[Carl Goff]

...you have bad dreams about it.

Dreamt I bought an Albion Solingen secondhand and got ripped off. Got sent some cheap short sword that had been twisted into a friggin' spiral instead.

[Craig Peters]

I don't think I've had bad dreams about arms and armour, but I've certainly had dreams before about receiving my Albions.

[Vincent Le Chevalier]

[Jean Thibodeau]

When some of your dreams are a combination of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, A Nightmare on Helm Street, War of the Worlds, Gremlins, Pirates of the Caribbean, Chronicles of Narnia: A disaster of the week film including tornados, army ants and the whole strangely similar to the last Age of Empire game you just finished playing for 12 hours before going to bed. Oh, the occasional Godzilla guest appearance !

Lots of fighting, large armies, lots of running away, lots of hiding and best of all winning most of the fights in dreams instead of the annoying hitting opponents to no effect that dominated dreams when much younger. A certain degree of control over the dreams is really fun also. ( Lucid dreaming were mostly one knows they are dreaming and enjoying the cheap entertainment. )

By the way these are my GOOD dreams and "Real Wake Up In A Sweat Nightmares " are very rare. Oh, and this multiple times every night. The scary part I'm only half joking.

Oh, to be on topic swords & armour are in the dream scripts often enough to justify this post.

[Laurie W]

You know you are too into Arms and Armour when:

You start picking apart every swordfighting film and spot which swords used are out of period.
You start making lists of all the best and worst movie swordfighting scenes

When the armour in "The Messenger" might look "cool" to the uninformed but YOU KNow.
When you KNOW those swords were not 14lbs as one well known expert made a gaff about during an "A&E" showing of the film.

When you love "Alexander Nevesky's" use of period stuff but hate those gosh awful oversized wooden axes.

When you play all sorts of video games and just sigh at all the fantasy "coolness" knowing none of those monstrosities are functional in real life.

[Bob Burns]

You Know Your Too Much Into Arms & Armor When: You bought your first sword (Arms & Armor "German Bastard Sword") in August of 2004 and since then you know you've spent $10,000.00 on swords, weapons, dvds and books!
OK, well it was my introductory year and I had to build a base. (Rationalization )

Bob

[Thomas Beckett]

You know you're too into armor when you're flipping through a games magazine and as you flip past an ad for a "medieval"-themed videogame, the first thing you notice is that the maille is hanging wrong, but it takes you a few pages to realize that you noticed that.

flip, flip, flip, "maille's wrong", flip, flip, flip, "...wait a second..."

[Craig Peters]

[Pamela Muir]

...when the display on my new car stereo flashes "WMA" and all that I can think that it could possibly stand for is "western martial arts."

...when my husband said that he thought I would look good with a pair of stilettos, I thought he meant daggers.

...when we finally built our vacation home, the first event I planned was a cutting party.

...when we finally built our vacation home, one of the first things I bought was a longbow because I finally had a place to shoot it. (Still almost no furniture in the house, but we have 4 kayaks, a cutting stand, a longbow and targets, the important stuff.)

...when I've given up eating and sleeping in order to go swordfighting (Sunday afternoons leave no time for lunch and Wednesday nights leave very little time for sleeping.)

[Bob Burns]

[Patrik Erik Lars Lindblom]

"After reading some topic's in this forum"

.........when you take a axe whit you to a wedding.

[Eric Allen]

You know you're deep into arms and armor when:

-your boss says he almost bought you a cheep chineese knockoff sword on a recent business trip to that country, and you thank him for NOT purchasing it.

-You think of prices (of furniture, electronics, etc) in terms of "Albions" ("geez, for the price of that TV, you could get two, maybe three Albion NexGens" or "that harddrive is half the price of a Steward")

-When you contemplate getting something relatively frivolous that is NOT arms and armor related, your wife talks you out of it by asking if you's "rather put that money towards a new sword?"

-You drive your mother, inlaws, fiance, and her bridesmaids crazy by being VERY picky about the wedding party clothing while planning your medieval-themed wedding.

-You correct your colleagues when you hear them use the term "plate mail" by explaining the Victorian origins of the term.

-You can utter the phrase "I'm going to go polish my helmet" and people don't even raise an eyebrow.

-The first thing you notice about a medieval-themed computer game advertisement is the "rediculous" armor and swords

-You signed up on "Facebook" specifically to try and find sparring partners (no bites yet)

-When you see the local "boffer" role-playing group out playing tag with their foam sticks, you're torn between just walking away and laughing and going over there to give them a quick lesson in how it is REALLY done.

-You plan yourr vacations to stop at any history or art museum that has a medieval arms and armor collection, and while there you give impromptu mini-lectures to the other museum patrons, much to their, and your wife's, chagrin.

I plead guilty on all counts.

Oh, and I've had several dreams where I'm handling a sword that bends, breaks, or is otherwise poorly made (I had one where it was as limp as a wet noodle, and I was complaining about what was wrong with it to someone else in the dream)

[Joe Fults]

You have a halberd hanging in your office.

[Eric Allen]

Ooh, thought of one more I'm guilty of:

Before, during, and after proctoring an exam, you seriously consider getting a spear to hold while proctoring the next exam.
(no seriously, I thought it would come in handy, especially when directing students to go out a particular set of doors and turn in their exam sheets in a particular pile. Having something to use as a physical barrier and pointing device would have been really helpful. I wouldn't poke them with it. Honest.)

[Carl Goff]