Competition Success Review #1 : Force Fest Day 2

After day 1 we all were excited to return to Sheikh Sarai. Uhm, maybe not everyone, considering the return journey is so horrible.

As usual, I turned up at school punctually – fifteen minutes late, which is natural. Saw this kid named Shubham, who went with us for VB programming, going again just for the heck of it. His classmates scared him that they’d tear his certificates and break his award. So he’s like 1955’s original George McFly. I wonder how long it’ll take Darth Vader from Planet Vulcan to meet him.

Darth Vader from Planet Vulcan. Also, Van Halen ftw

Now that we knew that majority of the quiz questions were taken from already-existing archives, we wanted to study. Unfortunately, I was too busy proving f(x)=|sin x| + |cos x| is periodic with π last night, and Saumey was reading from Vidit’s archive (which Arnav later informed me, had been pulled from gyaan.in). But I was more interested in reading from my TCS archives over the past three years. Surprisingly, they were no longer available on MediaFire! Strange.

So anyway, we were just talking about a lot of other stuff (other than the quiz, that is) on the way to Apeejay. As usual, the kids were making a ruckus in the car making the journey even more tedious. Somehow I can’t recall some of the finer details about the journey probably because it was uneventful this time with Jyot Singh having no problem in finding the school today.

We reached at exactly 9.04 AM and the quiz was scheduled to start at 9. Auditorium was really quiet and the first person I saw as soon as I entered was Arnav, listening to his iPod. There really was no Prempal today, so we had a reasonable shot. But we did know, however, that Arnav was a pretty damn good quizzer on any given day, considering that he qualified for TCS once and won the Japan Quiz this time.

The quiz began about ten minutes after we finished with registration. We could choose our places randomly and judging by the huge screen, I chose to sit at the seat farthest from it – team 6.

The quiz began with a dry round with infinite bounce system. Apparently, the quizmaster was dreaming about going back to bed, by forgetting the most basic rule of infinite bounce – the team next to the tem which correctly answered the question gets it.

Round one was pathetic was me and Saumey. We were stuck at zero while others had some points. Arnav was at his usual flamboyant self, of course.

Next round featured negative marking, and we got -10 for getting Camel Case wrong (I confused it with tOGGLE cASE).

It was like that for a while, when the connect round came around. There were five points for identifying each picture and ten for the connect with the scoring being same for all. We managed to scrape together some measly five points in some questions, and boy did it go a long way.

The quizmaster was definitely not paying attention this time as when we answered “This is the first player YouTube used to stream videos” it was not accepted, but when the next team said “This is the first player YouTube used to stream videos online using Flash”, they got it. Another instance was Arnav saying essentially the same thing about some “tables” (something to do with guessing hash keys while guessing) and it was not accepted, while the next team’s answer was, even though it was essentially the same.  Arnav almost looked like he’d found out that Vader was his father.

I think I exaggerated that one a bit. NOT.

Then came the big mega connect for us. We had to connect Nupedia, Jimmy Wales (photo), “quick” and Julian Assange. Of course the connect was Wikipedia and we garnered a lump sum of thirty points. This was crucial to the quiz at it changed everything.

Or so I though. Until the buzzer round spread its wings to cover us all in its mighty wingspan.

Or more appropriately, cover us in its poop.

The main idea of the round was flawed. In buzzer rounds, you’re supposed to see the question and immediately strike the buzzer to answer it. It’s not the vastness of the knowledge that’s being tested here, it’s how quick you can recall it. They didn’t have “quizzing-grade” buzzers installed here; they wouldn’t break circuits. Nor did they use Exun’s strategy of recording it and playing in slow motion. They did have spotters, but that path is never devoid of controversy, you know.

Arnav went totally bonkers here, hitting the buzzer before the question was completed, getting -20, hitting it again for another -20. Even we got a -20, but we covered up with some great answering.

Suddenly at the end of the round, we were with our noses ahead at 80 and others in mid seventies.

My knees started shaking at the prospect of actually winning the first quiz of the season, when the next round showed up. I’d like to call this little tyke “Deux Ex Machina”. Here are the rules

• Plus fifty for the correct answer.
• Minus twenty for the wrong answer.
• Plus thirty for a passed question

See what just happened there? That’s like giving Stoke City a fifty point boost if they score a goal in their last game. This is madness.

So the round started with a tough one (in my opinion) and it got easier later on. Almost all the questions here took up entire slides. Suddenly, we were fourth. The last question of the quiz went to us and it was like requiring four runs of one ball with one wicket remaining.

It was a huge quote about a person “responsible for getting the computer to the masses” speaking about his life-changing experiences with the Homebrew Computer Club.

And guess what. I forgot. I panicked there and knew we had lost it. But Saumey stood there like a white knight in shining armor braces.

“Bhaiya Steve Wozniak bol do. “

“I don’t think that’s right.”

“Arre maine iWoz mein yeh padh rakha hai.”

It was difficult to trust him as he was responsible for that -20 in the buzzer round and another question to which I knew the right answer.

But then, quizzing is all about trusting your partner and we went ahead.

It was right and we WON. Boy was the adrenaline rush massive. Went down the stage feeling like a boss. From -10 to 130 is no mean feat, guys. The win was slightly unconvincing, because of that stupid buzzer round (although it was responsible for saving our skins).

Lots of questions were from Vidit’s book, Saumey and Arnav told me. This was funny as Vidit himself didn’t qualify. BTW, there was one question he could definitely have answered as it was in German and Vidit knows German.

More results started pouring in, and we were quite sure of winning the overall trophy with the first position in the PowerPoint presentation on corruption the kids made, second in LOGO Programming and some other event, and third in some robotics event and VB programming.

When we went on the stage to collect the overall trophy, what we didn’t know was that we had also won a printer! And when we opened it in the Qualis it turned out to be an HP All-in-One which we decided to put in the secondary lab. Now two labs have photocopy machines.

Meena Ma’am didn’t accompany us today and was absolutely astounded at the news about the overall trophy and the printer. We all were.

So a good day for ze Converge Clan. Not a waste of time at all (hope you’re reading this, Dad).

P.S: Anyone has those TCS archives? Please mail: a.crystalunicorn@yahoo.com

Competition Success Review#1: Force Fest Day 1

“Season’s already begun?” asked the crazy beggar, probably as surprised as me. It’s generally Montfort who starts things off by calling all major schools and hosting an awesome event.

Let’s back track a bit. Force Fest was held at Apeejay Sheikh Sarai (I’ve never heard of it before). When the invite first came to school, Meena Ma’am handed it over to His Majesty, the righteous, trustworthy, amazing, perfect and brilliant Shikhar Gautam (who’s also incidentally Head Boy, and many sixth grade kids’ idol “Mein aapki marching se bahut inspired hoon”).

So Shikhar talks with me about this recent development and decides not to go. Which means, we actually had to work hard in the event he isn’t going for (for some context, refer to previous CSR posts and search references to “god”). See, he’s missed lot of school due to VMC’s morning classes. So he figures he can’t afford to miss more.

So anyway, I volunteer to go for the quiz, and Saumey tags along too. I really didn’t expect all the major schools to turn up as well. I did get a hint when Prempal asked Vidit whether they had transport to offer for their school. That was two major quizzers here already.

Eight other kids were accompanying us on Day 1. We were going in our regular good ol’ Qualis.

Getting there was a nightmare. The school seemed light years away from ours and extreme heat only caused that time to expand. Moreover, Jyot Singh had forgotten to service the car air conditioner, which he claims, can chill the entire car within minutes.

Predictably, we got lost and out came everyone’s cell phones with Google Maps. Unfortunately, n00b kids didn’t know having a “maps” icon on your phone doesn’t necessarily mean GPS. An eighth grader got really excited when Google pointed out his location accurate up to five hundred meters. When Vinamra (the only other twelfth grader) were seriously considering to “screw this” and go watch Source Code at PVR nearby in Select Citywalk, we finally found Apeejay… in Saket.

So here’s a question this ignorant author would like an answer to. Which darn school opens two branches within walking distance of each other? (Conditions apply: “walking distance” depends upon one’s physical fitness and may range from a few centimetres to many miles).

Funnily enough, some students were standing near the entrance gate (and we assumed they were welcoming us). What I felt was, presumably, they were actually there to tell others that this was not Apeejay Sheikh Sarai. So after making a phone call to Aditya Kumar of DPS Vasant Kunj (who didn’t have a clue about the directions) we reached the correct school after winding through some really kacha roads.

We were led to the auditorium (which looked really nice). It was a lot like cinema halls in the sense that you sit in the front if you’re the last to come. Since we were behind the chief guest, we were supposed to keep our trap shut. Apparently, the inauguration had already started and the intro video was shown as soon as we entered. No comments on the video (wasn’t really paying attention; was tweeting), but others claim it was “inspired” from ours. (Just a note, Shikhar made the Gateway intro video in one night). The chief guest was someone called Aditya Berlia. Not a spelling error. Or maybe it is, but it’s definitely not Birla. He spoke with an Americanized accent and claimed to be from Stanford. He also spoke a lot about his parties with Facebook’s founder, Orkut’s founder, why the Orkut doesn’t work well anymore (“They’re (founders) are both equally smart. Well Zuckerberg’s a bit smarter actually”). But irrespective of all this, it was the most engaging chief guest speech I’ve ever heard. Aditya asked us about topics ranging from 4chan (/b/ specifically) to cloud computing to Pirates of the Silicon Valley.

Quiz prelims then began, and all major quizzing schools seemed to be there. We were led to some lab with PCs running Windows 2000. I instantly fired up Minesweeper and began, er, sweeping. Papers arrived and we were blown away. Remember my TCS archive (which Shikhar helped in making. Man, he’s everywhere)? There was a question about LinkedIn, and I had included Giri’s quote about it in the question. The question appeared as it is with the quote. I am not kidding. Vidit’s latest book on tech also became the source for some questions (which, thankfully, Saumey had read). Quiz wasn’t that tough; it was made up of questions I was sure I’d read before but couldn’t remember. Like a word involving Monty Python’s Flying Circus (it was “spam”). Once again, Saumey’s tukka of the day did it for us. Apparently, “Elograph” is now known as touch screen. And the boy guessed it. So we totalled up to about thirteen. Then we talked for sometime, and then added more answers (which we later forgot to include in our scores). So thirteen was the official score, according to us. New Era got 18 and Vidit from Manavsthali had 15 with them.

We went back to the audi contemplating the results and watching really boring presentations on corruption in India. (An enthusiastic girl claimed Suresh Kalmadi was recently arrested by the CBSE. Oops CBI.) Results came in, and we qualified along with (apparently) no DPS and no Manavsthali. Montfort, Air Force, Mother’s International, New Era, and some other school got through. Vidit was furious and demanded to know the marks. The quizmaster re checked his paper, and got fifteen. He asked if we were sure with our scores and were okay with disqualification. Of course, I wouldn’t agree to that! Last year of school quizzing here. So he did go and recheck our paper again and informed us we had sixteen. We won fair and square. (High five)! Prempal and Arnav were equally shocked at Vidit’s non-selection (though all of us were secretly happy at getting a good shot at the top prize).

Vidit was sad, but hey, stuff happens. Sorry, Vidit. I might have got a little too selfish there.

Vinamra couldn’t go through to the next round of gaming (Unreal Tournament). He said he forgot to click to respawn, and eliminated in a tight round. We finally made another tedious journey back to school in the sweltering heat. Now for day 2.

P.S: Prempal told me New Era often refuses to provide transport to them for quizzes. Why? Aren’t they like quizzing superpowers? Don’t they win nearly anywhere they choose to put their feet? Arnav said they take sweet revenge by refusing to hand over the overall trophy to their school.

P.P.S: Before we knew his name, we used to called Arnav Mario. Fact. Don’t mind that, Arnav.

Competition Success Review #2: TCS IT Wiz 2009

At long last, TCS IT Wiz finally arrived at Delhi. It felt like the most awaited event of the century. Everyone was waiting for it. And it brought back horrific memories of previous year. I really didn’t want this to happen again. But fate had other ideas.

With the noticeable absence of Mridul, our quizzing team had become relatively weaker. Saumey (my current quizzing partner) is only in ninth-class (which was the same class I was in last year), and he is still raw. But he does have a remarkably wide knowledge field.

Gyaan.in had threads on TCS IT Wiz, and questions on how to prepare about it even before you could say “Giri”. I felt really amused at all this. Because you really cannot “prepare” for this competition. Its that knowledge of all previous years and current affairs snowballed into a large one.

Just the day before TCS (30th October) was Dad’s birthday, so I was up quite late. Next morning, I reached school all excited and jumpy. Meena Ma’am informed me that TCS guys had requested us to send thirty teams. That is not a typo. Thirty teams! Too much. We were sending six. Under no circumstances am I going to list them here. Before leaving, I took Sir Alex Ferguson’s aashirwad. It really helped, though the potency was a little low (he has other important matters at hand as well).

Shikhar and his brother turned up late. He claims he was late and his driver did Burnout-style driving to get him there.

Puts Paul Walker to shame

School arranged only a Qualis for us. They obviously thought twelve people would sit comfortably in a eight-seater. With a driver.

Pictured: Comfort

This was the second-last image. I promise. Second-last.

So we stole Jaikishan’s Civic and Vedant’s Verna, and accommodated people into the Verna (the Civic was for return). It took a lotta time, and we finally reached the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

There was hardly any crowd. My guess was only four-hundred teams. After registration (and a quick chat with New Era guys), we made it to Dogra Hall, and grabbed seats. There was that usual survey and stuff, which could be exchanged for refreshments.

I looked around, and saw that the hall was full. But no people sitting on the floor like last time. Less people, better chances.

Giri made his trademark entry, and announced:

Due to overwhelming response, for the first time in the history of TCS IT Wiz, we are holding two prelims.

My heart sank. So there were a large number of people outside as well! Phew. My estimate was so wrong…

The prelims began, and it was easier than last time. We screwed up on that “decision engine” question, and wrote WolframAlpha, which was a common mistake many made. It was Bing. Saumey was excellent – contributing more than expected. He gave four out of twenty, which is quite good for a ninth class guy. He answered crucial questions like MNP and LinkedIn, which few knew. Kudos, kid.

Then we left for refreshments, and recession was visible. Pathetic food. Miserable sandwich, passable pattice, and, most importantly, Oyes wafers. Yes. OYES! The USP of Oyes was free points on cards, and ten would fetch us another Oyes! We immediately began collecting them, and accumulated eleven! Woot!

The second prelims were underway, and we waited forever. We were looking at the institute (where practically all of us wanted to be). Some kids had reached to the top of a building.

After a really, really long time, it was time to enter Dogra Hall once again. There was lot of pushing, and the entire stairway was jam-packed. TCS volunteers failed to control the crowd, which soon turned into a mob. Now, according to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, a crowd becomes a mob if it breaks something. Naturally, the crowd broke a glass pane, much to the anger of TCS guys.

Meanwhile, Shubham and Arvind did something great. They entered through another gate (which was closed for us, dunno why), pretending to have lost a water bottle.

When we finally reached Dogra Hall, they had reserved an entire row for us. Giri returned, and announced the results.

For the first time,  we have had nine-hundred-and-nine papers to check! I don’t think any quizmaster has had so many papers to check before. First, the answers.

Saumey and I had pretended to have got only eight or nine correct. At the end of the answers, we had got fourteen. Not enough, I thought. Fifteen weren’t enough last time.

Before I announce the qualifiers, I would like to recognize the top ten teams. The team which finished tenth is…

The entire hall is quiet. Nobody even breathes.

… Aditya and Saumey Jain of Montfort School.

NO!

We went on to the stage to collect a t-shirt, a book and a Rubik’s cube.

Which class are you in?

I’m in tenth and he’s in ninth.

To the audience : I just found out that the level of quizzing improves so rapidly in Delhi. These quizzers are from ninth and tenth. Give them a round of applause!

I don’t remember the other teams, but Sopandev from DPS Dwarka finished seventh. What was really agonizing was that he had exactly the same marks as that of the sixth qualifier, but lost out on starred questions.

New Era qualified, but not Prateek’s team! Young Arnav and Apratim had. DPS Noida, who finished second last year, were also on stage. DPS R K Puram qualified yet again, with quizzers from ninth and eighth. That was something. Even Vivek Nair and Karthik qualified; they finished eighth last year.

The finals were really easy. We got seventy percent of the questions right. Especially in the connect round.

DPS Noida won the finals. It was a great experience for all of us.

On the return journey, Shubham disfigured my Rubik’s cube.

Download The TCS IT Wiz 2009 Quiz Finals

I’ve given you the prelims, Now eat the finals. The prelims were compiled by Shikhar, and hosted by me. The finals are compiled and written by Shreyans, and hosted by me. You can now see how I love to take credit for others’ work and boost my blog views.

Download The TCS IT Wiz 2009 Quiz Finals

A small note here. This quiz archive is EPIC. It’s simply awesome! Download it for sure. At. Any. Cost. Shreyans has compiled a truly magnificent archive. Never before have a seen something like this. If possible, print it on photo paper and frame it.

Download The TCS IT Wiz 2009 Quiz Prelims

TCS IT Wiz 2009 was held on 31st October 2009, and 909 teams turned up. I managed to finish tenth out of them (along with Saumey). DPS Noida won this year’s edition of TCS IT Wiz. You can download the quiz prelims here. Quiz finals are being prepared. More later.

Please give Shikhar complete credit for this work. It may have been hosted at my blog and typed by me, he made it a point to write them all down during the quiz (you can improve your handwriting, Shikhar).

Download the TCS IT Wiz 2009 Prelims

Competition Failure Review #1: Dynamix 2009

Thank you for the title, Shikhar.

After what seemed like eternity, Dynamix 2009 came at Ramjas, RK Puram. It was my first quiz of the year, let alone tech symposium, as H1N1 messed up my plans for others. Naturally, I was really excited.

We started out quite late. I had brought my entire collection of Digit magazines with me to pass the time.

Saumey-”Bhaiya, aapne Alienware laptop ka review padha?”

Me-”Nahi. Which month?”

Saumey-”October”

I opened it up to see a shiney ahuja Best Performer award. Because of a 320GB HDD, 4GB RAM, and two GeForce 285 GTX cards running in SLI with a gig of RAM each. Blew my head off!

Reached at about 9.20. Registered and ran for the quiz. Stopped in mid-way. Told to go to Audi. Stopped in midway. Told to go for quiz. Stopped in midway. Finally went to Audi.

As noticeable, Ramjas always has organisation problems. They’re well known for organising the most disorganised fest in the entire universe. They’re known for that in the Andromeda Galaxy as well. (Okay, that went too far). So when we (Saumey and me) eventually reached the quiz destination, it was already on. Problem was, Crossword and Quiz were on the same time. And I was taking part in both. Ashmeet, my Crossword partner, was already in the library. I had to hurry.

Unfortunately, the organisers weren’t too happy with all this.

Houston, we have a problem.

I begged and convinced them to let me participate in both.

“But you have to submit your quiz paper. Only then can you leave.”
But can’t my partner sit here and do the paper?”

“No”

“Why?”

“No”

(audible sigh)”Alright”

“But if you qualify in both, what will you go for?”

“Fat chance”

“But still…”

“I’ll choose at that time”

And so, the quiz began. The written prelim was tough. Not so tough, but tough. Negative marking wasn’t helping. First question was about some NewHoo. Dunno what it was. Lots of MCQs were also there.  Some were copied questions, like the MIME acronym. Remember seeing that in some quiz… There were two questions on MAC addresses.

And there were these to logos to conclude the prelims.

In addition to these being super easy (you’re FAIL if you don’t know these. What are you doing on a tech blog anyway?), we discussed the former one on our way to Ramjas! Nice, eh?

Having no time for pleasant surprises, I left for the Library, when Saumey went to swat flies in the Audi.

The Library is awesome. There are six (no less) split air conditioners there (though none were switched on). Way better than the Montfort library. Ashmeet was coolly doing the paper. He had managed two on twenty. When I was through, I had about eighteen on twenty.

Crossword Prelims was a joke. Just too easy. Repeat questions as well. Remember the clue “Michael went to see ET” at Exun? This one had “Michael, ET, Dell”. So simple. So stupid, being unable to think of another question, as it was there in the quiz prelims.

There was a question about the son of Zeus (four-letter). I’ve never played God of War, so I had absolutely no idea. Wrote “aero” (it fits). Turns out, it was “ares” (thank you, Wikipedia). This question is of little significance here, but look out for quiz finals.

There was another crossword clue which said something like Heroes of the movie 300 and enemies in Halo. Now, I’ve never seen 300. But I’ve played Halo. So I thought it must be the Covenant. They are the enemies in Halo. But didn’t fit. A spoof movie on 300 was Meet The Spartans, so the answer must be Spartans! Good clue, but wait. Spartans may be the heroes of 300, but they were NOT enemies in  Halo! This is a serious error! In fact, they helped defeat the enemies, the Covenant, in Halo Wars. Shikhar confirmed. He’s a big fan of Halo.

Easy prelims felt great, and it put me in another crazy situation. Damn. I’m qualifying for both. Now what?

And the inevitable happened. When Shikhar, Vinamra, Saumey, Ashmeet and me were discussing about an exoskeleton while munching on the world’s most deserving candidate for Shitty Patty of the World, it was announced that we had, indeed, qualified. For both. And both were to start at 11.30.

I requested the authorities with a similar conversation, that I can give the crossword in seven minutes flat, and then go for the quiz. They accepted, on the condition that no one would wait for me at the quiz, and I had to hand over the crossword paper.

Crossword finals were damn tough. Seemed tougher when we did it in seven minutes. Easiest question was “Main Protagonist of GTA4″. Didn’t get simple ones like “First commercial OS”. Also had good clues like “Wolverine was a hacker in this movie” (which was Swordfish were Hugh “Sexy” Jackman was a hacker; courtesy New Era, where Prateek the Great has infused his Wikipedia-sized knowledge).

Anyway, I rushed to quiz, where Saumey was sitting. I made a dramatic entry, skidded to a halt near my table, and sat down. The projection-on-wall displayed “Where are the NVIDIA headquarters situated?”

“Who’s direct?”

“Ours”

“Oh shit…”

“Answer, please?”

“California”

“That’s right. Its Santa Clara, California”

As usual, DPS RK Puram fought.

“Dude, California is like, a state. A huge state”

“But he gave  the answer”

“Dude! Everything is in California!”

“Fine. No points”

Which left me disappointed and breathless (as I had just run a floor downstairs).

The quiz continued, and it made me realise the WTFness of it. None of the questions were transferrable. And, in my breathlessness and disorientation, I forgot what Ray Tomlinson invented. D@mn it.

At the end of the first dry round, RKP was first, we were second, MSM was third, and the other school was fourth.

Next round, connect round. The craziest round of all. There are four images in each question, and answering one gives twenty points EACH. And getting all gives an additional ten points. That’s like ninety for each question, and only ten for first dry round ones. We and RKP were stunned. But it started anyway.

Both RKP and we didn’t get ours. I don’t remember their questions, but I certainly do ours. There was this sun sign, galaxy, and a picture of computers connected across the world. Answer was Ares. Couldn’t think of anything else, Dynafix? As Ares was already there in the crossword?

Next school had some easy question. Seventy points. MSM had the easiest of all. Chrome, Firefox and Tux, and this.

Okay, that was easy. This picture is Freedom Toaster. It’s essentialy for those who a) don’t have unlimited downloads b)who’re too lazy to download and c)both. I’m speaking about Linux distros of course! You take your own blank CD, and Freedom Toaster writes any distro for you. It’s a Mark Shuttleworth initiative, who, for the record, is the guy behind Ubuntu, and has also been to space for a vacation. Gives you the idea he that kind of guy who can afford stuff like this.

Now I knew this one, and offered to answer for no points. There was this guy sitting behind me with a heavily tattooed Dell laptop, and looked like he had made the quiz (not sure).

“That’s Freedom Toaster. You can get distros at that.”

“Correct. But no points”

“I’m not complaining. There’s only one in India. Trivandrum”

At which, that Dell guy shouts

“No. Bangalore”

“Trivandrum”

“Bangalore”

“Trivandrum”

“Bangalore”

“Really? Maybe”

Apart from noticing that both of us used the wrong names for Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram, I had my strong doubts. When I came home, I checked up Freedom Toaster’s site and opted to find a toaster. It produced unsurprising results.

What did I say?

So, kids, listen to the unicorn.

This round changed stuff. Now, MSM was first, the other school was second, RKP was third and we were fourth. Naturally, RKP couldn’t stand themselves losing, so they fought. I support them completely. This was ridiculous. With their pestering (and ours), Ramjas relented. The next round, the audio-visual round, which was to be a hundred points each, would now be only fifty. But no change in previous round. Unfair, I thought, but kept quiet.

In the final round, there was a video with another audio combined together. I really liked this round. The idea was really nice. I don’t care if this was ripped off from somewhere.

RKP got the first chance, and they had that Intel ad music (the USB one) and this awesome speech (in video. The text in the video, not the original video itself)

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them. Disagree with them. Glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world
Are the ones who do

It was a really easy one, and they garnered fifty points. It was Apples Think Different campaign. Of course, I’m not whining that they always get easy ones (it wasn’t really easy. I just chanced to know about this).

Next was our turn. We had some heavy metal soundtrack playing and a war game in the video.

“Wait. I’ve heard this! Yes! It was in the G@teway intro video. Er, no. It wasn’t. Ah! Now I know! Its the soundtrack for Need For Speed Most Wanted“

“Correct. Name the song”

“Er, I’m sorry?”

“Name the song”

“Are you kidding me? There must be fifteen songs in that game, and you exepct me to memorise all the names?

“Alright, I’ll give it to you. And the video”

“Er, I dunno. Call of Duty?”

“No. Army of Two“

So we got fifty points.

I can’t remember what the next school got, but I do remember what MSM got. I think they got The Matrix soundtrack, and a game trailer which said From the 2007 Game of the Year.

“Er, Crysis“

“Alright”

DPS-”Wrong! They said Crysis. Its Crysis Warhead“

“Yes it is. No points”

At which RKP was jubliant. They had won, and that is why they wanted MSM to get it wrong. MSM were second, and we were fourth. We fought against that stupid points system, and signed our own death warrant. Sob.

Shikhar, Vinamra and Karan couldn’t get anything at S.Y.N.C.E.D, although they did have a cheesy concept. They ran out of time. Also, I was told, Ramjas had a trial version of Fruity Loops. How diabetic.

According to unofficial results, we came third in the crossword. New Era was second, and RKP was first. There were other events the next day, including the answer to this PJ.

Q: Woh kya hai jo Ravan akele kar sakta hai, par Ram nahi?

A: Group discussion.

Didn’t get anything in that as well. And others. In the end, Montfort returned empty handed from Ramjas, as they did not have a third prize, which is bad. I always get third in every Ramjas event.

Now I found out why I go to Dynamix. Apart from criticizing poor management, they do have a great quiz and crossword. Trust me. Quiz was actually very good and so was crossword, apart from the obession with certain stuff like gaming. But poor management let such a great event down. I just hope it gets better next year. Congrats to DPS RK Puram, though. Although they did fight at the quiz, they answered superbly. They deserved to win it, and the overall trophy as well.

Dynamix guys promised they’d upload answers on their website. I don’t think they’ve kept their promise.

If you’re still reading this uber-long post, thank you for having the patience. Happy belated Diwali, guys.

Delhi Dareport

I was travelling to Bengaluru from Delhi on the 16th of May (you all following @crytalunicorn on Twitter would know), and here is an honest review about the entire trip.

My flight was a Jet Airways DEL-BLR at six-thirty in the morning. I know. “Tasty food” bubbles pop up in my mind too, whenver I think about Jet Airways. Naturally, I left home by four and reached by five. This song was playing on my Xplod in the morning:

Alvida… Alvida…

Teri Yaadein Alvida

Ab Tune Keh Diya Toh

Alvida…

As if bidding goodbye to me. Sob. Sob. I’ll miss you Delhi!

Now,  Dad dropped me and mom off at departures. The airport was different than last year. Jet and many other flights are in Terminal 1D. Also, when you enter the airport, the check-in-cum-baggage-drop-off counter is just at your right, not inside another complex. Thats plus points, as it is easier to access than before. God knows about the commotion there during peak hours. I had a friggin’ morning flight!

I had three suitcases to drop-off, and I looked expectantly at the workers to lift them and put them on the conveyor belt. No luck. I did it myself, and cut my middle finger, which healed in twenty-five seconds. I tried to be extra-careful with the bag housing my PlayStation.

Now, to security check. When I was getting checked, one two three people were standing a millimetre behind me, which is wrong, as you should stand behind the yellow line. Naturally, the security guard ushered them away.

I put my wallet and phone in that tray and pushed it through. On the other side, I found it missing. It was not at its usual place, but with a police officer, who was examining the wallet carefully. There was nothing about the phone, which he could examine. After the tragic demise of my 7610 Supernova which suffered from a bad case of pneumonia, I am using a 3315. Back to the basics, I must say.

I went to that guy.

Me-”Ahem!”

He-”Kya hai?”

Me-”Woh wallet mera hai.”

He-”Le le.”

Me-”Aur phone bhi.”

He-”Toh main kaunsa apne paas rakh ke puja kar raha hoon?”

After grumpy looks were exchanged between both of us, I finally got it back.

Next up, waiting time. Bad time. There are so many things to buy around you, and all at double the rates. Wow. There were about twenty-five minutes remaining for the departure of my flight, and my stomach was grumbling. My eyes fell on (Mmm!) 21 Baker Street. Not exactly Sherlock Holmes, but a sweet smelling bakery. Me and mom gobbled up a (very heavy) fruit cake and choco-fantasy each, when we realised that only fifteen minutes were left for the flight to take off, and we still had not received the boarding call. I rushed to the monitor up ahead and it said “Now Boarding”.

Damn.

We ran out and found no boarding gates. I asked the Jet Airways Customer Desk and she told me to go down. Another change. The boarding gates are now on the floor below, and not on the same floor as the waiting room. We got down, went into the bus (a rather small one) and travelled nearly seventeen minutes on the runway to reach the plane.

Finally, we’re in (Economy Class) and there’s a JetScreen in front of me. JetScreen is Jet Airways’s in-flight entertainment touch-screen console. Movies, music, documentaries and flight information on demand. Obvoiulsy, it wasn’t working as the plane hadn’t taken off as yet. I read the in-flight entertainment guide, and was surprised to see a large number of movies on board! Slumdog Millionaire, Ghajini, Valkyrie, Dostana, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, etc. But, sadly, none of these were available in reality. On a second look at the guide, I found out that these were only on international routes. Only Billu, Fashion, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and a few others were there. Seen all. Now what? I settled with an episode each from Sarabhai vs Sarabhi and The Simpsons. Then I played some bowling and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The latter was amazing! It had all three lifelines! A virtual friend to whom you can talk to, was also there. It was great. Unfortunately, the headphones I was provided were faulty. Thankfully, I exchanged them for new ones. They definitely aren’t comfortable, but I had no alternative, as my headphone along with my iPod had been packed rather foolishly in some suitcase.

The food was good, but I was full to eat anything. Overall, the flight was comfortable, but the entire experience itself was not.

Landed at Bengaluru airport about a minute late. Thats okay. Got off from the aerobridge, and landed at a beautiful-looking arrival area. Baggage claim was a breeze, and I had all three suitcases in five minutes flat. Its good.

My rating of this plane experience: 3.3/5

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