In the recent past, you would have noticed that the Doom related updates on this site were few in number.  That's only because I have been doing a lot of mapping (working on more than one!), and I usually wait until a map is about 75% complete before I announce it.  And now, one of those maps has reached a stage where I can officially write about it...

You will be pleased to know that the new map is going to be Congestion Control 2, the sequel to my late 2002 release Congestion Control (which by the way, was part of Chris Hansen's 2002 Great Doom Releases List).  The sequel promises to be even better than the original, with fun gameplay, a higher level of detail, more open and spacious areas, and in general a better look.

And as you might expect, I have set up a page for it here, which has information about the level and three screenshots.  I also wanted to do something different this time, so instead of writing a story as text, I've made a one page comic for this purpose.

Check out all this stuff at the Congestion Control 2 Information - Screenshots - Download Page!

On 20th, I attended my first mock Interview at TIME.  Since that may sound strange to some of you, I'll just explain the background of things a little:

I wrote earlier that based on my CAT scores, I've got a call for attending the Group Discussion and Personal Interview sessions, for selection in T. A. Pai Management Institute.  I have to be in Manipal on April 2nd for them.  My selection in the institute to do a Two Year Post Graduate Programme in Management, requires that I do very well in the GD and Interview, and for that, I have been attending training sessions at TIME.  As I wrote before I have taken part in some 15 GDs, and watched about 30 more, and I have learnt a lot from each one.

My mock Interview on 20th was in the afternoon, and it was taken by Mr. A. R. K. S. Srinivas and Mr. R. K. Prasad.  I was happy that the interview went very well, and the feedback they gave me was that I just needed to do a little "polishing", and I'd do well in the actual Interview at TAPMI.  TIME's training and all their feedback has really made a huge difference to me, and I hope that I'll do well in the final GD and Interview!

Yesterday, on HBO, I thought I would watch Ransom at 9:30 PM, and Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth after that.  As things turned out, I wasn't even at home to watch Ransom, and as for Hellraiser III, I had to record it and watch it today.  This was because an important bit of work got done yesterday - and that is the printing of our Final Year Project Report.

I had earlier mentioned that our Project Document was completed and it had to be reviewed by our Professor.  Well, that took time because all the Professors at college have been very busy recently (our college has applied for accreditation from the National Board of Accreditation, and the evaluation is today and tomorrow).  Nagesh finished the Document with all the changes recommended, and he sent it to me last night.  For some reason the connection was very slow and I couldn't download his mail in my Outlook Express.

Yesterday, Nagesh, Ganeshan and me left college early after our test and we headed for ROC because we wanted to print out the document.  We reached there at about 2:30 PM.  So, my not being able to download the document the previous night was actually a stroke of luck, because we could download the file at ROC, and print the whole thing out.  The document's text came to 124 pages, and then we also had to make the Abstract, Acknowledgement and other pages.  We did all that over there, and the work finally got completed.  But it took a very long time - we left ROC at about 10:40 PM!  That was why I couldn't watch those movies on HBO.

Zl sngure naq zr cercnerq n yrggre bs erpbzzraqngvba sebz zl Cevapvcny, (juvpu vf gb or fhozvggrq ng GNCZV) lrfgreqnl, naq V jrag gb pbyyrtr gbqnl gb trg vg cevagrq naq fvtarq.

Last night (come to think of it, 24 hours ago exactly) on HBO, they showed Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth - I recorded it and watched it today.  I thought it was a fun movie, only problem being that it wasn't the least bit scary.  I did appreciate the style with which the whole thing was pulled off, never mind if the story didn't always make sense.

Anyway that's the latest movie review on my site, you can check it out on the Movie Reviews page.

HBO showed the previous two Hellraiser movies the past two weeks (I wanted to - but couldn't - watch them) - next Friday after the 9:30 PM movie they are showing Hellraiser: Bloodline.

Last night I watched The Exorcist on HBO (11:15 PM).  And what a movie it was!  And since it has been some time since I added any movie reviews to this site, I just wrote a review for this excellent, classic horror movie.  I've also added my review for The Exorcist III: Legion, which I saw several months ago.

You can find both these reviews at my Movie Reviews page.

Varun's Final Exams for his First Year Intermediate have started.  He is studying well for them and I wish him all the best.

My mock interview date at TIME has been postponed to 20th.  Taking part in several Group Discussion classes at TIME has helped me to speak better in these things - like today, when I was practically shouting, heh heh...

On Friday night, I watched Tim Burton's 2001 version of Planet of the Apes on STAR Movies.  This movie was no doubt well made, the only problem was that I thought it was a bit draggy in the beginning.  Several changes have been made from the older 1968 movie version, and these changes made the story more complicated, I thought.  Anyway I did like the references to the older movie ("Damn them!  Damn them all to hell!" said by Charlton Heston), and the whole look of the actual ape planet.  The make-up effects were brilliant, which goes without saying...

On Friday, I also downloaded several MP3s from this page.  All of these are different versions (non-album) of Linkin Park songs, and the most interesting part to me was the set of demo songs.  It is like seeing an early screenshot of an "under construction" area in a Doom level, as compared to the final area!  These MP3s are of quite good quality too.

Other than these things I am of course attending my Group Discussion Practice classes at TIME regularly.  For some interesting statistics, I have participated in eleven GDs, and watched twenty more, till date!  On 18th, I am attending a mock interview over there.  The rest of my time has been completely occupied with Doom mapping, as I am currently working on more than one map...

For a while now, I've had this idea to make some site themes for this site, which would recall the appearance of my older sites.  The first in this (intended) series is complete - it's the Karthik's Doom Pages site theme, which will make this site appear similar to my old Doom site!

As you might expect, the colours and various elements of my earlier design have been adapted to suit this site (since the layout here is more complex than the old site's).  Anyway, for me seeing this colour scheme brings back a lot of memories, and I hope it does the same for you too!  You can change the site theme to the new one directly, by clicking this link, and as always, all the other site themes are available on this page.

The addition of the new theme brings the total number of site themes available here, up to eight - for those who are keeping count.

My brother, Varun has redesigned and relocated his site, Varun 20787.  The new address is http://varun.gginc.co.nz and the site is hosted by Joel Murdoch.

Varun's new site features a highly professional, neat design with very nice looking graphics, and a well-organised layout.  His site is now database driven, using PHP and MySQL magic to serve dynamic content (which I helped out with)!  His Doom levels and drawings are up there, and you should go and check out his most recent creations - five abstract wallpapers which are all very beautiful to look at (I have one of those on my desktop right now).

So have a look at the new Varun 20787, and do send your comments to him about the site.

If you remember, some days (weeks?) back I wrote that I had installed Internet Explorer 6 - after which the left pane in Windows Explorer (the Folders Pane) wouldn't display - there was just a grey box in it's place!  All this while, I've been using Windows Explorer without the left pane.  Anyway, a couple of days back, I got this Digit CD with Internet Explorer 6 Update.  I installed it and it fixed the problem!  Now things are back to normal!

I think it has been over a year since our computer was cleaned.  So today I did it.  I disconnected the monitor, the keyboard, etc. and cleaned each one of them, removing all the layers of dirt.  I am now typing this on a very clean keyboard, and it feels great!

Aside from these things there's not really that much more I can say, except that I've been busy with Doom stuff...  Oh, and I remembered one thing I should have written about last time - if you've played my Doom II map Congestion Control, then you've heard the Popcorn Dance Mix song that is in it.  Well, that particular MIDI file was created by a composer called Davie M. Karlsson.  I was really surprised to get an email a few days back from none other than Davie himself, who was happy that a song of his was used in this level!  Thanks, Davie for the email.

Gur arj Qbbz VV znc V'ir orra jbexvat ba vf pbzvat nybat jryy - vg jnf bevtvanyyl fhccbfrq gb or pnyyrq Bhg bs Cunfr 4 ohg fvapr vg vf zhpu ovttre guna na Bcunfr znc V gubhtug bs pnyyvat vg Pbatrfgvba Pbageby 2.  Gung'f gur gragngvir gvgyr vs V pna'g guvax bs n orggre bar.

Between the last update and this, I watched quite a few good movies.  So let's go through the list...

As I said last time, I saw Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within on STAR Movies last Friday.  I had seen it before in late 2001, but on video.  Here the picture and sound quality were very clear so it was nice to see it again.  The movie features fantastic computer generated animation as well as an unusual, touching story.

On Sunday, I watched Lethal Weapon 4 on STAR Movies.  Now I remember NOT liking this movie much when I saw it back in 1998, but for some reason, when I saw it this time, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It's just a lot of fun to see, and it had rapid-fire dialogue to match the nonstop action.

The next movie on the list is Cobra, which I saw on HBO on Thursday.  This is a Sylvester Stallone movie from 1986, which I saw before (I think) in 1993 or so.  It is basically an almost-plotless movie about Stallone's character, Lt. Marion Cobretti (a.k.a. "Cobra") protecting a woman from a serial killer called the Nightslasher (who is actually part of a band of crazies).  I didn't like it that much, thankfully it's a very short movie.  One thing I will praise this movie for, though, is the grim atmosphere it maintained, thanks to the gloomy photography (Ric Waite), and the music (Sylvester Levay).

Next up is a movie I saw just yesterday in the theatre - The Ring.  This movie was just released here in theatres and it was an excellent movie.  The story concerns a journalist, Rachel (Naomi Watts) investigating a videotape, that causes the death of anyone who views it, within seven days!  Based on the Japanese movie (that movie is called Ring), this is written by Scream 3 writer Ehren Kruger, and directed by Gore Verbinski (Mouse Hunt, The Mexican).  I would highly recommend watching this, basically because it is one of the few horror movies that actually scared me!  It is a very creepy film, that's all I'll say.

And finally, I just watched the premiere of Hollow Man on HBO.  Very well made movie.  This TV version seems to have been put together quite nicely, I remember a lot more profanity being there, and the way they cut it didn't make it obvious.  Coincidentally, just after this movie got over, I switched to STAR Movies, and they were showing another one of Paul Verhoeven's movies, Total Recall.

Some days back, my friend Ganeshan was telling me that he thought I'd be updating my site more often since there's college only for two days of the week now.  But I've been busy with several things, so I actually found less time to update!  Anyway, I'll write about some of the things that have been going on recently, here - the rest of the stuff is secret!  So here's a quick run through of the last week...

I've been attending Group Discussion classes regularly at TIME, in preparation for my TAPMI GD/Interview.  As (I think) I said before, the sessions are at 5:30 PM - 7:30 PM.  These classes are really very good and I am enjoying them.

Last Saturday, I watched the ICC World Cup 2003 India vs. Pakistan cricket match (not the whole thing, the important parts anyway).  The next day, I downloaded and played three Doom levels, Espi's Narcosis (Single Player version), Installation A by Alex Parsons and the Lord of the Rings-based Helm's Deep by Cyb.

On Tuesday, the JNTU IV Year I Semester results came out, and in the last semester I seem to have done pretty well, I got a score of about 77% which I am happy with.  If you want to see my marks, you can go to this page.

Wednesday was a hectic day for me, I got up at 5 AM in the morning to attend a seminar at TIME, on the Union Budget.  After that, there was a technical project presentation at ROC, and for this our team prepared throughout the morning and afternoon (I had made the slides the previous night).  The presentation and the demo went off very well.  ROC had also called a senior person from Wipro to evaluate the project, and he was very impressed with what we had done.  I was home by about 10 PM or so, but I went to sleep that night only after 3 AM.

I also got to see some very good movies recently, and that I am going to write about in another post.

Oh and before I forget, the Daniel Movies page has been updated.

Fgnegrq znxvat n Qbbz VV yriry va gur fglyr bs ZNC17/ZNC28, rgp., gheavat bhg ernyyl jryy.&aofc; Urycrq bhg Ineha jvgu CUC fghss sbe uvf hcpbzvat jrofvgr.