A tale of rotten luck, a rotten number 1, and revenge served cold

Its been a rather bittersweet day the recent Saturday (26/7/2008). Computer Assembling Competition in conjunction with the opening of the "NEW" library near Convent or something like that.
Don't ask me where. I screwed Geography since PMR ended.


6.50 am
Arrived in school, and I brought my handphone to school on a normal school day for the 1st time (albeit one where I won't be in school the whole day). And there was assembly. Unexpected. And student turnout (attendance) is.... great, as expected. At least 2 form 4 classes had only one (yes, ONE) student each.
Cluster school mah, what to expect?


8.00 am
Made my last brief appearance in class before flashing my designer ID permit to leave class, school etc. The gang of me, Samuel, Yogaraja, Faadzilah (or something like that) and a form 4 girl (I was too caught up with the whole thing until I forgot the essentials) went to the computer cabin, and found out from En.Zamri that some smart alec decided to roast the fibre optic cable outside the cabin with a matchstick. And heres the best part, the reason?






"Good for health"






-.-






So yeah, a detour to the computer lab.

Y'know, is this thing safe....?

Really smart people. Playing pinball's part of the preparation, eh?

9.30 am.
Went for a quick bite in the canteen while waiting for ol' Mr.Zamri to emerge, somehow.

Happier days.

Took him long enough though. Only really appeared at approximately 10.20am and headed straight for the ...urghh book filled warehouse library, somewhere near Convent, so I was told.

I just had to take this en' route

Took just 5 minutes to get to the library. yay. And thats from SSI.




Okay, well fact is...




Premise 1 : Libraries are (usually) all about books.
Premise 2 : I don't do books









Conclusion : I don't do libraries.







I like (modern) maths.
Sometimes.






But at least the library has a few computers to jam on. Not that I'd care, I have my own blazing fast 500 mbps broadband connection at home.

Mr. Zamri demonstrates how to use the Internet -.-





I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do this. I doubt I'll ever get the chance to do this again.



Group pic. Pre-competition.

Double pic of the briefing

And then it came to drawing lots to determine who goes into the 1st, 2nd or 3rd batch. Theres 5 computers, 15 people. So yeah, 3 batches, you work the math. And guess what I got when I drew (the last, remaining number)

1

Foul number, that. From the moment I saw that, I effectively gave up hope on gunning for top 5 and decided to adopt a "surveying" strategy.

This ain't as easy as it looks.

The "computer assembling comptetition" (for lack of better name, its a direct translation) consists of 5 sections.
1) Inserting the parts
-RAM
-Floppy
-CD drive
-Hard disk
-Connectors.

2) Installing drivers
3) Change the resolution to 800x600
4) Create new username, log off, and log in again with the newly created username
5) I can't remember, I didn't get anywhere near here. Hmm.. maybe its the log in again part.




The catch? 15 minutes.



Ok, well being the one of the 1st few to set the ball rolling, surveying and relaying info to the team was all I could realistically do. Only did the 1st section, and a bit of the 2nd section. 2 marks for each computer part assembled properly, and 1/2 for the "lil bit of the 2nd". So 10 1/2 marks. Which was one of the lowest. Heck, nobody from the 1st batch got into the top 5. Predictable, really.

Samuel struts his stuff

But sadly, because of the rather well hidden "power" button, he wasted 6-7 minutes wondering why his computer didn't start, with the sponsoring staff telling him its the RAM, and then the hard disk, when in fact..


He didn't press the power button. Wasted, really. Sam could've been in contention for top 3, even, if not for that unfortunate incident. One dude from SAB finished the whole thing with a matter of seconds remaining. Hmm...







...and SSI's hopes rest squarely on the shoulder of one man, from a place called India...

Yogaraja. And his magic fingers.

He finished the whole thing. with 1/2 a minute to spare.










But he missed the floppy drive.







Or he could've gotten 1st place. Hands down. Such rotten luck, you have to agree.

Group pic post-competition.
Note the 2 fingers of mine above Mr. Zamri's head. el classico

Receiving the award

2nd place chum.

Mr Zamri's honours.



2nd post-competition group pic

Me and the 1st placed dude.



The certificate.
read:sedunia (worldwide) *beams*

Rare glimpse of Mr Zamri chomping on his food.
I ate more than him. 2 plates of chicken rice to his one.

So, it was a little disappointing that things didn't go our way, but Yoga exacted revenge on the tuesday (yesterday, at time of posting) when the top 3 placed participants re-do the same computer, in front of the MB (mentri besar, to those who don't know) and he came out THE fastest at approximately 2 1/2 minutes, while the 3rd placed guy gave up, and the 1st placed guy just chugged through the whole thing.




All in front of reporters, photographers, and what not.





Revenge served cold







And Yoga received a new SIM card, and 2 RM100 reload cards from DiGi on that day!!!!!! WTFFFF!!!!!















WHERES MINE?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!???!?!?!!?!??!