My recent obsessions

After watching Jodha Akbhar, I spent the next 3 to 4 hours surfing the net about Akbar, Mughal History and such. When someone told me about how Vaishnavites don't prefer worshiping Lord Shiva, I spent the next one week or so, reading about Shiva and what Hindu Mythology says about him. I am not talking about just academic research....to quote another example, until recently, I listened to 'Sindbad the Sailor' from movie 'Rock On', almost every night.
Do most of you go from obsessions to obsessions, like me? That's probably a gene that we carry from our great grand parents - the monkeys.

Anyway, here are some of my recent obsessions:

1. Firefox - I don't remember what prompted me to install Firefox...probably, my friend Vinayak's propaganda :). It's been sometime now. But I generally switch between Firefox and IE. For the past 1 or 2 days I have been exploring the features in Firefox. I have been trying different skins. "Mozilla Firefox" skin is the one I am using currently. Unfortunately, I have to use IE in my office laptop.

2. Stumble Upon - While hunting Firefox, I stumbled upon 'Stumble Upon'. I created an account and chose some of my favorite search topics. Every time I click on 'Stumble!' button, it shows me a website relevant to my favorite topics. The last one I hit was a site on 'Buddhism'. Haven't explored much.

3. Theology - Well, this has been a permanent obsession. I am a non-believer - yes....but I like to read about the philosophies and mythologies of different religions. (I am the second kind that Mel Gibson describes in 'Signs').

4. 15th Lok Sabha in India - A couple of bitter experiences in college created a distaste in me for politics. My roomie Siva, who is my window to current affairs, gave me updates on the Lok Sabha election results.....and the Manmohan magnet pulled me towards NDTV and CNN IBN. I have been reading positive comments about Rahul Gandhi, Omar Abdullah and generally about luring youth towards politics. Hoping for good governance in the next 5 years. (For those of you who think I am a communist, 'Equality' and 'Secularism' are not principles of communism alone :) )

5. Animation movies - I have watched a series of animation movies over the last 3 months (Antz, A Bug's Life, Madagascar, Lion King 1.5, Wall-E and 2 or 3 more). The best thing I like about animation movies is the philosophy most of them carry (Eg: Secret Ingredient in Kungfu Panda) and the intelligent dialogues (Eg: from 'Madagascar' - Alex (Lion) to Marty (Zebra) - "You know your black and white stripes? They cancel each other out! You are a nothing"

6. Ye tumhari meri baatein - Song from Rock On. This is my anthem now. The lyrics are simple and the music is soothing. In the comments section of this blog, someone has tried to translate the song line by line: http://pritiahuja.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/song-on-my-mind-3/

7. Kaakkaichiraginile Nadhalala - Poem by Bharathiar. He sees and feels God in feather, grass and fire. God is everywhere!! Scientifically speaking: http://alpha-beta-blogma.blogspot.com/2009/03/blog-post_31.html

8. 'Blue Night' - MLTR. Romantic lyrics and a cool video.

9. http://vadakaraivelan.blogspot.com - he writes well, in simple Thamizh about day to day topics and has a lot of fan following.

I wanted to make it 10, but couldnt think of any recent obessesions to add. So, there ends my obsession to write at least 10 in every list :)