Act I, Scene 4: Goodbye Peabody, Hello Red Roof

31^st May 2011.

Last night Rudy had slept along with us in our room. We woke up today morning to the feeling of having missed something. Also, there was an accounts bill of like $19.45 for some apparent in-room movie that we had ordered on the 28^th. The thing is, we hadn't ordered any of the movies, but had just browsed through whatever was there. And yes, it is possible to order Adult Content from your room in the hotel. No, we did not order any. So we thought we'd first meet NG since he was supposed to be leaving before us, and then we'd head down to breakfast. When we went to his room though, he was taking a shower, so we decided to just proceed on down to breakfast.

During breakfast, we discussed a number of things. Rudy said that next year's ICPC would not be as grand as this since it would be hosted in the University of Warsaw, and not in some grand convention hotel. “It would just be about monuments and history and art and all, not like rides and theme parks etc.” I argued that the 'crowd' would be better in a University. Rudy started arguing further, but Nikhil got what I was hinting at. “Its not as if you're gonna be served by old uncles and aunties in brown costumes all day...” Later, after the main food, Rudy took a bowl of milk, and looking at it, said, “This is so beautiful. Look at it, so pure and white.” We picked that up and started calling him a racist, to which he responded that its his personal preference what he likes and what he doesn't, and that that should be called racism. Nikhil then pointed out that its not a personal choice of what you like, but its the twisted nature of that personal choice, and the fact that the twisted nature comes out of what society defines as being twisted and harmful.

After breakfast, we bumped into NG in the hallway, and he told us that last night's trip was lots of fun and that he too enjoyed it. After the short chat with him, we went up to the lobby and got the accounts sorted out. We explained to the girl at the counter that we hadn't ordered for any movie, and asked for some details of the movie that we had supposedly ordered. She pressed some buttons on the computer and after a little while of button-pressing, she said that she had canceled the account. Its an interesting culture that whatever the customer says is right, or whatever the tourist says anyhow.

Having finished that, we thought that we should atleast do some exploring of the place before leaving. We explored the lobby level, and found an artificial waterfall place next to a little fountain kind of thing (not a fountain, but rather the flowers in the middle with water around it on the lower level). There was a piano near, but I didn't feel like trying it then, having no camera on any of us. We further went up to the mezzanine level, and got a better view of the place from there. Further up was the Recreation level which had the pool, the tennis court, the “duck gardens” and a lounge and all. We toured that place a bit and then decided to head back to our rooms to pack and all.

Packing is truly one of the most procrastinatable jobs in the history of to-do's. We delayed it till around 11 am and had the cleaning lady knock on our door before we decided to hurry up and clear out. We finally did check out of our rooms at 12, and then went around taking photos of the place. By then however, the piano was put on automatic-mode and was playing stuff on its own. We did manage to get photos of the Peabody ducks at that water-place, wading about, drinking lazily. The view of the buildings from the outside, at the tennis court was also extremely brilliant. They also had a miniature model of the entire hotel on the Recreation level which we captured.

The Peabody Ducks

Miniature model of hotel.

We finally headed back to our luggage, after all the pictures, and decided to sit online for a little while since we didn't want to end up arriving at the next hotel too early. In the end, after Nikhil's laptop battery ran out, we left. We went to the concierge to ask them to try getting us a cab, and they said, “Just walk out and the valet will call a cab for you there.” We had slight misgivings that this might be a private car that the 'valet guys' would call out, but it turned out to be a normal public cab only. We told him we wanted to go to Red Roof Inn at Kissimmee, and he keyed it into his GPS system, and we were off. Its very interesting the way they work with GPS. Its like every single thing, upto which lane to drive in, how far to the next turn and what you are turning into etc, is all described vocally by their GPS system. Its funny imagining how they got by a few years ago before all this GPS thing. The driver was very friendly, and was asking Nikhil about India a lot. He couldn't seem to believe that India had some stuff as good as America though. Like highways. He was very obliging and gave us a booklet of all tourist attractions around Orlando for free.

We finally reached our hotel, the Red Roof Inn which is a far cry from the grandeur of the Peabody. The guy at the lobby was very helpful, (er, i mean very enthusiastic), and for every little bit of information he gave us, he was nodding his and bobbing his head like its a very important tit-bit and should be paid heed to sincerely. Enthusiastic indeed. We reached our room and again I started taking photos, this time as a kind of contrast show.

Peabody vs Red Roof Comparison

Rudy then spotted an Indian restaurant from our balcony: Taste of Punjab. We went there at about 2: 40, and they had this special lunch menu that was till 2:30. We anyway managed to get our lunch orders through, because the guy was again, very helpful and accommodating. He asked us about drinks, and the menu offered us “Imported beers like Kingfisher for $4.25” vs “Domestic ones like Buddweiser for $2.99”. Me and Nikhil went for the Bud, and he asked for our ID's. I gave him my passport and after looking at it for a moment or two and doing some calculations, he said, “Oh, so you're just about age!” :) He then looked at Nikhil's ID and said, “Oh, but you're not.” And Nikhil was like, “Its just two months, is that going to be a problem?” and he said that it was, but that I could get two instead and then give Nikhil one and it would then be my problem. Which was cool by us, really. During our meal, he came up once or twice, and asked us about India, and about what we were doing in Orlando and how we found the US etc. Meanwhile, me and Nikhil were going on about all kinds of stuff with the beer and all, and I was taking way too much time to eat, but finally we finished. Good Indian food after a long while: half a week. Butter chicken, kheer, naan, papad, onions. Brought a very satisfied smile to all our faces.

After getting back, we slept. Crashed. Woke up at like 10 pm because I was way too thirsty. Went down to the lobby to ask for water and he directed me to the water dispensing machine at the pool. There, I couldn't get water because it was sold out, so when I went back, the guy at the lobby directed me to this '7Eleven' place just opposite the road. It was only then that I realized what an amazing place we were located in. Burger King, Pizza Hut, Smokey Bones, Laptops+Tourist Information, and other places, all just on our side of the road, or opposite.

The 'road' in question, is actually a highway though. And I having worn a dark outfit thought that it'd be rather danger to cross without a proper signal or something. So I walk up to the zebra crossing, and wait for the signal for pedestrians. I wait and wait, and an entire round of the signals goes by without coming for the pedestrians. Confused, I look about, and find that right underneath the traffic light, is a button which says, “Push to cross”! I push it, and after the signal finds the road relatively clear, it gives me the cross signal, along with a countdown of like 35 seconds. Crossing the road I feel really guilty for making all the cars wait at the signal for so long, since I could cross in a maximum of like 15 seconds itself.

After going about and finding all these cool places nearby, I walk into this 7Eleven. Now, this 7Eleven is actually like this mini – supermarket next to the petrol bunk. And it was interesting to watch how guys get out of their cars and handle the filling machines themselves, while the girls go into the shop to pick up supplies. I go in myself and have a nice look all around for what all is available. Quite enough to be called a mini supermarket indeed.

I get back to my room using the same “Push to cross” buttons, feel all awkward and guilty and everything all over again, and just when having crossed the road, I look back in a kind of “I'm sorry” parting glance, when I see this amazing open-roof car at the junction. Its too dark to make out the exact company, but it was awesome. When they got the signal, the car turned into the road I was in, went a little way ahead of me, and turned back and went off.

Back to the room. Drank a little water (incidentally, the tap in our room doesn't work!). Now ready to close up for the day.

Act I, Scene 3: World Finals

30^th May, 2011.

The previous night, Nikhil said he'd be up and ready by 6 a.m. for the contest. What did happen though, was Rudy kept an alarm for six on our Speakers, Nikhil got up at about 3 a.m, and was awake till like 5. He had planned on getting himself ready then, but instead decided he'd just have a little nap.

When the alarm rang at 6, it was the most beautiful sound to my ears: English music. I spent about the next ten minutes just relishing the sound of American radio, before getting myself up and taking my customary sunrise pictures. This one however turned out amazing since the sun had not yet quite risen, and there was this red line all over the horizon with the moon shining above.

(panorama of sunrise: red glowing horizon)
(the red sun with the moon shining from above)

We did get ourselves ready earlier than we normally did and had a light breakfast in the dining hall. After breakfast, was the contest. In the coding hall (hitherto refered to as just 'hall'), Bill Poucher (Executive Dir. For ICPC) had us all call out “are we ready or not”, going through each set of ten teams. “Hundreds, are you ready?”, “Nineties are you ready?” etc. One time he called out “Sixties are you ready?” and just one team shouted “yeah!”, causing a bout of laughter from the rest of us. The seventies were the most ready as far as the are-you-ready chants went. We had thought it was getting late and all, but they had a timer which counted down to the start of the contest, and we all did a countdown in the hall for the last 10 seconds.

It started off as usual, with me firing away at the keyboard typing out our templates, while the other two began reading the problems. Problem K was the simplest and got the first submission in 11 minutes. Having spotted that, we turned to it and solved it first at about 40 something minutes. By then the contest had heated up, with Tsinghua having solved problem C as well and then K even. We were solving our own problems rather slowly.

Halfway through the contest, we had solved 3 problems, with one having been attempted. It turned out that that one (problem J) would unfortunately take up most of our remaining time. We did try our hand at E as well, but did not manage to get far. In the end, after finally having got J, with less than half an hour left, me and Nikhil started looking at A, while Rudy began coding some solution he had of G. In the end, we had about halfway solved A, Rudy had got a vague inefficient solution for G, and the contest closed with us at having four problems.

The most interesting phase came after the contest when they were showing the “Pending Judge” solutions. A little briefing on what this is. The contest standings are in general made public. By that I mean that one gets to see who all have solved which all, and in what time. This scoreboard however, is frozen an hour before the close of the contest, to allow for people to not get all dejected and everything in the end. After four hours, all one gets to see is how many submissions one has made on the remaining problems, but not whether those submissions were judged correctly or not. During this phase, one got to see all sorts of teams climb up the ladder etc. While Tsinghua was the only University to have 7 problems solved to their name before the 4 hour freeze time, we got to witness exactly 12 teams (medal winners) solve 7 problems, with U Mich at Ann Arbor making it to 8 first. They were the only team to have 8 problems, and except for 2 other teams who were on 7 and had one pending judge result, it had seemed that they had won. The first team to be judged, turned out to have a wrong submission. For the other team, Zhejiang University, the announcer built up the suspense and everything, and finally let out that they had got their submission correct and they beat U Mich on time. Applause was long and loud as everyone finally had their suspense revealed.

After the contest, and a light lunch, we got back to our room, we had a long discussion on how we should improve, how we should practice, and what all we should do. Later, while I went online and facebooked a bit, Nikhil and Rudy started solving the remaining problems. After I went off the net, Nikhil went online and Rudy and me began watching How To Train Your Dragon on the HD TV. Nikhil in the meantime went ahead and saw Petr's solutions and the official solutions. Apparently after coming back to the room, we had over-50% solved 3 more problems. But I guess thats how it is. If you get stuck on a single problem for too long, then you can't even try others or get anywhere.

After the movie, was dinner cum Awards ceremony. Nikhil bunked it saying that he was too tired and that if he didn't sleep then, he wouldn't be able to come for the Universal Studios excursion later. Dinner was in total Harry Potter theme.

They had a Dumbledore and a Harry Potter as MC's, and the tables were all lined up as banquet tables, unlike the standard round-tables that were put up for the usual meals. It was an interesting time where they also felicitated a bunch of 'volunteers' along with the First Solution prizes and the winning team. The girl from the Zhejiang team was wearing shorts that came to about an inch lower than her shirt, and she was in the centre for all the pictures being taken.

(the [Petr] shirt worn by Petr Mitrichev at dinner)

The entire thing, after having eaten all chicken fry, chicken breasts in honey sauce, mashed potato and whatever else, ended at 9:10. We were supposed to leave from the hotel at like 9:30 for Universal Studios' Harry Potter and Marvel Superheroes Islands. We went back to our room then, and I said I'd take a little nap for fifteen minutes, being too tired. Rudy said that if we take a nap, then there's no way we'd get up in time. I asked him that if that was the case, then it'd be better if he stayed awake and woke us up in fifteen minutes. Just before dropping off, I tried calling out to Nikhil thrice.

I wake up. I look at my watch. It says 11:00. I'm in denial – I tell myself, hey its saying 10, don't listen to it. For about 10 minutes I contemplate various options including running down to the reception and asking for a cab or something. I am in total shock. How could this happen!

Eventually, I go online. Facebook. Omegle. In fact, I end up chatting with the same guy on omegle twice (definitely a first). Finally, at 12:45 I get back to bed. Nikhil wakes up as I get in, and asks the time. I tell him. He's like, “so we haven't gone? We've missed it?!” and I say yes.

We would make it to Universal later on: our plan is to visit on 1^st and 2^nd. But it'd be just the three of us, and not like in the crowd of ICPC contestants. We have definitely missed something.

Act I, Scene 2: Practice

29^th May 2011.

Today was a relatively straightforward day, with just the practice contest really being the only thing worth mentioning. We got up later than yesterday, and made our way to breakfast just at the very end. The hall was quite packed. It was a little trouble finding a seat, and after a slight amount of digging, we found two tables, one half filled with Chinese, the other half filled with this one young guy and an old guy and an old lady. Rudy suggested the Chinese table (since it was closer) but for me, the young dude was familiar, so I went to that table.

We said our hi's and then they said they were from Australia, or to be specific that the lady was the regional director from New Zealand, and that the other two were from Australia. We introduced ourselves to be from IIT. Then I asked the guy, “So, you're Jack Murray right?” And he's like, “yeah... we met at ..?” “IOI 2008, in Egypt,” “Oh yeah yeah... But I changed my name. To Kitten. Like as in baby cat?” and I was like, 'waaat – whyy?'

And thus I found out that NSW had all three from their IOI '08 team: Jack, Jarrah and Xi – Gold, Silver and Bronze. Ok, but seriously, what sorta name is “Kitten Tofu” huh? So anyhow, the breakfast was merged into this Opening Ceremony where lots of people came up, spoke for about 120 seconds each, welcomed each other, had a few claps ring out, and finally Bill Poucher declared the World Finals open.

After that, we went to the Orientation. Thats basically the part of the contest where you get to sit on your comps and get to know whats going on and all. Where you test the system for various errors and where you get to ask questions about the environment etc. It went off okay for us, our coding was quite substandard, but otherwise yes. The only two questions we asked during the contest were what are the time limits for the problems and whether we could shift the equipment slightly into a more favourable position.

Most questions were answered in the post-lunch 'Answers to Questions' session. However, during lunch, we had a nice time watching the ICPC Challenge Tournament. It was basically a game, where you had three pushers, and three markers to begin with along with a bunch of neutral markers already on the board. The board was this terrain consisting of polygonal areas, and you had to basically push the markers such that you capture as much area as possible. Markers convert areas, and areas convert markers too. It was a great watch of all the teams, but we were totally rooting for National Taiwan University, which put on the most perfect show in their first round. In the end, Leiden University won. Both the original Egypt ICPC Challenge (which was used to seed the current ICPC Challenge) as well as the current ICPC Challenge.

The 'Answers to Questions' session was a bit humourous – the way the organizers were giving their answers. To questions pertaining to the judge system, their answer was, “The judge will be identical to your own machines. The only thing that will possibly be different from your machine and the judge's, could be the test-data.”

After that, we had the practice contest. That was sweet, because I saw Team Proof get back into its well-oiled form. We were jumping about, shouting about, and enjoying ourselves. Ended up at some rank 45, but we were coding throughout the 2 hours, so it was well worth it.

We were totally tired after the contest. Came back to our room, did some internetting, watched some television, and then went for dinner and came back and slept. I woke up after about three hours and thought to post some pics and a blog post while I'm up, so here I was.

Act I, Scene 1 : Serene Seaworld and What happened after

[Missing from Act I so far is the chronicles of the journey to America, something I haven't yet managed to completely jot down either online or off. Anyway, here we go: into 28th May 2011.]

28^th May 2011.

Today started off well enough. We had gone downstairs for breakfast by about 8 am and had bacon and scrambled eggs, which was quite good. Only a little thing or two had happened before. Nikhil managed to break the shower. After asking me how the hell to turn it on and all, and me saying “Lift the knob above the tap and keep it lifted. Then open the water flow...” and what-not, he ended up not being able to “keep it lifted”. Also, after the bath, he asks, “So, you guys know any way to drain the tub 'automatically'?” and we're like, “Well, you just lift the lid of the drain and let it drain. Don't tell me you were holding the lid up throughout the time it was draining!!” Also, Rudy thought he'd just charge his batteries since they were discharged in the morning, and while we went to his room to get the connector (since the plugpoints in the US arent compatible with the Indian appliances' plugs), Nikhil disappeared. We searched for him a bit, and then decided to just carry on to breakfast and that we'd probably find him there. All the while from Rudy's room, I took a video of the entire room plus lobby with carpeting etc.

Post breakfast with sir and ANYDream, we had a little trouble finding the point from which we'd be taken to Seaworld – a water based theme park on International Drive, near our hotel. Rudy and me had worn shorts underneath our jeans, just in case we went swimming. It later turned out that we didn't get wet, but ya. After managing to ask around a bit and find our way, we were given these blue bands to tie around our wrist for entry to the place.

We reached there at about 10, and till 11 or 1130, we were put through this long boring presentation about IBM's century of inventions and everything. From punch cards, to online real-time airline bookings, to Deep Blue beating Kasparov, these two guys took us through an hour or more of boring IBM-campaigning. This was however where we first got to see Petr. Also, the UIUC Indians (Arindam Saha, Indian IOI 07 team) and Rohan Sharma (Nadeem said he was IOITC 09) joined in with Nadeem and all. I noticed that Rohan looked familiar, and my initial instinct was that he was Arindam since I told myself I must've seen pictures of Arindam and all. However, it then struck me: Rohan Sharma was my junior in NPS! I later told Nadeem, “You told me he was IOITC 09 – couldn't you tell me he was from my school ?!!”

Then, after the boring talk, we had a dolphin show. Brilliant dolphin tricks where the trainers were like conducting them in a dance and feeding them and all. It was brilliant, hilarious and it also touched a cord with us: Dolphins really are most amazing creatures. Man's best water-friend indeed.

I managed to take like three videos because I didn't want to miss the sound and the entire conducting-response thing of the dolphins, while Rudy managed to get some stills of them jumping in the air. One of the videos has come to 1.08 GB even. It turns out that the show there is quite a crowd-puller, as when we exited the stadium, there was this looong queue that had built up.

The organizers had given us these 'Seaworld-dollars' – 20 a head, and told us that it'll manage our lunch and a little. The first ride we went to after the dolphin show, was this tower show, costing $4. Its basically this rotating saucer which has windows around so that you get the view of the whole place as it keeps ascending to a height of 300 feet.

We visited a number of exhibits, from sharks, to penguins, to aquariums. We saw birds and heard seals, some feeding and some flying, kids pointing and kids crying. One set of birds, were standing so still, that Rudy thought they were just dummies, statues placed there for some scenic beauty, until he noticed one of them blinking their eyes. The pictures would really tell a better story of the entire journey (http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150653686680721.680718.758800720 i think). There was another point wherein this one girl was just staring at this octopus.

Our lot reached it, clicked it, and she was still staring at it. It was half as if she was thinking, “Oh these people! Coming and disturbing the poor sleeping creatures.” Just as we were about to leave, the octopus spread its legs out and started swimming toward the window, straight at her. It opened its mouth, and posed for her, and only then did she bring out her own camera and click it. All I was left with is a blurred side-view of the scene, but it was an interesting incident of supposed communication between the girl and the octopus.

After (nearly) all the visits of the exhibits, we decided we'd go on the Kraken roller-coaster. Supposedly one of the longer coasters you'd find, our interest was piqued and 5 of us (Nadeem opted out) moved on to the Kraken. It was tough. The corkscrews particularly screwed me, while the long fall down, had Nikhil scared away. After the first fall, my legs went snapped straight (due to either gravity or centrifugal/centripetal forces), and after that, I could not tell which way was up, which was down, and whether my legs should be straight or bent. Once or twice, I felt like they were gonna snap at the knees and fly off on a projectile through the air, landing on someone's head, or in some deep ditch never to be found. Another time I thought my leg got stuck in something of the coaster, but on the whole it went off alright. In fact, it ended a bit too quickly for my expectation, and the whole lot of us decided we'd go for a second round. Later on in the photos, we found that Yash had his eyes tight shut (in fact, he was the only was that wasn't even visible in the photos). The second time was smooth. We (me, Rudy, and Nikhil) got the second row this time, and I concentrated on looking at the rails 5 metres ahead of the first row so that I could get an idea of what was to come before it actually did. The corkscrews still screwed me though.

After having the wind knocked out of us, Nikhil suggested Beer, to which I readily agreed. When Nadeem asked Nikhil, “Are you breathing?” after the second round, he aptly replied, “I am still not breathing.” We went to the counter to get ourselves two beers, and happily didn't notice that there was a queue. Nikhil had this weird idea that in India, queues are made 'horizontally' (i.e. People stand sideways and move through the queue), whereas abroad its 'vertical'. In any case, when we reached the counter for our order, I asked for “Two Beer” and the lady at the counter was like, “What kind?” and I didn't know anything said, “Any kind” (this deserves an enactment, because the exact voice modulation involved is rather different from what is being portrayed in text). She had to point at the options, before Nikhil was like, “Bud!” The Budweisers there were chilled. Really really chilled, and really good. It atleast tasted like we were drinking beer, not some drink or something.

Immediately after beer we went for lunch, which turned out to be cheaper than we expected. We went for a combo of four 6 inch pizzas, 4 cold drinks, and one large fries for $26.99 and since we thought four small pizzas couldn't fill three people, we added a salad to it. It later turned out that even that was quite too much. We ended up wasting about a quarter of a pizza atleast in the end. We spoke about our prospects in the tournament, about Rudy's inspiration from Bhargav in 1^st year IMOTC, and how we have been in (or out) of form recently.

After getting up from lunch, me and Nadeem still had a few Seaworld-dollars on us: I had ten, and he had five, and we needed to get rid of them and all. I had forgotten to take my bag from where we were sitting but luckily the girl who was nearby to help clean up the place and all, she returned it while we were leaving itself, so I was lucky.

In the end, I went and got a stuffed dolphin and managed to use up the remaining $15 of the coupons. After that, we finally went to the stingray exhibit where we got to touch their fins and all before leaving back for the hotel at 430 pm. After reaching back, me and Nikhil crashed.

With much difficulty and prodding from Rudy, we finally managed to get up just ten minutes before the end of dinner. Most of the icecream was gone, but we managed to get ourselves a slice of pizza each.

After the dinner, Nikhil went up to sleep while Rudy and I went to the IBM Chill Zone. People there were playing foozball, giant chess, badminton, or just hanging around sitting on round air-filled ball-seats. Petr was on a table-of-three playing this “Age of Storms” game. Rudy kept regretting not getting his camera with him for that perfect opportunity to click Petr. The two of us did get to play a few games of Foosball. It was Rudy's first time on it, but all in all, it didn't go off too bad. I was attacking and he was defending, through all the games that we played. We also met two guys from the Univ of Maryland team. One Indian guy and a Scott chap. After watching two games of chess etc, we finally decided to get back.

On the way back, the piano was free, and I couldn't resist having a go on it. However, I couldn't get the right control of the volume (it was this K Kawai piano, so for piano-enthusiasts who can tell the difference, well yeah...), and that bit was kinda frustrating. I played Moonlight Sonata, Fur Elise, Amelie, lil Dance of Death, lil Fade to Black, lil Canon, lil Free Bird, lil Sound of Silence, got photographed a bit, had some guys watch, and also Vallath Nandakumar (the Amritapuri Regional Director) came over when I was playing 'Puff! The Magic Dragon' to ask which song cuz it was familiar and all. Incidentally, when Petr was passing by, I was playing a combination of Twinkle Twinkle and Mary had a Little Lamb and Row Row Row Your Boat :P.

So far, thats it.

Gotta go sleep now.

Been typing this for the past more-than-an-hour I think.

Edit: Not dolphins, Killer Whales.

Introduction

So I've been contemplating having a blog that just tells people whats-going-on. I sometimes think of having a blog post about an incident and all. These posts dont really fit in with either of my previous blogs: Literary Reliefs - for creative writing and wacko things inspired from not-so-wacko incidents, and My Thought Experiments - a convoluted sorta dissertation.

This blog is meant to be simple. A Blog. A way for people to have a voyeuristic view into whats happening on my side during the times I so choose to blog about incidents. The need for this is brought about very sharply by the trip to Orlando for the ACM ICPC WF.

On the naming of the URL, I had a bit of a hard time. I like the term "journalizing" to describe the entire act of describing things that happened and all, but such a broad based term I felt sure would be taken. I thought of certain other variations of prad: pradst etc, which didn't really fit in completely enough. I also came across Proof, but I felt that the blog is more something to do with me, rather than something to do as a "representative of the team" or anything of that sort. pradioof combines the prad trademark (:P) with the Team Proof motivation for the blog.