The danger of obsessions.....

I have many interests, and I can categorize them in a few basic classes:

1. Life-long interests - those few rare topics that have lit me up for as long as I can remember and probably always will, i.e. good career choices.  (Like water, can't be without it for more than a few days)
2. Long-term interests - the things I'm always interested in, but go through occasional periods where I'm less interested in them because of other exciting things.  (Like food and shelter, you can typically do without these for a little bit, but ignore them too long and pain and suffering ensues.)
3. Short-term interests - things I'm really interested in right now and maybe for a few years, but overall not something up there with 1 and 2...  (i.e. clothing, social structures, etc...  all the things that make life tolerable but not something essential for actual survival)
4. Passing obsessions - things I'm passionate about right this second but have nothing at all to do with real life and add no value except to entertain those around me as they marvel at "why on Earth does do they even care?"....

Why this post?

I've been caught up the last week or so in a Titanic obsession.  I forget why I thought of it last week, but I did, mostly in terms of the big James Cameron movie.  It was probably one of those trains of thought I occasionally have: "Oh, hydrothermal vents!"  "Now I'm thinking of Kevin Hand's documentary on them."  "Didn't he do that one with James Cameron?  Oh, maybe... maybe not, I'll have to look it up on line."  "Oh yeah!  James Cameron did that Titanic movie."  "I watched that movie twice in the theatre."  "Remember that guy you watched it with?  Didn't he die of cancer?  Why don't we youtube the theme song, I'm sure it will bring back the memories."  "Huh, I wonder what the movie would be like if I saw it again as an adult."  "Wow, it's completely different now!!"  "What train of thought got me here again?"  "Now I'm thinking about trains...."

Anyway, I started thinking about the Titanic, and yes, its a #4 passing obsession, but it fits right up there with all my other passing obsessions like tornadoes in LA and space shuttles hydroplaning down the LA river and tsunamis in Manhattan and all those other big box-office-hit disaster-movie special effects.  Let's face it, the movie Titanic had some pretty cool disaster-movie special effects.  I'm a junkie for them.

I'm also a junkie for end-of-these-peoples times responses to major disasters.  I can't explain that one, but it just fascinates me the way various people respond to dire calamity that endangers not only their own life but of everyone around them at the moment.  The real Titanic and the movie version are both good at filling that need for information.

However, take any of these passing obsessions too far, and you'll invariably wind up with an Asylum flick on youtube on your laptop perched on top of the (unplugged, for safety's sake!) toaster oven while doing dishes and wishing you could change the movie but can't because your hands are wet.....

I can't remember the name of the first Faith Films disaster movie I saw, but it was something about 2012.  It was actually okay.  The Princess of Mars left me wondering for hours why I had put it on because I had boxes and boxes of dishes to unpack and wash and couldn't turn it off.  I actually tricked myself into watching it twice, because my hubby and I have the same netflix account and I thought he had watched it, so I turned it on again....  and was sad.

Tonight it's Titanic II.  I remember thinking when I saw the title, "What, you can't make a sequel to the Titanic, the boat sinks and 2/3 of the people die!"  Train of thought: "Well, it's on Netflix, has ONE whopping star, how bad can it be?"

Really bad.

But also really good!  It combines unrealistic ice bergs with unrealistic tsunamis with a CG modernized replica of the Titanic (complete with CG submarine-esque lifeboats), how bad can it be?  Pretty badly enjoyable!  I just wish I didn't have to sit through really bad second-rate soap-opera-esque acting, dialogue, and "plot movement" to get to the good parts.

Go get some popcorn, and I wish you good eating...  even if you can't watch a space shuttle hydroplane down the LA river a la "The Core" tonight.  Which you could do, if you weren't so busy watching Titanic II.

Blah, I wanted a story line.