18 posts tagged “qotd”

What one year of your life would you like to re-live, if you were given the chance? 
Submitted by Ross. 

2002 was the year I lived in Tokyo. That single year seems to fill half of the space occupied by all the memories of my life. Thankfully, that was also the year I thought to start a photo-journal, so you and I can relive it any time we want:

(out of context)

Going back and rereading the question, I realize that maybe the idea was that one could fix some mistakes that happened in that year, not just enjoy it again. But I guess I'd still choose 2002; there are absolutely some things that I should have done in that year that I totally failed at, causing problem-cascades to this very day.

How have people mispronounced your name?  How is it supposed to sound? 
Submitted by Lorie.   

My last name, from Flanders, Belgium, is Van Hecke. My family pronounces it [væn hɛki]. About 90% of strangers mispronounce it [væn hɛk]. A while ago I met a Belgian guy and a German guy who knew its original pronunciation; something more like [va:n hɛkə]; a super-informative site about the Dutch language confirms it.

When filling out official forms in Japan, I used to spell my last name ヴァンヘッキー. After a while of finding this to be a bit cumbersome, and after learning the original pronunciation, I switched to the slightly more accurate and more attractive ヴァンヘッキ.

How are you ringing in the New Year tonight?

I'm listening to the greatest albums that came out this year:

• Def Tech - Catch the Wave
• ohana - ohana hyakkei
• Tokyo Incidents - Adult
  
• YUKI - WAVE
• clammbon - LOVER ALBUM
• GUST - Ar tonelico OSTs
• Herbert - Scale
• Pearl Jam - Pearl Jam
• clammbon - 3peace

I might even treat myself to some cheese and crackers! Mmmmm! I wish I could be in Tokyo, like I was for 2003 and 2006, watching the Kouhaku Utagassen and eating soba.

What's something you did when you were younger that you still haven't confessed to your parents?
Submitted by Bizz.

• As a kid, I broke the button in the mouse for our Mac IIsi, probably by hitting it too hard after losing some dumb game. I opened it and tried to fix it, but I couldn't get it to work reliably anymore. When my Dad asked, I feigned ignorance.
• When I was in grade school, my parents took away my Magic cards because I was getting bad grades. I thought it was unfair, so I secretly took back my main decks and left the rest. I was dumb enough to carry a card box to my friend's house, under the pretense that some other game was inside, so I'm sure my Dad knew. I still feel awful about this.
• I was in a bowling league, but I eventually got bored of it. Each time my Dad dropped me off at the bowling alley, I'd go in, wait until he drove away, then walk 2 miles to the comic store and use the bowling money to buy Magic cards. I still feel awful about this.
• While my parents were away on vacation, I had some friends over. We were in the basement messing around, and my friend who was jumping on my brother's bed or something ended up collapsing part of the rickety ceiling tile assembly. I claimed that it fell on its own, but that's stupid.
  
• Shortly before college, I really wanted an iMac. My grades were still miserable, so my Dad was ambivalent about getting me one for my graduation. I told this to my older coworker at JCPenney, and she offered to loan me the money to buy one. I ordered a 333MHz Lime iMac, and I secretly set it up in my room, taking it down and hiding it in the closet when I wasn't using it. Then, my Dad offered to buy me an iMac after all (in retrospect, probably testing me because he knew I already had one). I happily agreed and a couple of days later, I made up an elaborate lie about how my friend at work had to buy it for me in order to take advantage of a sale that was about to end, and that he should write her a check. I still feel awful about this.

These are just the first five things that come to mind, but I'm sure I could go on all day. Most of them are made worse by how obvious it must have been to my parents that I was deceiving them, but that they didn't call me on any of it. I was a dreadful child.

Dag, I need to check the QotD more often; just a few days ago they asked for our top 5 video games. It's not in the QotD queue anymore, but I'm answering it anyway:

1. Xenogears
2. Sakura Taisen (all five)
   
3. Ar tonelico
4. Shenmue (both)
   
5. Street Fighter (including Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Capcom vs. SNK 2)

I don't think I can go a day without one of these games at least coming to mind, if not occupying my mind for a good while.

Have you ever Googled your own name? How did you feel about the results?
Submitted by elen.

I am most of the top results for my own name, probably because I am a nerd with a lot of web pages, I'm not really shy about posting my real name, and I have a pretty rare name.

What's frustrating, though, is googling for something kind of obscure, like certain models, games, musicians, or some such, and finding that the best results were written by me. I don't feel authoritative on these topics, so it's kind of disappointing to find that I'm the one posting the most interesting information about them!

Windows, Mac, Linux - What's your preference and why?
Submitted by ramblingsbymark.

Heh, I've been an Apple devotee since age 5, and 2 years ago I moved across the country to work at my favorite Mac developer. I even keep a list of all the people I've contributed to converting (18 so far). This MacBook here is named Jimmy Wilkinson VIII, which tells you how many Macs I've had. Yeah, Apple and I go way back. We're like this. You know, like crossed fingers.

How did you pick your Vox name? Does it mean something? 
Submitted by LeendaDLL.  

One day my cousin Tim and I were playing Scrabble. I must have been, oh, somewhere between 10 and 13. He tried to spell the word JETFUEL, and we had a good laugh. ZYQX was another good one. Later, around 1996, my brother-in-law and I were playing the old Ambrosia game Swoop, and I needed an alias to put in for the high score list. Whatever alias I'd been using online at the time (probably "velocitybat", ugh) must not have been good enough, because I put in "jetfuel" instead. It became my online alias from then on.

Then, more years later, at my IRC channel of choice, I needed to set up some alternate nickname in the case my main one was ever already in use. Always a fan of a good Spoonerism, I put in "fetjuel". One day I got disconnected from the channel, but when I came back, my ghost was still hanging around, so I appeared as "fetjuel". Someone must have liked it, because people started calling me by that instead of my main nick. Eventually I stopped using the correct version very much at all, in favor of "fetjuel" or just "fet". Nowadays I have several friends, who I met online, who even call me fet in real life. It's all pretty ridiculous.

What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten? 
Submitted by Megan.

Probably raw horse, when I was at the cottage in Nagano. It was pretty good, I guess. On the same day, we had whole baby squids, and pregnant fish with eggs that burst out while you eat them. Neither of those was good.

What are your top 25 most played songs? 
Submitted by Cooxie.  

Jeez... Because I tend to listen to albums more than single tracks, my two top albums (both by YUKI) pretty much devoured all 25 slots. Last.fm and iTunes have some disagreement about my top 25, probably because some tracks I listen to on the iPod never make it to last.fm's stats, so this is from iTunes.

1. YUKI - Good Times
2. YUKI - Stand Up! Sister
3. YUKI - Strawberry
4. YUKI - Nakisou Da
5. YUKI - Sentimental Journey
6. YUKI - Walking on the skyline
7. YUKI - Rock 'n' Roll Star
8. YUKI - Hummingbird
9. YUKI - Funky Fruits
10. YUKI - JOY
11. YUKI - AIR WAVE
12. YUKI - Maiagare
13. YUKI - Sweet Seventeen
14. YUKI - Koibito Yo
15. YUKI - Communication
16. YUKI - WAGON
17. YUKI - Tinkerbell
18. YUKI - Cider
19. YUKI - Kiss wo Shiyou yo
20. Yaida Hitomi - Nanairo Pierrot
21. YUKI - Aishiaeba
22. YUKI - Sabaku ni Saita Hana
23. YUKI - Brake wa No
24. Tokyo Jihen - Genjitsu wo Warau
25. Yaida Hitomi - Tsuki wo Miteita

Fascinating, I'm sure.