What's on your Top 5 video games list?
Submitted by mileena.
1. Myst / Riven - These won my heart from the opening credits.
2. Zork
3. Prince of Persia - the original one
4. Karateka - I *loved* this one. Hated that stupid, stupid bald eagle of the shogun with a passion.
5. The Ancient Art of War - I could never get tired of this one, and I keep wondering if there's one for the Mac.
^__^
How did you pick your Vox name? Does it mean something?
Submitted by LeendaDLL.
I've always been challenged when it comes to thinking up user names. In the case of Vox, my user name came about from a search for a word that would go with "writer". See, I'm the kind of person to whom writing about things is second nature - be it fanfiction, letters (both electronic and snail mail variety), journal entries, and so on. If I don't get my "writing fix" for the day, I can become quite out of tune with the world!
Thinking about it, I guess the "wallflower" part originally came about because it best describes how I felt about myself when I was in high school and college - someone who was always ready to connect with people, but who never quite fit into the various cliques, and was, more often than not, left on the sidelines when things were going on. I felt the sense of exclusion more in high school than in college; as there were fewer cliques in college to deal with. (We all wanted to graduate just slightly more than we wanted to engage in the power plays of cliques!)
Nowadays, however, I choose to define "wallflower" as a person who can bloom wherever he or she is planted - even between the bricks of a wall. :) So my user name reminds me to be true to my core self, which is to be a writer, and that somewhere, somehow, as long as I keep writing, whatever I set down will eventually find a home for itself!
What's your sign? What do you think of astrology and horoscopes?
My sign would depend on which system you are using. Under the Western horoscope, I'm a Capricorn. Under the Chinese horoscope, I'm a Tiger, in general terms.
I think that astrology and horoscopes serve more as a guide than as an absolute predictor of events. When I have gone for readings, I am often told that certain things have a better chance of happening than others, given the present set of circumstances I am in. However, if I choose to make certain decisions, then a whole new set of possibilities opens up.
A horoscope, I think, helps open the mind to recognize possibilities and opportunities. But in the end, it's what you do with the opportunities presented by the cosmos that matters in shaping your eventual destiny.
How many computers do you have in your house?
Submitted by Foomper.
We have the following currently in residence:
a) an aging Compaq that runs Win98SE, one or two Microsoft applications and a number of freeware applications, including The GIMP image editing software. All on just 60MB of RAM and a 6GB hard drive - puny by today's standards, but it works!
b) an Apple iBook G4, with iLife 2005, and some useful freeware applications. 12-inch screen and 40GB hard drive.
c) a desktop with 1GB RAM, two DVD-writers (one of which only wants to write on CD-Rs), two 40GB hard drives, and a Samsung 15-inch LCD monitor; running completely on PCLinuxOS after being a dual-boot machine with WinXP for nearly a year. Stable as all heck, free and legal - which is a wonderful thing, now that Microsoft is going to force everyone to migrate up to the new Vista over the passing of time.
What food or drink do you love when it's cold out? (Recipes and recommendations, please!)
1. Salabat, or ginger brew, is a staple when the cool season hits the Philippines. The recipe is quite easy: get yourself some fresh ginger root, of any size. Peel and slice thinly. Place in a small (non-corrosive) saucepan and cover with about four cups of water. Soak the ginger for about 10 minutes, Boil gently, covered, for about 15 minutes. Turn off heat and drink while still warm or as hot as you can stand. Add brown sugar or honey to taste. Some even add a few drops of lime juice.
2. Hot chocolate/cocoa. Mix according to directions on the can. ::grin::
3. Bibingka, or sweet rice cakes, are traditionally cooked in the church courtyard by its vendors while the dawn Masses, or Misa de Gallo are going on. Which means that by the time the churchgoers are set free by the priest, there's hot food to speed them on their way home as dawn breaks over the horizon. Here's a recipe culled from Recipegoldmine.com
Bibingka (Sweet Rice Cake)
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
6 eggs
2 cups milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cup mochiko (sweet rice flour)
2 tablespoons baking powder
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Mix sugar and melted butter. Add eggs and mix until blended with sugar mixture. Add milk and vanilla. Mix. Add sweet rice flour and baking powder. Mix well. Pour into a 9 x 13-inch pan and bake for 35 to 45 minutes.
Best served with the salabat that I mentioned above. The cool weather has hit Manila of a morning, and so the timing of this QotD is perfect!
^__^
What books are on your nightstand?
I don't have a nightstand per se, but...I do have a number of books and magazines scattered about the house. The one I'm keeping to hand is Personal History, by Katharine Graham. It's the autobiography of the owner/publisher of The Washington Post, and currently I'm at Chapter 19.
Other books teetering on what currently passes for my nightstand are: Austria and Switzerland, a travel guide published by Let's Go (for an upcoming trip to Switzerland this September); a stack of backdated O(prah) magazines; a stack of backdated Time magazines; a Shadow Skill manga by Okada Megumu; and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
The latter two I have actually skimmed over, and intend to return to them at some point in time - assuming I don't get distracted by any of the other books filling up my "books to read" shelf two deep at the present time!
Who is your favorite Muppet? Why?
QotD submitted by knitwitology.vox.com.I couldn't choose just one -- but my perennial favorites are the two hecklers, Statler and Waldorf. Their relentless ribbing of poor Fozzie Bear was always a highlight of The Muppet Show for me.
