At Chris Hansen's site, The DooMer's RecesS, he has put up the third edition of his yearly round-up of the Great Doom WADs released...  This is the 2003 Great Doom Releases, and I am proud to say that both my level Congestion Control 2, and Metamorphism, which Brad Spencer and myself made together, are part of the list!  I was looking forward to Chris's list for a while now, because it's always great to look back at all the great WADs released during a year.  And Chris as always, has picked his WADs well!

The second thing I wanted to talk about is Boris's new site called WADs in Progress (WIP for short).  It is a great idea - the site's basic purpose is to help WAD authors show off screenshots of any Doom project that they have under progress, and to receive comments on those by other Doomers.  I registered myself there a few days ago, and maybe I'll put up screenshots of any level I'm making sometime!

On that note, I also saw screenshots of two Doom projects that I am really looking forward to.  The first is Chris Hansen's upcoming In A World, in which he is going to use, as he puts it, some "rarely used texture combinations"!  I know it will be good, so I am waiting for it to get done.  The second is Scythe II, by Erik Alm.  The first Scythe is one of my all-time favourite megawads, so I am really looking forward to the sequel.  Erik mentioned on the WIP page of Scythe II that he has finished about a third of it so far.

Well, that concludes my Doom update at this stage, I look forward to playing many more cool maps in 2004, and I, of course, am going to release some cool stuff too!  I also look forward to downloading several demopacks (awaiting one for Hell Revealed 2)!

I was in the TAPMI Computer Centre when I looked at Chris's list.  Heh, that was where I was when I looked at Doomworld's Best 10 WADs of 2002 to find my Congestion Control in there!

Here is a set of mini-reviews for some of the Doom and Doom II WADs I've seen recently.  Note that I have not played through all of them completely - in this case the review would have general comments on the map(s).  At the moment I don't have the links on hand for each one of these WADs, so I have mentioned the ZIP file's name, which you can search for on the Doomworld /idgames Archive.  Where possible I've also linked the author's URL.  Note that these mini-reviews are not in any particular order.

• Endgame by Lee Szymanski, Anthony Soto, Joe Pallai, Jan Van der Veken, Josh Zylstra and Erik Alm (endgame.zip): This I most recently downloaded.  It's a set of 8 quality levels for Doom II.  I played MAP01 (Arctic by Jan Van der Veken) and MAP07 (Water Treatment Facility by Lee Szymanski) so far, and both maps were really good.  Part of MAP01 is the same as Classic 11, and it's a really nice map.  MAP07 was all about creating a haunting atmosphere - it is a dark tech base type map that really suits it's name.
• Classic 11: Deimos Spaceport by Jan Van der Veken (classic11.zip): I had played this a couple of months back but I played it again as MAP01 of Endgame is partly this same map.  Anyway, this is an E1/E2 hybrid style map that runs on E2M1 for Doom I.  It's a very nice map that I really liked, it is not that difficult to play even on Ultraviolence skill.
• Hell Revealed 2 by several authors (site) (hr2final.zip): This is what I am playing currently!  It's the long-awaited sequel to the toughest megawad ever (Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv's Hell Revealed), and consists of 32 superb maps all designed for the original doom2.exe.  I am playing this on skill 1, continuously saving games, and have managed to get up to MAP15.  On a somewhat unrelated note, I should mention that I was listening to some good hip-hop/rap music (some Eminem songs) while I was playing this.  I love the gameplay of this set, the maps so far are not very large, but of high difficulty!  The maps also have a very professional look, and it can be easily seen that a long time was spent on making the maps have nice texturing etc. apart from the gameplay.
• Doom Redemption by Simon "SlayeR" Judd (redemption.zip): A set of nine classic-style maps for ZDoom (ZDoom is used so that the author could have different skies for the maps within the same episode, replace map names in the automap, intermission texts, such things), replacing E1M1 through E1M9 of The Ultimate Doom.  E1M1-E1M3 are in E1 style, then we have three E2 style maps.  E1M7 is in E3 style, and E1M8 is a boss map that is more or less again in E3 style (though it has some elements from the original Doom's E2M8).  The secret map E1M9 is in my opinion E3 style with a hint of E4 style.  Overall it's a great set of levels that managed to capture the original Doom's feel very well (in terms of texturing and layout - the E2 maps for example are large ones that have lots of switches), and the music tracks (remixes of original Doom songs) are an added bonus!  While playing one of these maps (E1M2: Phobos Waste Facility) I realised that it was present in a slightly altered form in Doom Center's E1 Contest WAD.
• Flashback by Torn, Espi, Erik Alm and others (fbdemo.zip): Flashback is a project that aims to replace all of The Ultimate Doom, with maps closely following the style of the originals.  This is a 6-map demo of the project (replacing E2M1 through E2M6), released on December 10, 2003.  It is kind of coincidental that I played two "tribute" WADs in a short span of time!  Anyway these levels are all compatible with the original .EXE, though if played with ZDoom the skies and map names are replaced appropriately.  We get a taste of each episode, E2M1 is a reinterpretation of Hangar, E2M2 and 3 are based on Refinery and Deimos Lab, E2M4 and 5 are Hell Keep and Slough of Despair, and E2M6 is called Nameless though it is clearly based on the original E4M1.  These maps are all really beautifully done, and have some nice touches (Slough of Despair's map here looks like a foot, as an in-joke to the original that looked like a hand).  I look forward to the full megawad!
• kaiser_* Series by Samuel Villareal a.k.a. Kaiser (kaiser_1 through kaiser_5.zip): I downloaded all the WADs in this series as they were released and I really was impressed by them!  The first in the series is called Internal Reaches 2 and is for MAP01 of Doom II.  This is a brown metal-themed tech base map.  The next in the series is called Not Another E1 WAD and replaces E1M9 of Doom I.  It's a very nice and compact Knee-Deep style map, pretty easy to play too.  kaiser_3 (Untitled) is for MAP01 of Doom II, but it's not a conventional map in the sense that it basically shows off some great special effects with Boom.  The next one in the series, Their Selfish Realms is a large and complex Doom II MAP01 replacement (with some new graphics including a purple sky, new music) and is quite difficult.  It's got a variety of themes running through it and looks very nice.  The final one in the series is called Nickel Electroplate Facility and I am somehow very fond of this map.  It's a tech base utilising a good variety of styles in texturing (original Doom Phobos-type base, Doom II MAP01 and MAP02 type tech base, etc.) that all blend well together.  Parts of the base are cramped, there are also some scenic outdoor areas.  The WAD has a music replacement taken from the NES game Batman.
• Daedalus: Alien Defense by Team TNT (daedalus.zip): The long awaited sequel to Icarus: Alien Vanguard, previously known as Doom 2000 was released on December 10, 2003.  I have only played a little bit of this but it is a very different kind of experience.  It's a tremendous piece of work and very complex.  It utilises a lot of ZDoom features (requires v2.0.60), I particularly loved the teleport sequences.  It looks like an interactive science-fiction movie.
• Void by Cyb (void.zip): A very unusual ZDoom level (Doom II) where you are sucked into a void that flashes in different colours and you must keep jumping around to navigate through broken remains of buildings.  It has a unique look and I fell in love with the music (two MOD files requiring the FMOD player to play back if you've pulled them out of the WAD) the moment I heard it.  Once again, I have not played the whole map.
• Dead Base 2.0 by Sarge Baldy (deadbs20.zip): This is a modification of the original (1994) map by Alberto Barsella, running on E2M1 of Ultimate Doom.  Sarge Baldy's update uses ZDoom features well to make a fountain in the middle of the map look good, to print messages on the screen when you use computers in this base, things like that... also, all textures are aligned properly and the map has a nice clean look.  The level is an easy one even on Ultraviolence skill, mainly because it's a huge base that's sparsely populated.  I somehow recall having played the original level sometime, though I don't seem to have it at present.
• Vrack 3 by Fredrik Johannson (vrack3.zip): I remember seeing some ultra-detailed screenshots of this level back in 2001 (or was it 2002?), and wondering when it would actually be released!  So I was surprised when it just sort of showed up one day!  Again this is a level I haven't played fully yet.  But from what I have seen it looks very good (it largely consists of grey and silver/aluminium textures but I think it's accomplished a very nice varied look with those) and it seems to have a high monster count (400+ on skill 1) as expected.  Fredrik had mentioned somewhere that it's better than Vrack 2.
• Bella II by Chris Hansen and Paul Corfiatis (bella2.zip): A 40 map megawad for ZDoom/Doom II.  Chris made 5 maps, the others are by Paul.  So far, I have had a brief look at this set, and the maps are nice ones.  Many of them are short maps with challenging gameplay (i.e. they have few monsters but of the more difficult variety).  There is a part of the song "Me Julie" by Shaggy & Ali G. playing in MAP40, which coincidentally, I got the full version of recently!

Other WADs which I got to see recently are Nanami's detailed Heart (heart.zip), the joke megawad Mock 2: The Speed of Stupid (mock2.zip) and Doom64: Absolution TC which had a new version released just a few days after I downloaded the old one!  By the way I downloaded the 52 MB music WAD for this, heheh!

I didn't realise how huge this list has become!  Just goes to show how much creative work is being done for Doom, and I'm glad I'm able to play it all!  There's even more good work that people have done - and for this, a couple of other Doom issues are dealt with in another post!

A set of mini-reviews for the movies I watched in the recent past follows!

• Blue Streak (8 Nov): Martin Lawrence is a thief who steals a diamond from a museum.  When police arrive at the scene, he is forced to run to an adjacent construction site, where he hides the diamond.  He is sent to prison and gets out several months later - but when he returns to the site, he finds it's now become a police station!  He therefore poses as a cop to get the diamond - and actually does a great job!  An entertaining movie.
• Phone Booth (11 Nov): Publicist Stu Sheppard (Colin Farrell) enters a phone booth in Manhattan - and receives a call from an anonymous sniper who says he will kill him if he hangs up or leaves the booth.  Intriguing premise, well executed and particularly well acted movie, with lots of stylish camerawork!  Written by Larry Cohen and directed by Joel Schumacher.
• Memento (29 Nov): Guy Pearce plays detective Leonard Shelby.  His wife was raped and killed by someone he only knows as "John G.", and ever since the incident, he's been unable to form new memories due to a head injury.  Under this condition, he tries to find this John G., using polaroids, notes on scraps of paper and tattoos on his body, as clues for himself!  Very unique movie with a unique concept and a totally fantastic presentation style (the entire movie is presented backwards!).  Directed by Christopher Nolan, who wrote the screenplay based on the short story "Memento Mori" by his brother, Jonathan Nolan.
• The Matrix Revolutions (29 Dec): Only a few hours are left before thousands of sentinels will attack Zion, thus starting the machine wars that will determine humanity's fate.  After Morpheus and Trinity rescue Neo from the Trainman and his world between the Matrix and the real world, Neo seems to be humanity's only hope.  Meanwhile, Agent Smith has become one uncontrollable program, copying himself throughout the Matrix.  The final act in the Wachowski Brothers's trilogy I enjoyed a lot, the added bonus being I got to watch it in an IMAX theatre!  The visual effects were simply stunning and better than anything I've seen before, though the story was rather straightforward (I expected something far more complex after everything that happened in The Matrix Reloaded).  But everything was neatly tied up, I felt.
• Johnny English (1 Jan): Rowan Atkinson is secret agent Johnny English, who must save England from being taken over by a maniacal Frenchman called Pascal Sauvage (John Malkovich).  A funny comedy which I appreciated because it had some good jokes and relied less on slapstick humour.  Directed by Peter Howitt.
• The Usual Suspects (3 Jan): A crippled conman, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) narrates to Special Agent David Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) a tale of how he and four others ("the usual suspects" of the title) came to be at the scene of a bloodbath on a boat, starting off with a police line-up days ago.  The tale is a twisted and fast-paced one - as the five are imprisoned on the pretext of a stolen truck, they plot a crime - which leads to others and eventually to the realisation that a feared crime lord called Keyser Soze may be setting them up.  A superbly done, complex movie that has lots of style!  Kevin Spacey won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and Christopher McQuarrie won one for his screenplay.  The movie is directed by Bryan Singer (X-Men).

A movie I would like to watch is the new John Woo film, Paycheck, starring Ben Affleck.  It's based on a Philip K. Dick story and seems pretty interesting!

I reached Manipal after Outbound and a short vacation, on January 1st at around 7:30 PM.  A couple of friends and myself watched Johnny English, which we rented on CD.  The next day Term III at TAPMI started, and we had only two classes that day.  I wrote a short New Year update, and in the afternoon, downloaded Hell Revealed 2.  I wrote that and some other stuff on a CD the next day.  I've been playing HR2 a lot over the past few days while listening to some good hip-hop/rap songs that I got (namely Eminem's B**ch Please II, Shaggy & Ali G's Me Julie).

On 3rd, I received a surprise through post - Tobias Münch's all-new musical debut album, In the Shape of Things to Come!  Thank you very much for the CD, Toby, I really like it!  That night I got to see an amazing movie, The Usual Suspects, on CD.  On 4th, I downloaded Endgame and tried out Knoppix 3.2, which was very cool.  It was great to have Linux on my computer again, and I am going to install Red Hat 9 sometime in the future as well.

I also spent quite a lot of time writing these updates (they're huge, aren't they!) in the last two days.  Whew!  That's all the news for now!  Next couple of posts will have a listing of the movies I watched, and also the Doom levels I played recently.

V znqr n pbcl bs gur gjb PQf bs Gur Hfhny Fhfcrpgf.

The continuation of the previous post has news on the eventful December 2003!  This is not presented week-wise, rather, the dates are grouped contextually.

• Mon-Thu, 1-4 Dec: On 1st I wrote the Management Accounting End Term exam, after which I scanned a drawing of the Linkin Park band members I had done (in a Marketing class, hehe).  In the evening I played a couple of the Doom maps I had downloaded earlier, the terrific Nickel Electroplate Facility (probably better known as kaiser_5) and Vrack 3... after which me and a few friends watched Memento.  The next couple of days went in preparation for the next major event at TAPMI, the annual inter-college fest, Atharva 2003.  For Atharva, the Systems Committee had made the website, and also was supposed to make a Control Room software (which would store the details of the participants and various events) and an intranet site.  This was done in time for the event, which started on 5th.
• Fri-Sun, 5-7 Dec (Atharva 2003): Day 1 of Atharva had several of the Management games conducted by the various fora of our college.  I wrote a CD with some stuff grabbed from the network and also some MP3s and various things from my friend Vikas's computer - including pictures taken at Downtown a couple of days before, where our entire BrandScan Team UB went for dinner.  Day 2 of Atharva featured the most famous event of all, the Quiz on the Beach, which was well, a quiz (the quizmaster was Arun Mani, who is part of the Karnataka Quiz Association) on a beach!  Lots of audience gifts were given away, and I got a gift coupon at Café Coffee Day for answering a question related to Ian McKellen/Gandalf.  The main event of Day 3 was Funtakshari in the evening, after which me and a group of friends went to Café Coffee Day.
• Mon/Tue, 8/9 Dec: I sent some of the above mentioned (BrandScan, Downtown) photos to my family and friends.  Also, I read Varun's latest update at his site, and on 9th, I worked on an assignment for Macroeconomics.
• Wed-Mon, 10-15 Dec (10 Years of Doom): Doom celebrated it's 10th Anniversary on December 10th, and as I mentioned in an earlier update, Doomworld had several special features at their 10 Years of Doom site to celebrate the occasion.  Over the next few days I saved all these special article pages, and downloaded all the latest releases (Daedalus: Alien Defense, ZDoom 2.0.60, etc. for example).  The particulars are mentioned in another post.  On 12th, the Best WADs of 2002 list was put up, and I was honoured to find that my level Congestion Control was among the WADs there.  In this period I managed to download lots of Doom stuff, though it was one of the most hectic weeks at college.  On 14th I had Macroeconomics presentation, and had to work on the Marketing CRA (Concurrently Running Assignment).  On Sunday we had the GAMAR3 Marketing game, and after that me and my group worked through the night and next morning for the Marketing presentation the next day.  Also, the Operations Research project report was submitted.  I downloaded several WADs from that week's edition of the Doomworld /newstuff Chronicles.  All the stuff I downloaded over the past week, I coupled with some Atharva photos, and wrote them all on a CD!
• Tue-Sat, 16-20 Dec: On 16th evening, myself and Ramakrishna went to Udupi to buy stuff for the Outbound programme that we would be attending from 21st onwards.  I also got a cool cap which I wore a lot of the time in the hostel as well as much of the time at Outbound.  Before the Outbound programme started though, there was one thing to take care of - the End Term Exams!  On 18th was Financial Management 1 (9:30 AM - 11:30 AM), Written Analysis & Communication 2 (12 PM - 1 PM) and Operations Research (2:30 PM - 4:30 PM).  Next day it was Macroeconomics (10 AM - 12 PM) and Operations Management 1 (2:30 PM - 5 PM), and finally on 20th it was Organisational Behaviour (10 AM - 12 PM) and Marketing (2:30 PM - 4:30 PM).  That night itself (9 PM), 54 of us left on the bus to Nataraja Gurukula where we would spend the next seven days at the Outbound programme.
• Sun-Sat, 21-27 Dec (Outbound): We reached Nataraja Gurukula (it's about 30 kilometres from Bangalore) at around 9 in the morning.  The first day of the Outbound programme had Cave Exploration, where we walked to, went through and walked back from a cave in some mountains.  Day 2 had us going through an Obstacle course and climbing various rocks.  On Day 3, we walked a whole lot for Day Navigation - we were given bearings and we had to climb one mountain, get our second destination, climb a small hill, go down a valley, climb another mountain to complete the task - and finally climb down it and walk back to the camp!  This was followed by a demo of River Crossing, Zoomering and Rappelling which we actually did on Day 4.  On Day 5 we climbed up a mountain (300 feet high) and camped there for the night.  The afternoon of Day 6, we rappelled down (about 120 feet compared to 40 the other day) on one of the slopes and other than that basically relaxed.  That night (8 PM or so) we started Night Navigation, where we walked about 12 kilometres to our destination and climbed most of the way.  On Day 7 we did the final climb, came down again and walked back to the camp (another 12 kilometres in about 4 and a half hours).  That evening, I got on the bus eagerly to Bangalore, because I would be headed home after that!  In Outbound we were all divided into 4 teams (Everest, K2, Kilimanjaro and Fuji), I was in Everest along with the really cool guys so I had a lot of fun.  In the evenings I was a "storyteller" - as in I used to narrate entire movies (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill Vol. 1, From Dusk Till Dawn, Minority Report) to an audience of a few friends near the tents!  Other remarkable experiences include the "shit pit" (no toilets!), the "water point", the "horror stories", our "cooks", the "6:15 AM jogging", etc.
• Sun-Wed, 28-31 Dec: On 28th morning, I reached home!  I dumped all the CDs I had brought with me on the computer at home, watched Varun play Half-Life, played some of Chris Hansen's and Paul Corfiatis's Bella II, a little bit of Doom64: Absolution, Aardappel's latest version of Cube, saw that my site had crossed 20,000 hits (thanks everyone!), ATE HOME FOOD, and most of all, I was with my family!  On 29th, I watched The Matrix Revolutions on an IMAX screen, and later wrote several CDs (many of them Linux install discs - Red Hat 9, Mandrake 9.1 and Knoppix 3.2 - from the Digit August 2003 Linux Special DVD), and also downloaded Doom Builder v1.03.  On 30th, I watched Varun build the final room in his E4M7 for The Ninth Gate, made a New Year Card and sent it to several people, and watched Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles.  On 31st evening, I boarded the train that would take me to Bangalore.  This was a too-short vacation at home!

The news of January 2004 is written in the next post.

Ba Qrprzore 11gu, V pbvarq n grez pnyyrq pbtavgvir zngpuvat, juvpu ersref gb ubj jr fghqvrq sbe n Znexrgvat dhvm jurer jr xarj nyy gur dhrfgvbaf jbhyq or gnxra sebz gur PQ gung pnzr jvgu gur grkgobbx.

This is the promised update of all the news from November 2003 onwards!  As usual, I will go week-wise...

• Fri-Fri, 7-14 Nov: On 7th, my senior Arun Ravindran and myself were working on ASP because we would need to use it on the BrandScan website.  We made some breakthroughs that day, as we figured out how to connect to the database on the server and create tables there, while almost working blind (we only had some older pages from the site for reference).  On 8th, I watched Blue Streak on HBO, and Phone Booth on 11th.  On 12th, the preliminary version of the BrandScan Demographic Management Counter Software (referred to as the DMC software from now on) was completed.  Much of the code on this was written by me.  The next task that would need to be done by Systems Committee (Arun, Anjani, IK and me) was the Corporate Login part of the BrandScan website.
• Sat-Fri, 15-21 Nov: This week was spent in preparation for BrandScan 2003, TAPMI's annual market research fair.  You can get an idea of what BrandScan is all about at the site, but in brief, what happens is that several companies give us projects on certain research that they want to be done (like finding consumer behaviour while purchasing a product).  All the students are divided into teams and each team would be given one project - they have to design games that people will play, so that the required data can be obtained.  These games are all part of the big fair that people around Udupi, Mangalore and Manipal would attend and play, unaware that they are actually being surveyed.  The team that I was part of was Team UB (United Breweries).  Through most of this week the team created the games and the ambience for the stall that we would be given.  Each stall had it's own theme - ours was Oktoberfest.  I was more involved in the ambience part of it all, I painted posters that would be put up in the stall.  This preparation went on in the nights through the week.  The next thing that was made ready before BrandScan was the above mentioned Corporate Login part of the site, where the project leaders could post progress reports, which could be viewed by the company contacts.  This was written mostly by me again in ASP.  On 17th I spent some three hours (3:30 PM - 6:30 PM) writing the code without checking it, then spent another one and a half hours (8:15 PM - 9:45 PM) in a browsing centre uploading it all and fixing it (because FTP is disabled on our college computers!).  A couple of days later I spent another one and a half hours incorporating some aesthetic and other fixes.  A couple of other things (non-BrandScan!) that happened during the week - I got a big collection of MIDIs and the complete version of fortune thanks to Arun.  Also, Curt Roff of Anternicy emailed me and I got to see my Nasty Little Thing drawing used as the cover of their album Anterni Creature!
• Sat/Sun, 22/23 Nov (BrandScan 2003): BrandScan 2003 was held at the MJC Grounds just opposite our college over the two days, and it was a great event.  We had the maximum number of projects (15) this year as compared to the previous ten years of BrandScan!  Much of the time I was at the Demographic Management Counter (DMC) at the entrance, where the DMC software would direct people to different stalls depending on their profile.  Apart from the stalls for the various projects, we had other events like a Rock competition, a magic show, etc.  The convenor of this year's BrandScan was Navin Narendran.  The show went off spectacularly, and was appreciated by all.  I also got the official BrandScan 2003 T-shirt.
• Mon-Sun, 24-30 Nov: I got a new CD-RW drive (LG GCE-8525B 52x 32x 52x) on 24th.  That day I wrote a CD in the hostel (one of the second floor computers has a CD writer) with photos from BrandScan 2003 (taken by Tarun Kohli), several MP3s from the network, the fortune program and the MIDIs I spoke of earlier, and Doom Builder v1.01.  On 25th, I watched Panic Room again on CD, on 27th, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me again on HBO.  On 29th I was actually in the mood to watch a low budget horror or science fiction movie, so I asked the video CD shop guy for Hardware.  Heh, the guy was puzzled - and seeing the look on his face I decided against asking him if he had Trancers 2!  I rented Memento instead, and watched it that night (actually 30th, 2 AM).  This was an amazing movie.  Finally, on 30th, I was preparing for the End Term exam in Management Accounting.  But I also downloaded some Doom stuff, like Cyb's Massmouth 2, ZDoom 2.0.57, Doom Legacy v1.41 and the much-awaited surprise release of Fredrik Johansson's Vrack 3.  I also had a look at my friend Nagesh's site, and the new site theme that Varun made for me (a surprise!).

To keep the updates from becoming unmanageably huge, I will write about December's news in another post!

V pbcvrq obgu Zrzragb (ba 29gu) naq Cubar Obbgu (ba 25gu) ba PQf jvgu zl arj jevgre.

On 9 November 2003, a very tragic news was received by us at the TAPMI hostel - three of our friends, Ajit Binny, Jacob Joy and Syam Sunder had passed away in an accident.  They had gone to a place called Kudremukh along with eighteen others, and they drowned while swimming.  It took days for all of us to accept the loss, there were also some unfortunate consequences of the incident.  Things returned to normalcy only after some time.

The first post of 2004 on this site brings you this New Year Card!  I do realise that it comes a day late, but a lot of people would have already got a link to it through email.  Anyway do have a look at the card, and this time I've also included links to the older New Year cards that I made (for 2002 and 2003).

Well, the second term of mine at TAPMI got over, I went through the Outbound programme after that, and then spent three wonderful days at home.  Now I'm back in Manipal (reached at 7 PM yesterday) and just today Term 3 started!  I have a lot of news to update about and I'll get working on that as soon as I can.  I would have done that at home itself, but the time seemed so short!

I watched The Matrix Revolutions on an IMAX screen in Hyderabad!  Other than that I brought back some Linux installation CDs with me to experiment with, and some stuff that I downloaded.  The other news will come later, but before I finish this update, let me just mention that my Doom II level Congestion Control was chosen as one of the Top Ten WADs of 2002 by Doomworld, and not only that, it is among the Top 100 WADs of All Time according to that list!