelves in every room, and those shelves are spilling over, stacked two deep with more turned sideways at the top.
The reason I need all the woodworking tools is to make new bookshelves.
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I'm addicted to books. OSC is the latest (and so far most potent) hard drug in this generalized addiction. I vowed that after the Ender/Shadow series, I would stop. But then I got Maps in a Mirror. And now the Alvin Books. Heck, I even bought Meditations on Middle-Earth just to read OSC's essay. I am doomed.
I'm also addicted to the internet, but this is ENTIRELY the fault of Hatrack and PWEB Posts: 1996 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I'm with you on the tools addiction. I wish I worked at Harbor Freight.
My favorite tool so far is the set of Gear Wrenches I got two Christmases ago. I can't put them down. I sit in bed and just twirl them.
Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004
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My current favorite time waster is Hatrack. I keep assuming it will eventually subside like all my obsessions and another will take over, but it hasn't happened yet.
I, like, NEVER watch TV.
Because I have a short attention span and don't really have much spare time to give, I don't read many novels. I WANT to read novels, but I despise how long it takes me. I am not a fast reader, and I like to savor what I read.
Few authors can suck me into a book any more, OSC being one of the ones to whom I reserve that highest privilege. But to my shame, there are still books of his I haven't read yet. I need to get on the ball!
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mine is not a guilty pleasure....but more something that im ashamed of but do anyways....i know every word to any backstreet boys song. ever. and i hate them.
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Checking out books out of the library Stacks of them. Way to many of them and trying to read all of them. My overdue fees support the library...
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My school library just smacked my huge fine onto my tuition so that I would be forced to pay it. Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Oh, I'm also addicted to sheet music. Choral music to be specific. I buy it in single or doubles and put it in my huge file. I like to browse through my file and play stuff, but it's MOST fun when I can actually use my file to plan choir programs, or recommend music to other people.
I am a choral nerd.
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Narnia, I just went to my daughter's choral festival! It was amazing. All the groups got together at the end to sing a song by a local composer who was there. It was the debut performance. It was a gospel song. Beautiful. Would you like me to ask for a copy?
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Elizabeth, that sounds like FUN. I would welcome a copy of any piece of choral music for my impressive file. Thanks for asking!! Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Survivor, the only reason I ever turn the TV on anymore. I loves it! The drama, the contests, the beautiful settings, the cheesy overdone music, the use of various jungle critters as heavy-handed metaphors for the tribes... oh yes.
Caffeine. I keep going back and forth with this stuff. I'm about to quit again.
And lately, I've noticed that I'm totally hooked on challenges. I get such an enormous rush from being given a difficult or impossible problem and solving it.... it's all I really want to do. I'll stay late into the evening at my job, unpaid, because I just have to get a little further on it... Once the challenge is gone, I'm listless and cranky. So I keep throwing myself into these impossible situations. Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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