Murphy strikes...

Those who've read my last post(or who know me personally) will know that I was pretty fired up about doing the 1st Online Round of the Google Code Jam. After practicing dozens of division 1 problems in the TC practice rooms, I was ready to give it one hell of a whirl. Unfortunately, fate had other ideas...

The event was scheduled for 6:30 AM out here in India, and registrations closed at 6:25. Having done several SRMs at this time, I had a good routine worked out - wake up at 6, turn on the computer, wash up, come back and register, and then compete.

Everything went fine until the "Come back and register" part. The first thing I noticed was that my broadband connection was down. Congratulations Sify, you've done it again. Heaving a sigh, I switched over to dialup, which is at least reliable, though terribly slow in comparison.

Having connected, I fired up the Arena and...everything froze. Even the good old three fingered salute failed to work. Cursing at no one in particular, I rebooted, and repeated the process.

Five exactly similar tries later, my curses were no longer that vague...

And finally, on the last try, I glanced at the clock and knew that it was a lost cause - 6:27...far too late. And once again, it hung...Now thoroughly annoyed, I turned the damn thing off, swore eternal vengeance, and went back to sleep. Was in no mood to go to college after this crap...

I've sent a message to the Code Jam group asking if I've lost the t-shirt. Would be a real shame if I did - at my level, you know you don't have a shot at the onsite event, so it's all about the t-shirt, really...

Let's see what happens - after all, I'm dealing with a company whose motto reads "Don't be evil." Google, don't let fate cheat me out of the t-shirt, please!

And before someone comments to say "Look on the bright side," the only bright side I can see is that I probably should be able to stay on in division 1 for a while now. That practice should hold me in good stead - I hope. I still have issues with advanced recursion problems...

Let's see what happens...Until then, I'll stop racking up a phone bill and go read CLRS...

PS: I have no idea what's going on, but my TC rating is now up to 1242 from 1240(which jumped from 1238)...what are the admins doing anyway? Have they found more cheaters, or what?