This is the promised update of all the news from November 2003 onwards!  As usual, I will go week-wise...

• Fri-Fri, 7-14 Nov: On 7th, my senior Arun Ravindran and myself were working on ASP because we would need to use it on the BrandScan website.  We made some breakthroughs that day, as we figured out how to connect to the database on the server and create tables there, while almost working blind (we only had some older pages from the site for reference).  On 8th, I watched Blue Streak on HBO, and Phone Booth on 11th.  On 12th, the preliminary version of the BrandScan Demographic Management Counter Software (referred to as the DMC software from now on) was completed.  Much of the code on this was written by me.  The next task that would need to be done by Systems Committee (Arun, Anjani, IK and me) was the Corporate Login part of the BrandScan website.
• Sat-Fri, 15-21 Nov: This week was spent in preparation for BrandScan 2003, TAPMI's annual market research fair.  You can get an idea of what BrandScan is all about at the site, but in brief, what happens is that several companies give us projects on certain research that they want to be done (like finding consumer behaviour while purchasing a product).  All the students are divided into teams and each team would be given one project - they have to design games that people will play, so that the required data can be obtained.  These games are all part of the big fair that people around Udupi, Mangalore and Manipal would attend and play, unaware that they are actually being surveyed.  The team that I was part of was Team UB (United Breweries).  Through most of this week the team created the games and the ambience for the stall that we would be given.  Each stall had it's own theme - ours was Oktoberfest.  I was more involved in the ambience part of it all, I painted posters that would be put up in the stall.  This preparation went on in the nights through the week.  The next thing that was made ready before BrandScan was the above mentioned Corporate Login part of the site, where the project leaders could post progress reports, which could be viewed by the company contacts.  This was written mostly by me again in ASP.  On 17th I spent some three hours (3:30 PM - 6:30 PM) writing the code without checking it, then spent another one and a half hours (8:15 PM - 9:45 PM) in a browsing centre uploading it all and fixing it (because FTP is disabled on our college computers!).  A couple of days later I spent another one and a half hours incorporating some aesthetic and other fixes.  A couple of other things (non-BrandScan!) that happened during the week - I got a big collection of MIDIs and the complete version of fortune thanks to Arun.  Also, Curt Roff of Anternicy emailed me and I got to see my Nasty Little Thing drawing used as the cover of their album Anterni Creature!
• Sat/Sun, 22/23 Nov (BrandScan 2003): BrandScan 2003 was held at the MJC Grounds just opposite our college over the two days, and it was a great event.  We had the maximum number of projects (15) this year as compared to the previous ten years of BrandScan!  Much of the time I was at the Demographic Management Counter (DMC) at the entrance, where the DMC software would direct people to different stalls depending on their profile.  Apart from the stalls for the various projects, we had other events like a Rock competition, a magic show, etc.  The convenor of this year's BrandScan was Navin Narendran.  The show went off spectacularly, and was appreciated by all.  I also got the official BrandScan 2003 T-shirt.
• Mon-Sun, 24-30 Nov: I got a new CD-RW drive (LG GCE-8525B 52x 32x 52x) on 24th.  That day I wrote a CD in the hostel (one of the second floor computers has a CD writer) with photos from BrandScan 2003 (taken by Tarun Kohli), several MP3s from the network, the fortune program and the MIDIs I spoke of earlier, and Doom Builder v1.01.  On 25th, I watched Panic Room again on CD, on 27th, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me again on HBO.  On 29th I was actually in the mood to watch a low budget horror or science fiction movie, so I asked the video CD shop guy for Hardware.  Heh, the guy was puzzled - and seeing the look on his face I decided against asking him if he had Trancers 2!  I rented Memento instead, and watched it that night (actually 30th, 2 AM).  This was an amazing movie.  Finally, on 30th, I was preparing for the End Term exam in Management Accounting.  But I also downloaded some Doom stuff, like Cyb's Massmouth 2, ZDoom 2.0.57, Doom Legacy v1.41 and the much-awaited surprise release of Fredrik Johansson's Vrack 3.  I also had a look at my friend Nagesh's site, and the new site theme that Varun made for me (a surprise!).

To keep the updates from becoming unmanageably huge, I will write about December's news in another post!

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