The final day of Modem started off on a busy note for me, as I came running in from an Exun prelim (Exun deserves its own post, so read that later). To greet me (rather me and my quiz partner Prannoy) where Bombardo and rest of the troop.
The quiz started off really late. Our major contenders on stage Mothers International school and DPS Mathura Road, out of the 6 teams that had qualified. The others were Monfort, Apeejay (NOIDA) and Mount Carmel. The first direct was an easy one for me, and gave us a crucial boost as I’d doubled (double is like is a question is for 10 marks with no negatives and you double, then if you get it right +20 otherwise -10). In the same round though, MIS took a big lead on passed ones. Over the next few rounds, their lead increased while we tried to play catch up (at one point, we were 5th!). Disappointing was that our hardware guy Prannoy missed a few sitters.
Then came a round where everyone used up their challenge card, except us (a challenge is when you are asked a question and you ‘challenge’ another team to answer it, if they get it right, +40 otherwise -10 to that team). That was a round which saw a reduction in scores, but MIS still retained the lead. Our strategy in not using the challenge card when everyone else had was to save it for the last round, and use it to our advantage in final position. This was also the round where we messed up big time, where Prannoy, thinking he’d been challenged a second time, gave an answer out-of-turn, and it was picked up by another team.
With a bleak scenario, then came the savior question – on the origin of the Apache server. I gave a pretty spirited answer, arms flailing and we got it. It was a double, so it took us closer to the lead. Followed by a few passes, and we were back in business.
The last round was a rapid fire round, and I was disgusted that the fools conducting it had not told us the challenge card could not be used in that round. Anyway, the round was good, and in the end we ended up a close third, with MIS first and DPS MR second.
Analysing our performance, I’d say never to let Prannoy facing away, because he keeps thinking on his, and then gives a ‘mujhe bolne nahi diya’ after I give an answer. 😉
The other events like PodRadio didn’t go well. What disappointed the CW team the most was Abhimanyu’s loss in the gaming event (on an Xbox!). I knew Modem was going out of our hands, so when there was a clash with Exun we sent our junior team there. One guy did come back for the hardware event with Prannoy, but we didn’t get a position in that.
Overall, at Modem 2006 we came third, with Apeejay coming first and MIS second. We could have done better, if we had more podium finishes in other events too.
What made us angry though was the fact that we did not get any prizes for the events that we DID win. We’d gone in to a lot of trouble to go for Modem despite having Exun, that too because Modem President Aman Gupta had stated “…you know our prizes…” and they’ve a history of giving away good prizes. Not this year. Maybe the sponsors, Microsoft were stingy this year.
On a lighter note, the event was a nice one. We were shown the entries of PodRadio (a podcasting event), Movie Making and DJ Mix. Must applaud DPS MR for a tremendously funny podcast (and the only ones to understand the meaning of podcasting correctly). Movie clips were not that good, although the ones who came second had done well. DPS MR again played the goofy card by making a movie WHOLLY consisting of kissing scenes from ‘Friends’. The remixes from the DJ event were pathetic though, given they got a library of 180 songs to choose from for a five minute clip.
Microsoft showed us why it makes crappy software, aptly demonstrated by its head in India who came during the prize distribution ceremony. He had no idea what features his own software had, neither did his engineers, and he even accepted his daughter had found ‘new’ features of which apparently his staff had no clue. Shows why not to trust Microsoft. Also, he was under the illusion that Microsoft applications were used in the events, when actually most of them were done on open-source ones.
My pal Prannoy though was greatly disappointed about this being his last Modem (hopefully), since he won’t get to see [quote] ‘that ultra-hot and cute teacher’ [unquote] of Modern anymore. He took a detour while coming down from stage after getting his prize to speak to her too. So sad Prannoy… 😉