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Merry Christmas Everyone
191–200 of 407 posts
Re: Merry Christmas Everyone
#192For me it was Christmas 1977 when me and my little brother got an Atari 2600 console. We spent almost the entire day (except for taking a break for meals) playing all the variations of Combat.
Later, in 1980, I bought Adventure with my paper route money and I had hours of fun playing that and trying to figure it out. When I finally found the Warren Robinette-created easter egg, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, even though I was a huge fan of Adventure, it is the type of action-adventure game that when you solve the quest you quickly lose interest.
1980 was probably peak Atari 2600. By 1982, with the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the game was so terrible and rushed to market so quickly and was so obviously shovelware that I moved on from the platorm.
I miss those days though. More than anything else the Atari 2600 was what got me into learning BASIC a few years later on the TRS-80 and the IBM PC.
Re: Merry Christmas Everyone
#193I'm Jewish, so all my Christmas's growing up were kinda the same. Sleep in, have brunch, wander over to my neighbor's house around noon to see what kind of loot they got and help them play with their new toys. Sometimes we'd go out for Chinese food and a movie. But my favorite was Christmas 1999. My girlfriend was out of town with her family and there was no reason to go home to mine, so I was alone (my roommates wer…
I'm Muslim, so all my Christmas's school and college days were kinda the same, 1980s. I would have a real small tree xmass decorated at home and no one would blink about it, then wander over to my christian friends' neighborhood around noon to see what kind of cherry and wine they were serving. This is that neighborhood now https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1031546789002116&set=pcb...
A Jewish friend of mine would get a small tree and call it his "Moses bush".
Re: Merry Christmas Everyone
#194I remember my Hindu-Jewish Christmas. I was working at a startup in the midwest. We hired lots of graduated students, including one from Israel and one from Bangalore India. They were curious about Christmas so we invited them to come to ours!
Two young kids under 10, a new house in the country and perfect weather. They arrived, and since they had heard about the gift-giving part they brought gifts! For the family, way nicer than they had to for a hostess gift but exclamations all around and thanks and we use that giant red baking pot to this day.
The Indian lad was just married and she was so curious and funny and happy to be with family - they had found America to be so quiet and empty! To be in a full house again with kids and noise and decorations and ceremony - she was ecstatic.
We introduced all the foods (my wife was a champ and had come up with things everybody could eat! A Christmas miracle in itself) and the trappings (lights and trees and drinks and songs) and had a lovely loud silly evening.
Later, each of those co-worker mentioned independently that though they'd lived in America for years, that was the very first time they'd been invited into an American's home. They were so grateful. Even today, thirty years later, I can call either of those guys and be greeted like an old Uncle.
So yeah, I remember that one from time to time and smile.
Re: Merry Christmas Everyone
#195I’m six years old: we’re travelling and our family is in London staying in a hotel. I watch Speed Racer on television on Christmas Eve, and they jump over a gap and something clicks and I “get” momentum. That night the anticipation is almost unbearable and I pretend to sleep as my parents set out presents. In the morning we get up and the best present I get is a junior science encyclopaedia. That day the weather is terrible, so we stay inside and read and we order chicken sandwiches from room service.
Re: Merry Christmas Everyone
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course it was peak - the Matrix came out
Nobody even knows about Dark City which came out the same year. Because the freaking Matrix came out too. That's just how many good films there were that year. If Dark City came out today it would be lauded as most original thing in a decade.
And Dark City was delayed after it was finished, it should have come out before The Matrix.
I copy here my previous HN comment from June 2023: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36415981
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I watched Dark City years after watching The Matrix (on opening in the cinema) and I enjoyed it very much, have watched it multiple times over the years.
Here is Dark City’s director Alex Proyas: “Alex Proyas on: The Matrix copying Dark City” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytxjsetVIRM
And this is a juxtaposition of some scenes with background music: “The Matrix vs. Dark City.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moW17YHl6B8
This is Mr. Hand [Richard O’Brien] talking in ”Memories of Shell Beach”:
> It was a very groovy movie, you see?
> I remember saying to Rufus Sewell [who played the protagonist], I said, you know, it actually, truthfully, it really doesn’t matter, does it, whether it’s a box-office success because we’re going to get paid as actors anyway, sorry Alex [Proyas] but this is true, we’re gonna get paid as actors anyway and isn’t it nice to be part of something which is groovy?
Re: Merry Christmas Everyone
#197Christmas 1996, I was 11. We finally got a modern computer with Windows 95, a CD-ROM drive, speakers, Oregon Trail 2... It was magical! The only time I ever wept with joy over a Christmas present.
Re: Merry Christmas Everyone
#198I am Sam. And I wanna say 2024 is definitely a challenging year to me as I was laid off and a lot of changes in this year. My fav memory from Xmas would be the year of 2019, celebrating with my bff in winter wonderland, drinking, laughing, and we were really happy since we were still students with no worries at all. Wish time could go back
Merry Christmas and best wishes from Denmark.
Your favorite memory warms my heart.
I hope 2025 brings you more luck than 2024 did.
Re: Merry Christmas Everyone
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course it was peak - the Matrix came out
Nobody even knows about Dark City which came out the same year. Because the freaking Matrix came out too. That's just how many good films there were that year. If Dark City came out today it would be lauded as most original thing in a decade.
I refer to dark city all the time when creating AI agents, when Kiefer would inject them with particular memories when the city stood still. And Shell Beach pops into my mind when I take the train to the former grandios Coney Island.
Existenz was another unique underappreciated movie of that year and whose theme never got picked by any other movie. When Jude Law realizes that the Chinese food he is eating can be put together to assemble the gun my mind was blown.
Re: Merry Christmas Everyone
#200Christmas in 1982/3 in the UK, I was praying desperately for a ZX Spectrum so I could play Manic Miner like my nephews (who, due to a generational slip were more like my cousins) and was genuinely crushed when I opened my present to find that it was a BBC Micro Model B. The horror! Although Elite did make up for quite a bit of that, the game scene on the BBC was so much worse (or at least it felt so) and I ended up copying code by hand for games from magazines, which I'm pretty sure was what my parents intended. Fast forward to now, and I'm running a successful web agency, having worked my way through various internet-related jobs in interesting organisations like the BBC, universities and others. So a belated and slightly begrudging thanks to my dad and mum for their foresight.