needlessly messianic articles written by ankur banerjee on anything that catches his fancy, which is quite a lot indeed - stuff like tech, quizzing, h2g2 - and cups of filthy liquid almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea
This was an idea which Prashanth came up with - having a meet of all the geeks and quizzers who’ve been competing with each other over the past few years in the school competition circuit. A brilliant idea it is too, to give a forum where ‘the Delhi geeks and quizzers batch of 2008′, ‘alumni’ of the same, and ‘juniors’ currently in school can get to meet each other; and get to know each other before everyone leaves for their colleges (or prepares to drop a year). Thus came up the idea for a Pan-Delhi Geeks’ and Quizzers’ Meet.
Right now, there’s a venue issue - we have none - so this is being kept an informal meet with no particular agenda. Basically going to be a ‘working lunch’ sort of meeting at some restaurant, at Connaught Place - chosen on popular demand for having a central location. The meeting is currently scheduled to be held on 5th July 2008, time is 11am to 3pm, and the current meeting point is PVR Plaza, CP. For more, visit the Upcoming page for this event. PVR Plaza is simply going to be the meeting point, because CP is a big place and this is a good landmark everyone can get to. The actual restaurant (not at the end of the Universe) we end up going to would be dictated by the number of people turning up and the vacancies, but going by the current list - 14 have confirmed they’re coming till now, and one week left for more people to join in - I’d say that the Nirula’s, Outer Circle CP might be a place which will be able to accomodate an expected turnout of 20-25 people - other places, I don’t think they’ll be able to accomodate that many. Still, any suggestions are welcome. Oh, and since nobody is sponsoring this, everyone chips in to the bill.
I think an informal meet for the first such event ever is a good idea, where people can get to know and socialize. If this turns out to be successful, we could have follow-up meets with some actual agenda. Of course, there will be some quite interesting alumni to meet too. People like, say, Pony, who’s also back in Delhi, and can tell us that the grass is indeed greener on the other side (over at Aston City). Or Ankit Sud, a brilliant tech quizzer currently at NSIT, probably the best tech quizzer Delhi has seen.
I don’t know if anyone from this ‘batch’, or other people who turn up, will go on to become the Next Big Guy In Tech. Or maybe, it will be just that many more meetings like these will get held in such fine restaurants that the whole batch dies out of cholesterol poisoning.
People who’re interested in participating in this event can look up more details and discussions on the Upcoming page for this event. To give suggestions, use the discussions there. If you’re a student / alumni who’s been there in the Delhi computer symposiums / quizzing circuit, join in! There’s just ONE request - IF you’re attending / planning to attend the event, please click on the “I’m Going” / “I’m Watching” buttons and add your name. We really need to know at the meeting point whether everyone has turned up, and possibly inform any stragglers on the event day where we’re leaving for from the meeting place. For any clarifications, use the comment feature on Upcoming, or get in touch with me.
Over The Hedge (Yahoo! Movies page) My Rating:B+ (Memorable) - on the Yahoo! Movies rating scale Cast (voices): Bruce Willis, Avril Lavigne, Garry Shandling, Steve Carrell Directed by: Tim Johnson, Karey Kirkpatrick Studio: Dreamworks Animation
Before the much-interrupted Euro 2008 semi-final between Germany and Turkey began, I was watching this movie on HBO, one I’d seen earlier. Way better than people droning on and on in the studio, asking and answering rhetorical questions. It’s an animated flick about animals, starring Bruce Willis, called Over The Hedge. It’s a movie by Dreamworks, which IMO, makes much more funnier movies than Pixar ever does. Pixar movies humor is aimed for the level of toddlers, concentrating more on cuteness of characters than humor - like Cars. Dreamworks’, on the other hand, uses loads of puns - think Shark Tale, Madagascar, Over The Hedge - which I quite enjoy. Quite amusing to see hear Bruce Willis in a comedy movie; the fact that he’s voicing the main character (of a raccoon called RJ) itself makes me burst out laughing, as you expect him to start spitting out “Yipee Ki Yay, mother-f***er” any time during the narrative.
Watch the Over the Hedge trailer
Of the story itself, Over The Hedge is quite enjoyable, presenting the world from the viewpoint of little critters who forage around in human suburbs for food. It’s a different scale at which these small animals view the world, and the movie brings this out beautifully. Animation quality is superb, especially the facial expressions of Bruce ‘RJ Raccoon’ Willis. Other funny characters are that hyperactive squirrel (voiced Steve Carrell; I really liked this character, after Bruce Willis’, that is), and the skeptical tortoise (voiced Gary Shandling). I rather thought that they under-used the talent of Avril Lavigne (a possum named Heather) in the movie, could’ve done a lot more. Still, in the end, the thing which I liked the most was the humor.
Exactly how much - too much - current media relies on technology became clear in today’s Euro 2008 semi-final match between Germany and Turkey. But first, the match. Germany WON, 3-2! Yay! There were times when Turkey did look to be giant killers, but Germany showed their class by outclassing Turkey is spectacular style towards the end of the match. There were times after that thrilling Netherlands vs France 4-1 match that I thought of finding a new team to support, i.e., Netherlands, because Germany was in very grave danger of not qualifying; but today’s match shows why Germany is such a strong contender for the cup.
Michael Ballack doesn’t like Flying Turks?
Which brings me to the ‘towards the end of the match’ bit. ESPN (and I later came to know, ALL broadcasters around the world) lost their coverage not once, not twice, but THRICE during the second half of the semi-final. It was really really irritating. At one point when the feed was lost, the score was tied at 1-1, and when it came back on after a few minutes, it was 2-2! Argh! What was more frustrating that they had footage of ONLY the Turkish goal which was done during that blackout period - the one by Miroslav Klose which had taken Germany to 2-1 was lost. Even the boffins back at the studio had NO idea what had gone wrong and what was happening in the match. There were simply a few whispers they made about “maybe losing electrical power”.
Later we got the whole story. The problem was not at Basel, Switzerland where the match was being held; but at the broadcasting centre at Vienna which was uplinking the feed via satellite to every other broadcaster. Apparently, there was an electrical storm, plus a good dose of lightning strikes at the broadcast centre which simply took the whole power out. THRICE during the match. And because it was the place everyone was getting data from, it also meant that Internet services which were providing score / match tracking were taken clean out of the picture. It still doesn’t explain the fact why even later they didn’t have the footage of the missing bits, because THAT would have been taken on film I guess. I didn’t stick around listening to clueless commentators though, so maybe they did get that stuff much later.
‘Twas agonizing, but also quite funny in a sense. The people back at the ESPN studio had absolutely NO clue what was going on…or what on earth to talk about during the blackout. If those blackout periods had lasted a bit longer, they’d probably have had to resort to talking about their pet cats for all we know. Even they had their sense of humor though…
We’re getting some reports that this loss of the video feed has been caused by a ‘lightning strike’. Now we’re assuming that’s ‘lightning’, the weather phenomenon, rather than people going on a sudden strike…
ESPN’s cover was blown on another issue too - the ‘laptops’ they keep in the studio. Hewlett-Packard is one of the sponsors of ESPN, and they’d kept these laptops in prominent display in the studio. Probably plastic dummies, because they’re NEVER used. Even in this particular situation, it became pretty apparent that it was only for show, as the four people in the studio sat twiddling their thumbs - couldn’t use the ‘laptops’, could they?
Particularly frustrating was not being able to catch the winning moment. Yes, the feed came back on to show the goal which the score to 3-2 in Germany’s favor, but the feed was lost again. The situation was so pathetic, that ESPN had to resort to showing videos of fans waiting outside the stadium - probably shot through a cellphone and uploaded on the Web - during the final moments of the game.
