E.A.R.L. - The Autobiography of DMX

This book is the story of DMX, whose real name is Earl Simmons. DMX was born in Baltimore, MD. However he was grey up in Yonkers, NY. Most of the book takes place in Yonkers. I am actually a fan of DMX's music. It is very raw. And it seems there is a reason to it.

DMX lived in a strict household when he was young. He father was essentially gone. His mother gave him beatings and restricted him severely. Turns out DMX was a trouble maker in school. He got sent away to schools that deal with troublemakers.

The main takeaway from the story I got was that DMX was a thief. The real downer was that he was stealing from people he associated with. Really wrong. There was a chapter in his life when he came down to Baltimore with some drug dealers to make some money. But he mostly steered clear of selling drugs. Robbery was his game.

DMX had a hard time breaking into the music business. He did not want to sell out like MC Hammer or even Sean Puffy Combs. He wanted to keep it real. This book did a good job of explaining all of DMX's life story.

The book was written by Smokey Fontaine, who was once editor of The Source magazine. So the writing is top notch. It was a disappointment to find out that DMX was a really bad guy. But I guess it comes with the territory. You don't get to be a real gangster wrapper by being an altar boy at church.

Commodork: Sordid Tales from a BBS Junkie

This book was written by Rob O'Hara. He goes by the handle Jack Flack. Rob grew up with a Commodore 64 computer. And he got into running a BBS. Essentially the job was finding new software to pirate and distribute to users who dialed into his computer.

Rob is from Oklahoma. He describes the local BBS scene there. I guess in the old days, you would dial into BBSs in your local area code to avoid long distance phone charges. So the characters in this story are mostly an Oklahoma crew from the old school.

Like most warez dealers, there is treachery afoot in his stories. He is stealing software. Sometimes he is getting robbed. The strange thing is that Rob is pretty good in colorfully describing the scene. He also gives you a glimpse into the method behind the madness.

The Internet came in the late 1990s and made the BBS world essentially obsolete. This book was mid sized. It was entertaining and a quick read. Although I do disagree with many of the antics performed by the author, he was good at telling his story.

Diary of an 80s Computer Geek

In this book, we meet Steven. He is a Brit in high school back in the 1980s. Computers are starting to come out. He wants to study them in high school. But he is not chosen for the program. He does talk his mom into buying him a home computer from Sinclair.

Steven writes some games. They get published in magazines, and then later in the stores. Unfortunately he does not get rich from this. He has to take a job when he graduates college. He works selling computers and software in a store.

Eventually Steven gets laid off when the old computers stop selling. He gets lucky and submits a game to a magazine. Instead of getting paid for that game in cash, he negotiated advertising space in the magazine. Then he makes sure his game advertises his other games.

Wouldn't you know it? Steven's plan works and he is busy fulfilling game orders every day. It was tough to keep up. But for a while he made some cash. All things come to an end. Steven stops writing software, and declines another deal with the magazine.

This book is a trip back to the 1980s, especially for those of us who played games (and wrote games) for 8-bit computers back then. Steven wrote games for the Sinclair. I wrote games for the Radio Shack Tandy. Good times. Good times.

Is Everyone Handing Out Without Me?

Before reading this book, I did not know much about Mindy Kaling. She had a small role on the TV show The Office. I heard a podcast of a guy interviewing her. What I heard was not what I expected. Even though her look indicate she is of Indian descent, she was actually born and raised here in the USA.

After reading just a few pages of the book, I have decided that I am in love with her writing. This comes at a good time for me. I just read a painfully bad book that I had to slog through. This was a pleasant change.

Mindy wrote about her life starting from the younger years. She was a fat Indian girl in a Caucasian neighborhood. Her mom and dad were hard working, busy professionals. She had two older brothers. Mindy attended an Ivy League college.

Then she went to New York to get into show business. She had some odd jobs to pay the rent in the early years. She and a friend put together a play that was successful. Mindy says that was in part due to their guerilla marketing schemes.

Mindy's play went on to a bigger off-Broadway theater, and got picked up to be a TV show. It did not pan out. But Mindy did get asked to write for The Office. The rest is history. I am very excited to read Mindy's follow on autobiography. I already bought the book. Just need to dive in.

Embed with Games

Just finished reading Embed With Games by Cara Ellison. This was written by a journalist who took a year off to travel. She visited independent game developers all over the world and shared her experiences. You would think that I would like this based on that setup. Unfortunately, I did not.

Part of the problem may have been that Cara is a Scot having lived in Britain. So there is a culture gap there. She also compares and seems to expect that you know about a bunch of games out there. I mostly do not, so that was all lost on me.

The other weird thing is what Cara focuses on in this book. A lot of it is her itinerary and her beliefs on what makes for a great indie game. I am not so interested in that. I was hoping to hear the details of independent game development all over the world. Did not seem to get a lot of that.

By the end of the book, I was looking forward to moving on to my next book to read. Not good. Not good at all.

Jacked - The Outlaw Story of Grant Theft Auto

Just finished reading this book about Grand Theft Auto. Actually, the book is more about the guy who founded Rockstar Games, creator of Grant Theft Auto. I have heard a lot about the game in the past. Did not really know a lot about it.

The real surprise was that Sam Houser, CEO of Rockstar Games, comes from Britain. He did bring his boys with him to New York to develop the games. But they all fared from England.

A large portion of the book covered the fight of Jack Thompson. Jack was against games such as Grant Theft Auto. He was a lawyer and was good a getting the media to follow him. He really was a pain to the Grand Theft Auto developers.

This book goes through Grand Theft Auto I through IV. I like how the developers did research on the cities where the games would take place. That was a dangerous mission as they set their scenes in some pretty dark neighborhoods.

It was disappointing that many original team members tried to spin off with their own game development companies but failed. Rockstar Games has a number of other game lines other than GTA that have had some level of success too.

Dungeon H@cks

I read a print version of this book. Got to know about the book when the author shared one of the bonus sections from the book online. This book tracks the history of Rogue-like games. These are my favorite types of games. I have been playing them for over 20 years. So you know I am biased.

The thing I loved about this book was that I learned a lot about the author of the specific rogue-like game I play called Angband. I have been sharing this guy's story with friends and family. I always see his name in the credits when I play the game. Now I know a little more about him.

This book probably is only of interest to people who are into Rogue-like games. Only the hardcore can appreciate the deep history of Nethack, Rogue, Moria, and Anagband. I did learn a bunch about some even earlier games in the genre.

I want to get another book by this author. Unfortunately it is only available electronically, and I am on a print version kick right now.