Strange Addictions

I'd love the Onion to cover this story.... "I lost my friend to tape.... She wanted to be a hair stylist." Don't let tape get in the way of your dreams. Just say no to tape. The girl in the video needs to find a healthy alternative to tape. Why can't she substitute tape with gum? It's not like she'll have withdrawal symptoms....

As for the woman with the oversized mammaries, her friends should just level with her and tell her triple Ds look better than tripple Ks.

So what's your addiction? I've started to develop the weird habit of calculating the percentage of dislikes youtube videos have. The goal is to find a youtube video with the highest percentage of likes. I found one that had 851 likes and one dislike. That's the highest ratio of likes I've found (of videos with more than a 100 likes). What's your strange neurosis/addiction?

Huh...

Well, I smoke cigarettes. That's probably worse than eating tape, I guess.

I stay on Doomworld and browse it in loops until a new post appears.

Taco Bell

PRIMEVAL said:

Taco Bell

Ditto. Stupid stuff is my comfort food.

You could say I'm "addicted" to tape too, but I mean collecting cassettes and tape recorders. It started about a year ago, and I've purchased more than 300 used + new cassettes, and about 30 tape recorders, including a tube-based reel-to-reel, several walkmans, 4 component decks and countless boomboxes. Also, 3 VCRs.

I don't think I'm addicted to anything, except maybe compulsive masturbation.

I feel pretty addicted to slurpees. I go out and get one just about every time it comes to mind. Might go get one now.

Taking the metre measuring tapes at IKEA and folding them into stars.

I never get addicted to anything. I just go all-out on something until I get sick of it.

I suppose you're diagnosed with compulsive periodical binge session disorder. (CPBSD)

Of course, that doesn't exist....or does it? :P

I'm a compulsive obsessive downloader

I am a recovering laptop addict.

I guess it's just because at a young age, I was always entranced by the idea of carrying my favorite hobby around with me. I liked the whole concept even before laptops, when portable computing meant "the size of a suitcase, and twice as heavy". We could never afford that kind of hardware, of course, since it hasn't been until recent years that the average laptop fell below $1000. I had some good income a few years ago and I just went crazy buying laptops. I bought a new one every year, and constantly combed eBay or flea markets for older ones.

Right now I only have four laptops. My main work laptop, my netbook, a Pentium 3 and a Pentium 2. I use my netbook in bed if I didn't bring my main one upstairs. I poke around on the P2 occasionally because I loaded Windows 98 and a bunch of DOS games on it. I have absolutely no use for the P3 laptop but that doesn't stop me from installing a new flavor of Linux on it every month or so.

These are in addition to my gaming desktop (which could honestly handle everything that I do by itself), a Mac Mini collecting dust and two more desktops that I'm trying to sell.

I used to collect Pentium/II/III PCs and old hardware out of a hobby, but I ended up using one of them as a main box (now with memory maxed out at 768 MB of PC-133 SDRAM (3x 256 MB), which also solved some cache coherency problems compared with the previous 256-256-128 DIMM configuration.

It's good enough to play Battlefield 1942 and ZDaemon online ;-)

Oh and the tape-eating chick should probably switch to Video Snack:

Translation:

• I present you a new video model, Video Snack! With perfect picture, and stereo sound!
  
• I turn on the video, I grab a snack, and my eye is bulging!
  
• I turn on the video, I'm so nervous, I've never seen such a snack!
  
• (Housewife) I don't change Foundounia (another snack!) with anything, because they make my clothes white and clean...in the concrete mixer!
  
• Now...Video Snack, the best video YOU'VE EVER SEEN!
  

Smoking.

I'd say it qualifies as strange because cigarettes taste like shit and it destroys one's health; particularly baffling and counter-productive if you work out regularly like I do. Why haven't I quit? Because quitting is hard. Not just because of the nicotine addiction but the ritualistic behaviour that smoking entails.

GreyGhost said:

I'm a compulsive obsessive downloader

So do I, of legally proposed music. I even downloaded the enire discography of Senmuth, and I am currently downloading all what Irish metal proposes and links to.
And of course, I cleanse the names, tags and covers.

DoomUK said:

Why haven't I quit? Because quitting is hard.

There's a one-step quit smoking program that worked for me though I hope you don't have to resort to using it.

That's one of the weirder rubs about smoking - I think if you have a healthy constitution, you really don't feel the negative effects of smoking until shit goes real bad. You feel perfectly fine! But this is a horrible lie that your body is telling you.

For instance, I went running with a friend a few times last month, and we were both amazed that my pre-workout smoke (sometimes two or three) didn't seem to impact my cardio negatively. In fact, even as sedentary as I've been in recent years, my general fitness level seemed to exceed theirs to a tremendous degree.

Sometimes I wish I'd get the wheezing when going up stairs, or coughing fits in the morning. I guess I've just got to trust in the statistics, and quit for my future health, rather than any immediate gains (other than stinking less, and having more money).

But as DoomUK said, it's not just hard because of nicotine withdrawal (I've had worse flus than my worst nic-fits), but the ritual is incredibly comforting, especially when shared with peers. I've just got to -- eventually -- accept that it's impossible to totally replace that ritual with something equally comforting.

The only habit that comes close for me is coffee. Thank goodness for that, at least.

I've often found myself playing the same game through multiple times in a row. Usually some 6 playthroughs before I switch to some other game.

I had to quit most of my vices for professional reasons, but I'm definitely getting more into coffee, various kinds, brew methods, and of course drinking the stuff. Caffeine never impacted me that much so I can enjoy a cup late at night and still get to sleep on time.

And I'll still get very much involved in a good game, weather it be a new release or one of my hundred of older ones.

Use3D said:

I had to quit most of my vices for professional reasons,

Are you saying that the job (i.e. financial stability) is a powerful motivator to get rid of addictions if it asks you so? That's quite nice really.

music. it's one of the primary forces that drive me through each day as well as i usually do. i have about 751 GB of music on my external harddrive; own almost a hundred of CDs, primarily albums, but also a number of singles and promo discs i pick out from second-hand stores; a handful of vinyls, probably around 20 of them, and a handful of cassette tapes, as well.

i like sorting through the digital music too, at times, giving them proper cover-art displayed and nametags and whatnot. i'm always on my way to obtaining more music, and i see no reason to stop doing that. i'll probably fill my room completely with music one day or something.

Caffeine, I love the stuff.

Also music, be it illegitimate or legally available.

Doomhuntress said:

i have about 751 GB of music on my external harddrive;

Heh, is that all FLAC or MP3?

Revved said:

Heh, is that all FLAC or MP3?

It should be MIDI. Three quarters of a terabyte of compressed MIDI files. :p

I watch nonsensical and random videos everyday (example)

As for music, I have 278 GB on my drives (99.9% is mp3, I don't need FLAC because I can't tell the difference and also because it is annoying to convert FLAC to mp3 for iPod)

I have a habit (not an addiction) of checking out the new members of DW. I look at their profiles and if they have posted I check out their posts. Not sure why I do this as their profiles are usually empty.

Doomhuntress said:

music.

Music is certainly my biggest addiction and probably the first thing that I got addicted to. I have about 40 vinyl records, 35 45's, 350 cassettes and 270 CD's. It's all added up over the years, some purchased new, some stuff from second-hand stores, some were gifted at Xmas and I was given over 100 cassettes a few years ago, which inflated my cassette pile. I kinda slowed down a lot in actual purchases but I don't think you can ever have too much music.

As for digital music I sometimes like to seek out the cover art for mp3's and fix up the tags. I have a crapload of stuff that needs sorting out.

Music probably doesn't fit into a strange addiction tho. :p

Doomhuntress said:

i'm always on my way to obtaining more music, and i see no reason to stop doing that.

Doom Dude said:

I don't think you can ever have too much music.

Maybe when your houses become labyrinths of CDs and cassettes and vinyl, you know you've collected too much music.

But seriously, why hoard physical copies of albums these days when you can fit hundreds of them on a modestly-sized hard drive? I used to have a massive collection of CDs too but I sold them all off when I found out I could store them all on my computer.

Looking at my music library of 14.8GB, I suddenly feel inferior. But I really don't need a large library. It's mostly video game remixes, jazz, and video game OSTs. A lot of what I listen to are just 'radio' station M3U's that I access through Foobar2000.

Most of the time I just pin a tab to Ormgas/all, or some other similar website.