What are your current obsessions?

[Spinelli]

Something I've recently become obsessed with is cars. Looking at every one that I see and seeing the brand it is and talking about cars vehicles and all of it.

 

[SyAn]

Excel and Numbers, and that for the past few years. I used to have a couple of colleagues at work who also liked Excel, but since we moved away I don't know anyone anymore who likes spreadsheets.

 

[Harrison]

Long term 'current' -
EvE Online
Trucks (recently changed to being a recovery truck driver)
Flying (gone back to flying a single engine Cessna)
Books ( have over 36k electronic books on ancient history, philosophy etc. Keep them on a private server so I can get to them anywhere)

Newer 'current' -
Java programming (NetBeans)
Unity platform
German (really rubbish at languages)

 

[Rob]

My current obsessions include watching the Weather Network, internet forums (including this one), health and fitness, and I enjoy watching things going around in a vortex (like cottonwood blooms spinning around in micro-twisters that last a few seconds). Something about the weather always fascinates me, and the graphics and presentation on the Weather Network are always exciting.

And I almost forgot - religion and watching important current events.

 

[Nitro]

The autistic spectrum

Aircraft...homebuilt,antique and WWII...My flight time is primarily logged in a 1941 Taylorcraft BC12D but my TBI grounded me

Antique U-control model aircraft and their nitromethane racing engines...I buy and sell new in box antique racing engines for them to support this habit

Drag racing and just about any motorsport...My '66 Caprice is about 85% completed for NHRA Super Street class and my '79 Malibu's 454 got delivered last month for the heavy street class and flashlight drags

Motorcycles...My '89 1200cc Sportster is eligible for antique status this year,my '70 OSSA is still a favorite of mine and my '56 Triumph Tiger Cub is slated for restoration

Electronics with a fascination for the Tesla works

 

[icesyckel]

I like the way the question is phrased, as mine do tend to change or at least grow over time.

 

[Rob]

I'm sure you'd find the weather here quite fascinating. I believe I posted this image elsewhere on this site, but I can't find it. It's of the F4 that hit Cullman in 2011. My buddy took it from his office window:

View attachment 12186

Great shot from your buddy, Sportster! What state is Cullman in? Today we had lightning storms detected to the west and to the east of Golden BC but no big storm came in today yet. But it was warm and very muggy - the right conditions. The next couple of days are supposed have some lightning however. Things are hit and miss around here but our neighbours in Alberta get A LOT of thunderstorms. Alberta is the hail capital of Canada (if not North America).

 

[LgndKllr24]

Alabama. We get more F3 and above tornadoes here than anyplace else. The great plains get more tornadoes, but the ones we get are usually big and nasty. Tanner got hit by an F4 twice in the same night.
You might find these interesting:

Tornado Alley Maps and Information
Alabama Tornado Database

You guys in the Southeast sure do seem to get hit by some really nasty weather. When the discussion comes up on where the most severe thunderstorms and tornadoes occur, usually people think of the Midwest and Plains, but the tornadoes you get there in the Southeast do seem to be worst. I would imagine it makes it even worse that there are so many trees there that block your view. I've also heard that many tornadoes there are the "high precipitation" tornadoes that are wrapped in rain, so you can't even see them until they are almost right on top of you. I'm definitely glad I live in Las Vegas where we rarely get weather like that. Although even here there was a very weak tornado recently that touched down here that somebody got a picture of.

 

[Nitro]

That sounds scary Sportster...

 

[Nitro]

I attended a Steve Miller concert once in early June...it looked like rain before we left so I grabbed my bike leather to stay dry...when we got to the venue,it was storming like crazy to the point that the storm was epic and it rained like crazy...about the time the gate opened,it stopped storming and dried up...as Steve and his band started to play their first song,a young girl grabbed my coat sleeve and told me to look at the clouds...there were row upon row of hanging puffy clouds moving in uniform...Steve stopped his first song and the entire outdoor venue was just in awe of what we were experiencing...I remembered my weather studies from flight school and identified them as Mammatus clouds,a very rare cloud that are often associated with tornado formation...had a tornado touched down at Star Lake,there would have been thousands of people involved and very certain death,but to see it first-hand was very awesome

 

[Sagigirl14]

I'm sure you'd find the weather here quite fascinating. I believe I posted this image elsewhere on this site, but I can't find it. It's of the F4 that hit Cullman in 2011. My buddy took it from his office window:

View attachment 12186

I love the weather, especially tornadoes!

 

[Sagigirl14]

Yeah, it was a bit unnerving. I was fleeing to shelter after my friends woke me up to warn me. I went from one end of the house to other to get dressed, but the power went out. Just then the sirens went off. I debated on whether or not I should jump in the closet or make a break for it. I opted to run since I didn't want to be found dead in the house with my pants halfway on. By then it was too late, because it was going through my backyard at the treetop level. Had it touched down, I would not have survived.

When the sun came up we drove around to assess the damage. There was a large tree uprooted about 500 yards behind my house. A neighbor had his barn destroyed. Everyone on the hill sustained some sort of damage. A house down the road was moved completely off its foundation. We were blessed, because it could have been much, much worse. I took some images of around our area; the police would not let us get into the really bad part.

My friends and I had a similar experience back on Oct. 13 of 2013. When the EF 4 tornado hit our little city (Washington, IL) and tore it up also. I'm glad u were ok.

 

[Progster]

I have various obsessions which come and go, but right now it's progressive rock, forums, reading about AS/ASD

 

[wforbes]

I'm happy to read through these and see that I'm not alone in falling into and out of deep obsessions, though I'm sorry if you're trapped in any of yours without as much control as you'd like .. I've been there and it can be frustrating. thank you all for sharing.

edit: forgot to share mine
Right now I'm hopelessly obsessed with computer programming, reading about it, learning it, working with it, which is good because its my job so I'm thankful for that.
Also very very hooked on researching into the world's economic elite and global social/economic inequality.

 

[King_Oni]

Guess it's a stretch to call them obsessions as much but probably call them broad interests but I've been quite busy reading up on folklore, demonology (suppose that's a more specific type of folklore) and DIY prison weapons. Oh, and the apocalypse and minor bit of specific chemistry. So far it's my favorite team of interests that fascinated me in a long, long time.

 

[Coupe]

My main obsession is with Aardman Animation right now - you know, the Bristish studio that created Wallace and Gromit, and Chicken Run. I'm really looking forward to the Shaun the Sheep movie that's due out in a few months...I'm almost as excited as I was when I was 8 and Chicken Run was about to come out!

My other current obsessions are:

- The Disney/Pixar Cars movies and the Planes movies
- Stuffed animals
- Cetaceans (dolphins, whales, etc) and the anti-captivity movement
- Corvidae (crows, ravens)
- Animated movies and cartoons
- Disney Tsum Tsum
- Art
- Where the Wild Things Are/Maurice Sendak
- Autism, Aspergers and Sensory Processing Disorder
- Borderline Personality Disorder
- Fidget toys

 

[Kaykay]

I have been obsessed with Harry Potter, vampires, magic and Star Trek voyager as long as I can remember. My obsession with Harry Potter led to my obsession with books and my interest in writing. I became obsessed with acting eleven years ago and everything to do with it, including costumes, masks, and the history of it.

 

[Madame Catfish]

FORENSIC SCIENCE (now and always)
String
Microbiology
the nature of beauty
Mandarin Chinese language
the dissection of smells (developing scientific analysis of smell, intensity, layering, etc)
Synapses (as with neurons)
the death of Leonard Nimoy
The writing style of Thomas Harris ( I can not really read his books because I get too distracted with the beautiful simplicity of the writing style. Most "thriller" authors just throw disturbing garbage around in the hopes of gaining an emotional reaction from the reader, but this guy really does write elegantly (even with all of the profanity)- the distinct tone he takes when writing through the perspectives of different individuals is just amazing, he doesn't seem to write any internal dialogue so far, but rather describes the events in a way the character he is focusing on would. (He also has a really masterful way of inserting short (usually beautifully incomplete) sentences within the narration that show how the human mind thinks- he's able to display our partially subconscious associations in this way. See, I'm ranting already. Oh, and he talks a lot about smells. A lot of other authors seem to restrict themselves to writing about sight and sound and maybe texture and only mention smell if it has some specific relation to the ongoing events (a person smelling skunk to discover one under the porch, someone smelling coffee in the morning, etc. as compared to Harris, who mentions quirky but common smells that most people wouldn't bother mentioning) . Lemony Snicket's writing style is very intriguing and beautiful also. He doesn't really mention smell as much as I would like, but his syntax and incredible ability to speak in a casually formal tone are astounding.
Yucatec Maya culture

 

[Madame Catfish]

Knowledge, information. When i was young i had eidetic memory, i went to the library (town of 400.000 people so not a small one), took the 4 max allowed books in the morning, returned them read in the afternoon to take another 4 in the evening. After some years i was down to reading detectives because i'd read everything interesting.
Been scrounging internet since the early 90's with Compuserve.
I'm a walking encyclopedia. But my main focus is the brain.
Written about it Petrossa's Blog | Ruminations from a jaded old guy

I used to do the same thing until I started working at the school library, then I was allowed to take as many books home as I wanted. The librarian gave me these two huge canvas bags that I would fill up over the weekend. I really recommend a library-help "volunteering" to anyone. The perks are pay enough. Not only are the library rules relaxed, but when shelving books you can come across very good reads you might not otherwise have noticed. The shelving process at a functioning library is also highly organised and repetitive, it made me stimm less in class, as it was another kind of ritual.

On another note, is it common to lose eidetic memory as you get older? I don't know if I'm eidetic, but it seems as though my thinking has become less and less visually based as I "age". I'm still a ridiculously visual thinker and memoriser, but it seems as though I'm shifting to verbal as I go through puberty.

 

[Whatisknown]

Currently being a better christian, and Jungle drum and bass.