Q: Your experiences with the Internet. What is the origin of your name: Haggard
A: When I signed up to Newgrounds, I was listening to the band Haggard, to be more precise, the album "Awaking the Centuries". Still a very good album. And I thought the name sounds kind of cool, so that's what I chose as my username.
Q: How did you discover and why did you join? How do you feel about having your account since 2001? Does it feel strange to have seen so many changes, and how does that make you feel?
A: My friends and I discovered the "Whassup?" meme (only it wasn't called a "meme" back in the day) and searched on the internet for it (anyone still remembers those search engines? Fireball, AltaVista, and I think Yahoo was around then as well). That's how we discovered this movie and also this site. So, we browsed the portal a bit, watched silly flash movies, played silly flash games, and when I first got internet at home back in 2001, I decided to create an account here. Then forgot all about it a while later, and out of the blue rediscovered Newgrounds back in 2004/2005. I can't really remember why, but I just thought "hey, I can at least deposit my XP every day" one day. And so I did. Haven't missed that many deposits since then, luckily. :)
Q: Your experiences with posting in the BBS
A: As you can see, I am not exactly the most prolific poster on the BBS. I didn't even start posting until 2005, and even then mostly kept out of the General forum, which I felt was not a place where I wanted to spend too much time. I kept mostly in the Where is/How to section.
Q: Your advice on thriving in the BBS environment
A: Just keep out of trouble, and don't start random fights with random strangers on the internet. :D
Q: What is the story behind your "About You" Profile section: "There are 10 types of people. Those that understand hexadecimal and F other people."
A: It's another form of the joke "“There are 10 types of people in the world, those that understand binary and those that don't". The joke being that "10" is the binary representation for 2 in the decimal system. So, either you understand binary, or you don't.
The joke in my profile is just a silly little take on that. 10 in hexadecimal is 16 in decimal, and F is the hexadecimal representation of 15. So, the joke really doesn't make much sense ("what, there are 16 types of people, 1 that does understand hexadecimal and 15 other people? HUH??!"). I just found it funny at the time I put it in the profile.
Q: What is Wakas Zockerbude?
A: My own little website. There's not much to see on it, and the pictures are heavily outdated. I mostly use it to keep track of the video games I own (and even that list is a little bit out of date), and to practice a bit of HTML, CSS and PHP. Not that I need it for my job or anything, but having some basic knowledge of the stuff can be helpful from time to time.
Q: How did you get to Deity Level Whistle?
A: There used to be a thread in Wi/Ht, called "Rage's gift to you: Abusive reviews, where users would post links to reviews that were against the review guidelines, to have them removed from the site; or links to stolen flashes in the portal. I used to participate in the thread and flag abusive reviews and submissions myself. The thread has been discontinued, but luckily I got my deity whistle out of it. :D
Q: Your experiences with voting in the Portal. You are Sup. Commander! Global Rank: 84 That is very high!
A: The portal has been a lot slower since around 2006/2007. It becomes harder and harder to get B/P points, since apparently not too many users are active in the portal anymore. I really wish to take up voting on Under Judgement submissions more, but at this point I basically only vote on 5 random flashes each day to submit my XP. :(
I think I more or less stopped hunting for B/P points around 2010, or so.
Q: How do you feel about being a Software Developer?
A: It's a nice job. Not without it's hair pulling moments (maintaing code you have written ~5 years ago is even worse than maintaining code written by someone else, because you absolutely KNOW who's responsible for all this crap...), but I like it. :)
Q: Your advice for life
A: Um, don't do drugs, stay in school, and go vote.
Q: What are your strong opinions on certain topics?
A: Maybe it's so much that I do have strong opinions but sometimes I tend to get a little too agressive in stating them (which goes against my own advice of not getting into fights with random strangers, lol).
One example would be that I think our world is too car centric. I advocate for cities that focus less on cars and more on walkability. That doesn't sit too well with some people, who tend to think that "car = freedom", which in turn doesn't sit too well with me, and... I realised that I need to take a step back every now and then. Which is why I advise anyone to NOT start fights with random strangers on the internet, haha.
Q: What is your approach to budgeting?
When I was younger with less disposable income I would check and compare prices in supermarkets. My gf and I compiled everything into a spreadsheet and then bought our groceries in different stores.
Nowadays I really don't have to look at prices anymore. :D
Q: How does it feel being in your 40s?
A: A bit weird, to be honest. The strangest thing is, when I hear "20 years ago" I think "oh, right. In the 80's". But "20 years ago" is "the 2000's". Somehow I still can't wrap my head around that.
Q: You have visited Norway twice, what do you do in Norway? Have you always been a fan of traveling? How do you decide on learning Norwegian?
A: Actually I have been to Norway three times, but I will visit another two times this year. ;)
Yes, I have always liked to travel, but now I try to focus on places that are closer by and don't require me to get on a plane, for example. I decided to learn Norwegian because I have a small interest in languages, and just noticed how closely related German (my native language) and Norwegian are. Not too surprising really, since they both are Germanic languages.
Q: What are the 4 languages you speak? How did you learn French? But why do you feel like you hardly know any French anymore?
A: German (native), English (obviously :D), Norwegian (a little) and French (hardly).
I learned French in school, because it was a requirement for the Abitur (= the highest school leaving certificate in Germany, comparable to the A levels in the UK). But I was never really good at the language and haven'T really used it after I left school.
Q: How do you get interested in a musical composition, movie, board game, video game? Are there specific sets of values or themes that those mediums have to communicate for you to be interested, or do they have to possess some specific qualities that you have recognized as appealing to you?
A: That's a surprisingly hard question to answer.
I like music of all kinds, but mostly Metal. I also like all kinds of games. My favorite board game at the moment is Gloomhaven, which was the highest ranking game on boardgamegeeks (a website dedicated to board games, as the name implies). It's a cooperative board game, in a fantasy setting. It combines tactical gameplay with nice looking artwork.
Another, very different, favorite of mine is Chronicles of Chrime, which puts you in the shoe of a Scotland Yard detective, and you have to solve various crimes by collecting evidence and interrogating suspects.
In video games, I mostly like fantasy RPGs like Final Fantasy, for example.
