shangshaptak

For music, I loved Musicmatch jukebox, before yaho destroyed it, upto version 7 (or 8?). For video playing only, nothing beats VLC!!

Well noticed! I've got three windows in my room, and it is a rooftop room....so you can guess. It's somewhat like sitting in a lighthouse. It's sort of like a 360 degree view from my room.

Comments and critiques are very much appreciated. -Orko

Mongolia. Tibet. The dry, cold, infinite steppes. I would sit among the tall, yellow grasses and light up a havana. Lie staring at the open gray sky and let the wind whistle through my body, revitalizing each cell......ahhhhh.........

Opera is an amazing browser. It is my second choice after firefox but only because of the tons of plug-ins available for firefox. Opera 10 is by far the fastest browser that I have used (Especially with turbo, it's just mind boggling).IE is crap and frankly, chrome isn't really there yet.

Street Fighter 2!! King of Fighters 97!! Mortal Kombat 3!! Starcraft!! Warcraft 3!! Heroes of Might and Magic 3!! Quake 3!! Unreal Tournament 2k4!! Baldur's Gate 2!! The Witcher!! Fallout 3!!

I truly am amazed. I mean, when you try to accept or reject the existence of god as a 'spiritual' entity, 'beyond and unbound by the rules of this universe', you may have a battle of logic as then, whole concept of god is generalized and blurred to a point where any logic is possible, it becomes a widespread battleground for philosophical diatribes.I can dig that.But to actually quote the scriptures and defend them.....man that's downright funny. Trying to explain creationism with modern science terminologies, few attempts are funnier. You believe in god, alright, that's understandable, you need to provide a valid reason for your existence, someone must have created you, you must be going somewhere after you die etc. Giant ego trip, but understandable. But rejecting the fact that you are a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu or Buddhist today solely because you were born as one, because your parents brought you up as one, because that's all you knew growing up.....that's blind. You also need to understand that the logics you provide to defend your holy books, similar logics are rampant throughout the annals of all religions, every religious person follows his or her religion with an equally strong set of faith based arguments. Otherwise there wouldn't have been so many religions in todays world. Every religion, to its followers is infallible. When I consider that, the existence of a logical-religious person seems like an oxymoron.God is perfect. That's why he created such a wonderful and perfect world all around us, right? After the holocaust,after the Japanese occupation of China, after Pol Pot, after My Lai, after Rwanda, after Palestine, after Iraq and countless other 'perfect' occurrences, excuse me for not groveling for the mercy and love of a 'just','kind' and 'loving' god.By trying to pass these of as 'tests of faith', is criminal.I can also look at the bright sides of the creation. Off course I can't deny that despite all of these, there is beauty, the world is truly worth living into. But this sure as hell ain't no 'perfect' creation of a 'perfect' god.

Yeah. Q3 arena...one and the same. Greatest bot-arena format FPS ever. There's nothing more satisfying than rail fragging Xaero.

Wolf3D FTW!! I spent hours zooming along the mind numbingly indigo corridors......pressing the spacebar along to stumble upon a hidden wall cache. Then came Duke Nukem 3d....another amazing game. After that....Quake 3...and 2d games basically ceased to exist for me.

Heavy Metal: Origin and Evolution (Part 1) “……. it seemed at last that there weretwo musics progressing at one time before the seat of Illúvatar, andthey were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful,but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beautychiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it wasloud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, butrather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets blaring upon a few notes.And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice,but it seemed its most triumphant notes were taken by the other andwoven into its own solemn pattern.” - J.R.R. Tolkien (The Silmarillion) How about that for a mythological origin of heavy metal music? Inthe real world the term “Metal” was first ascribed to music by theherald of the libertines, William S. Burroughs. His actual words were: “…Heavy Metal People of Uranus wrapped in cool blue mist ofvaporized bank notes – And the Insect People of Minraud with metalmusic” - Burroughs, William S. (Nova Express) Heavy metal was probably born in the first few notes of Beethoven’s 5thsymphony, when the genius sacrificed melody for rhythm’s sake. Thisschool of thought is one of the major influences behind the evolutionof heavy metal. This, along with many other factors, shaped the coarsesound of early electric blues into the extremely creative and honest form of music, known today as heavy metal. Early Rock ‘N’ Roll : The ‘Vanilla’ Rock Since its conception in the early 50’s, rock had essentially beennothing but a sickeningly wholesome background sound of puppy love. Ithad neither the emotional depth of the soul-blues scene, nor themusical craftsmanship of the jazz maestros. It was only something tomove your body by, thoughtless, intuitive. The critics were merciless;they ousted rock and roll from the holy temple of music, rock fans wereliterally pariahs. But they missed two extremely important qualities ofrock music: it was unpretentious, and it was packed with unbridledenergy. Any youth of any generation could relate with that and thusrock became the music it has always been since: for the young, of theyoung and by the young. The first high priest of rock ‘n’ roll is undoubtedly Bill Haley. History hasn’t been kind to him. Elvis Presley and Buddy Hollyare revered like saints, their music respected by writers and scholarsas well as the record-buying public, yet Bill Haley – who was therebefore any of them, playing rock & roll before it even had a name –is barely represented by more than a dozen of his early singles, andnot even recognized by the average listener, often treated as ananomaly that came and went very quickly. The central event in Haley’s career was the single “Rock Around theClock” topping the charts for eight weeks in the spring and summer of1955, an event that most music historians identify as the dawn of therock & roll era. For all their energy and greasy hair locks, these rock stars wereout there only to have a good time, they had no intention of bringingabout any social revolution. The pioneers, who would bring forthsocio-political angst through their music, were still in their grammarschools. After Haley came the all-sweeping Elvis era, and everybody knowseverything about that. He isn’t a personal favorite, so let us skipahead to the first band that really showed us how a rock band can be ascreative as the old masters of the classical era. I am talking about The Beatles.Hold on! No need to hold up your moshpitting attitude and snort yournose! They surely have sung their share of sweet syrupy ballads, butthe true talents of The Beatles hide elsewhere. You want psychedeliccrazy lyrics? Let’s see you top ‘I am the Walrus’ or ‘Glass Onion’. You want progressive? ‘Strawberry Fields’ should suffice. With ‘The White Album’they had produced the heaviest sounding album of that era. You thoughtMarilyn Manson was disturbing? Well the androgynous pseudo-demonic rockstar took the latter half of his name from the serial killer CharlesManson, who, by the way, started his killing spree influenced by thetrack ‘Helter Skelter’ from ‘The White Album’. They certainly were no cute gargling boy band. Other than being the premier proto-progressive rock band (topped only by Pink Floyd), The Beatles had also influenced a generation of musicians who would go on to establish the true form of heavy metal. After The Beatles, came a band who would personalize the lunaticcreativity of that age. They would put so much originality, so muchpsychedelia into their music; the face of rock music would be changedforever. Led by the moonstruck genius of Syd Barett (who was succeeded by the equally stunning duo Roger Waters and David Gilmour),Pink Floyd created something so unique, that even today it isimpossible to assign them one genre, no matter how simply you interprettheir music. Space rock, art rock, progressive rock, psychedelicrock………..it doesn’t end. Only one thing is sure, throughout the historyof rock music, no one has yet surpassed the amount of ingenuity, talentand imagination that Pink Floyd had shown. (To be continued......)

Internet explorer was never my first, second or even third choice. Even back in the 'olden' days I preferred netscape, which seemed faster and the amazing lynx, which was a gift from god (I used a a dial-up for 2 years, max speed 2 kbps). Then came Opera and Firefox. These two are the best browsers at this moment, IMHO. Firefox is the undoubted champ, with the tons of add-ons but Opera, especially Opera 10 with turbo, is definitely the faster one.