Behind the scenes at Code Wars 2006

The Code Warriors are all set for Code Wars 2006, loads of work done in the past few days, so I thought with just one day left, might as well give you all a peek into out preparations.

• …It was done at a short notice, with the school not at all ready in the beginning to allow us to hold it. However, some good performances at some other schools, and a postponement of the annual day function later, we finally got permission with just two weeks to go. It was a pretty tough job to get our act together at such a short notice, as can be well imagined.
• …Then started the search for sponsors, which anyway, becomes difficult when students are asking for it that too from some of the top companies, at such a short notice. We made some useful inroads into some major companies, but finally our Vice Principal herself got Airtel onboard.
• …Work then began on the schedule and the events to be conducted, since needed to get the invites sent to schools, and quick! From the beginning, it was evident that we did not have enough members to keep all events from last year, so we improvised, and on my insistence did ‘unthinkable’ things like merging multiple events into one, and deleting some. However, I did think up a new event to make up for it, an integrated media event with loads of work to do.
• …Trying to do something bold, we decided to ask for a logo change, and especially of the official font Jokerman, and we got it done to. We got a scarier looking font, and a (not so good looking) mascot too, but all that had to be hastily deleted and reverted back to the old times when the Vice Principal screamed her head off (a rare thing) at us for doing that.
• …Then there was our HoD Bani ma’am, with her constant Banimathlon-ish torrent of shouts tinged with large dollops of Bengali on how we all were lazy and she would take a holiday the next time. I had to (quite a few times) stop her from spelling my name the Bong way in lists as Onkoor, I really hate that indeed. She also preferred to call our our photographer Waris as Baaris, which felt like I’d landed in Russia and someone named Boris needed to be screamed at for no reason at all. It does become funny when she speaks with that Bengali accent, but at least she keeps us going at our job. 😉
• …Code Warriors president Anshul, who went through serious problems, having not told at his house about the event, and having tremendous neck pain (he couldn’t move his head for many days). Must say though, he’s really dedicated since he still did a lot of work.
• …Over the past two weeks, I’ve hardly attended any classes, in fact none at all. I didn’t miss a lot in some, since board practicals were going on, but I’m in real deep shit now, upto my neck in it, since I’ve missed MORE chapters, and those are ones which’ll come in unit tests soon. :'(
• …I got to work on the school’s server (that’s a first in school history – no other student has even got to touch it till now), that’s where all the mark and papers are stored. Of course, being an angel I never even clicked on the database icon on the desktop, even when I was all alone. It was an HP Proliant double core Intel Xeon processor, which handles our school’s multiple networks. I needed it to convert two large .dat movie files to .mpg for our media-based event. On a normal top-end PC available in the market, that might have taken hours, or more than one day even, but that beautiful li’l baby did it in just over an hour. Virus scan of a 600 MB file, done in 8 seconds flat. Now THAT is what I call powerful processing. 😀
• …Networks gave a lot of pain to us, but then the school finally woke up from its slumber and called a network engineer on the last day. After that, installation of software was a breeze.]
• …400 certificates got printed in our new logo, and had to be rejected. We’ll be in trouble for that.
• …’LAN testing’, er, gaming happened a lot, since we all played loads of games under the guise of ‘testing the network’.
• …You-Know-Who was pissed off at me, for getting him into trouble by adding some, er, ‘requirements‘ in the duty list. LMAO. He is REALLY pissed off at me.
• …Getting a new Code Warriors website, at an unbelievably low priced hosting by bidding on eBay. Finally we have our own online garbage dump, plus personalized email addresses too. Oh yes, and for the first time, I found a new plural for viruses in my online scanner for the site – virii.
• …Making the quiz and crossword prelim papers were real fun, and I’m sure the participating teams will enjoy them too. 😉
• …We have full-length movies loaded in the school computers! Not even the Code Warriors knew that!
• …Wasted more than 17 reams of paper, and a full printer cartridge in useless stuff.
• …Fights for the lone PC with Windoze XP in the internet lab, within the CW members, and the 3Cs were highly amusing.
• …The Consumer Care Council (3Cs) are having a hilariously titled ‘Confest 06’. Sounds like it’s going to be an event where they’ll con people. Idiotic naming, despite the absurd logic that ‘con rhymes with consumer’. It’s exactly the same flawed logic people who own the worst domain names use.

So long for now, and be there at the biggest computer symposium in town. 18th and 19th of December 2006. Code Wars. It’s soBIG…