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Notes -
I recommend every book and movie in my reviews. I remember a lady who would post weekly reviews here, which is also why I intermittently leave them here too. I recommend all the things here very much.
My second memorable FPS experience was Doom. 2007 or 8, I was in third grade, my school would organize a carnival on the large green pastures of its premises and all the stalls were run by students and teachers of a respective class (every grade had multiple sections, which I am referring to as a class here). My older cousin was in town, I won this cd with the title Doom 2 and we went back home and fired up the pirated game inside of a 700 mb cd. It fucked me up and I never went back to the game ever again after a few weeks but with some luck I also encountered wolfesntein 3d, previous flaghsip game by id software and got to experience the changes fps saw as a genre at an appropriate age where I could stil enjoy them
The book is about two Johns, Carmack, the ace craftsman who cares about solving problems more than he does about breathing and Romero, the ultimate gamer rockstar of the 90s, whose rags to riches stories oversaw him single-handedly play a part in shaping two genres. The book is extremely easy to read and it's just an account of how these two met, what they did together, their feud and ends with both being cordial with each other again. Carmack became too focused and judgemental to see how Romero was important, and Romero got too big of an ego to see how things were leaving him behind. Both Romero and Carmack express regret over what they did, both wish that they could stick together in various podcast appearances.
Carmack is a bonafide legend, and programmers hail him as a paragon of virtue for good reason. Here is a guy who would bang out code with full intensity till his brain shut down for 12 hours a day (not including bathroom breaks), bench 250, do judo and inhabit the focus one associates with a craftsman. Carmack not being distracted by porn playing in the background or with topless strippers delivering him pizza are impressive exmaples of how he was wierd. Romero on the other hand understood games. For all his criticisms, his work post quake was far better than Carmack in terms of impact as he fought his way to get Deus Ex released under his new banner.
I recommend the book to everyone, when I read, I hated Carmack a lot by the end but now that I have thought about it, I cannot blame either of them for much here. Also, it is quite funny that a lot of stuff there was personally relatable to me since I did spend a year at my own failed startup.
Kill is Indian John Wick in a train, and it does not offer anything earth-shattering. It is set in India, it has Indian actors, yet it is quite western in how it is set up. Closer to Punisher than John Wick, it is quite bleak, the love of the protagonist's life is killed off by halftime, and it is just him slaughtering people till there is no one breathing. Much like Doom, it is the criminals stuck inside a train with him rather than him stuck inside the train with a bunch of criminals. It does its action set pieces and worldbuilding fairly well for an action movie, and I recommend it since I want more people making movies that are good.
Aryan as fuck, the movie screams the word Aryan so hard that it tingles my sacred thread. Eggers does a great job with the cinematography. Northman, like LOTR, is a capsule that leaves with a sense of pride for atavistic values. Values from times that will never come back. I personally liked it a lot, I was brought into Hinduism after my agnostic beliefs due to my interactions with Curwen Ares Rolinson of aryakasha.com whose blog covers his interpretations of the similarities between Aryan cultures. Ancestor worship, especially survives very strongly within my caste and in the specific area that I am in far more than most places on Earth.
Despite what I wrote, it is still not a rosy movie like LOTR. I watched it on NYE, not thinking I would like it as much. The movie is very Indo-European.
Halfway through the movie I was convinced that it was directed or written by a woman since no man who is not a pick-up artist can know the subtle details of female sexuality as much as this movie. Nicole Kidman is Milf of the week and gets erotically dicked down by her junior. As a recovering beta male who has spent way too much time on trying to get laid, the depictions of things up until the end were highly accurate. It is an erotic piece of film best enjoyed with a girl by your side. The ending is cucked ofc because a hypersexual chick directed it but it's still pretty good. The actors are extremely hot in the movie, Kidman, and they somehow make Banderas do well as a cuck. I could not recognise him in the movie since my image of him is that of a Spanish-speaking womanizer.
Spring is gonna end in Jaipur soon as Holi marks the beginning of summer. It is a few days away and polo is gonna stop soon so I won't have my weekly interaction with the outside world on Sundays anymore. Beyond that, I am reading the now habit as suggested by a mottizen here. Have a great weekend!
I second the recommendation for Masters of Doom. It is a really interesting book. I also recommend the author's similar book on GTA, called "Jacked" if memory serves.
will check out cc @Turniper
I wanted to read masters of doom since I wasted all my life knowing nothing, the story of a master craftsman and the proper use that tech felt really appealing. Video games seem dead now though compared to how they seemed 15 years ago. Not sure what changed. Game devs are some of the best craftsman you can find even today.
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