PARACON 4
- - - - P A R T Y R E P O R T - - - -
PARACON4 ended yesterday so I thought I shouldn't wait any longer before
trying to catch vivid feelings and memories about that nice convention. Tho the
party started on Friday, 8pm (same place as last year), I could NOT leave home
before my last lesson on Saturday 9-11am.
The previous night I had packed my stuff, mostly consisting of my STe and
my Dreamcast as well as some clothes and a sleeping bag. I grabbed the map I
had printed last year, thinking that it would be enough, and indeed it worked
fine since I knew the highway exit was REALLY wicked (see last year report).
Around 3:30pm I finally reached the party place.
I was a bit amazed as the place looked damn empty, especially compared to
last year when I couldn't even find room for my STe :) I was told that some
people who had registered didn't show up in the end. Btw I'm still suspicious
about Chuck's coming over, as we seldom see him and he lives in Paris ! I
wasn't so surprised to hear he wouldn't come...
I came to my fellows and was really happy to meet some old friends such as
505/Checkpoint, No/Escape, Zerkman/Sector One or Paranoid/Paranoia. Other people
included nice chaps such as Ray/tSCc, Charon/Escape and the - full - posse of
Paranoia. Only a dozen of us, yes, but quality came over quantity (surely there
were even more active 16biters here than at Unconventional :)
Zerkman and I went to our beloved minimarket, only a hundred meters away and
we bought some beer as well as German ham, cheese and small bread. I need to
say that we "only" bought 6 liters of beer, opposed to 12l. the year before !
Well I remember, or can't ? :), that I was dead drunk last year and surely I
didn't plan to set another show this year :p
DAY ONE : Saturday
Well it was Day One for me ! I quickly installed my STe and got it started.
Then I went to talk to some friends : namely Zerkman, Paranoid and others. I
managed to see some cool effects on Ray's TT as well as his latest effort to
get WOLFENSTEIN 3D completed. I really LOVE that project and will do my best
to keep Reimund motivated. If you want to help out, mail and support him !!!
Zerkman showed me his GBA as well as some demos he had on his flashram. I
saw some nice stuff indeed ! That handheld is definitely GREAT and the demos
looked like modern Amiga stuff !! Too bad the GBA screen is so shitty :(
Btw I forgot to mention that Paranoia had a nice gift for us : a PARACON4
labelled black cap ! Really nice idea, a souvenir I will keep preciously and
indeed a welcomed present as I still have to steal my brother's cap when I go
cycling :)
I had planned to set a realtime article but seeing the few people here, I
gave up the idea. Besides who's nut enough to write stuff on a French keyboard,
would you ? :) Anyway as I thought of this report, I came up with mailing some
people and asking them to write a little something. We'll see how many will
actually add their own words to this article.
I did some work on Alive SX, mostly re-reading some articles and adding
DmaSc's article (received the night before as my STe was already packed) as
well as some items from Paranoid. I made some changes and finished the Scene
article too. Not much but I did things while I was supposed to relax (weekend,
who said it was about relaxing ????). I also saw nice stuff done by Charon and
No while 505 was busy composing msx. Ray was also busy with thousands of code
lines I couldn't understand a bit of :)
Later on Paranoid and Zerkman joined me into some Dreamcast gaming on the
giant screen. We played Unreal Tournament and Ooga Booga too and had a greal of
confusing fun as the screen looked too dark and quite messy as it was split
into four parts. Nice moments anyway.
The rest of the evening (or was it night already ?) was spent the same way.
I got back to AliveSX while the original "Planet Of the Ape" was shown on the
screen in German :) We could also enjoy "Galaxy Quest" which is quite funny and
from which you can spot a blonde Sigourney Weaver (man, she's so gorgeous !!!).
Being kinda braindead from a heavy week of work, I headed for my sleeping bag
at about 1:30am.
DAY TWO : Sunday
Woke up with my back broken to pieces :( Well tho I've grown used to it,
it's never the best way to start a day. Someone yelled "breakfast ready" (in
German) and there I went, after refreshing in the toilets room. My favourite
kind of breakfast awaited with bread, ham, cheese, jam, coffee... Yummy ! I
took some time eating and talked some more with the other guys sitting around
the table.
I can't say I was really active on that second day. Things seemed to go
faster and soon found that most people were already packing stuff. Ray and
Zerkman left first, then followed by the Feske bros, walking to the train stop.
I used more time to talk with all of them before leaving : about the current
scene, various projects, the next big party (EIL3 of course !) and stuff like
that.
Finally I also left at about 1:30pm. My trip back home was pretty peaceful
except for too many slowdowns because some parts of the highway always seem to
be rebuilt in Germany (Staaaaauuuuuuuuu). Got some troubles with my car too as
some lights on the main panel suddenly went dead. Tho not seen on the board
anymore my blinkers and lights still worked tho (do you fancy changing lane at
about 140km an hour without blinkers ??). Anyway I reached my place safely, my
brother fixed the car that night and I reassembled my STe. I grew tired pretty
soon and fell asleep when reading a book :)
And now with some words by Paranoid, one the party organizers :
The ParaCon 4 was a lot smaller than the ParaCon 3 and even a lot smaller than
we planned. Unfortunately, quite a large amount of people that had registered
decided not to come - a bit sad, but still the event was kind of nice and cosy.
Everyone present was productive, No, Charon, Zerkman and Ray were working on
effects, Luebke and 505 exchanged both editors and knowledge about chipmusic.
Also, once again we topped our breakfast service and thanks to our sponsor,
everyone who attended the party received a baseball cap with a "ParaCon 4" logo
on it.
Most probably there won't be a ParaCon-party next year, but probably in two
years, who knows ? After all, personally, i enjoyed the event a lot, so thanks
to all my fellow-paranoics and of course thanks to all the attendants who have
been there.
505/Checkpoint sent me a report too, that you'll find included below :
Somewhen this November about 10 people met in the scene central named
"Niederselters" somewhere in Western Germany. It was a kind of a very
small Party overall, which is a bit sad. But on the other hand Atari
parties can never be bad, so what..
----
As everyone else who was there I will have to mention the same pluses
and minuses about the party:
THE BAD THINGS ABOUT P4:
------------------------
- we were only few people, as tSCc was too lazy to drive two hours and Chuck
from Dune as well as Oliver Kotschi didn't come either
- there have been no releases or compos at all
- this fucking snore in the sleeping area
THE GOOD THINGS ABOUT P4:
------------------------
- we had fun ;-) No really, it was just great for me to meet the people there
again. It is such a rare issue to meet Charon, Sts, Zerkman, Ray, the
friendly guys from Paranoia and the others, that I would not say it
wasn't worth it! Those small parties always have the advantage that you
can (have to) be more intensively in contact with the people there.
And once again I could make sure that they are nice people. We spend a lot
of time at breakfasting (you know - that king-like breakfast there!),
chatting and drinking and stuff. And if I imagine right, there is actually
no other way of meeting those people anywhere else.
- I was able to copy lot of disks from Paranoid for my new C64.. so some
alternative demowatching may help me through those hard Atari times
sponsored by the big company called inactivity atm..
- and another good point about P4 surely was, that I finally got a bit
of the impression that there is something going on in the Atariscene.
I do not want to reveal to much, but I have seen really really really
stunning effects there by Charon/Escape and Ray/tSCc! Also Paranoid and
NO have been coding some stuff which doesn't have to hide either! It seems
as we can expect something from the Frog side of Life, too (Hi Zerkman!:)
After all, it ain't all that bad, it seems :-)
- finally Paranoia gave us a new toy: a Paracon4 basecap! Yeah nice :-)
----
TO SUMMARIZE these impressions: well, to be honest, I have been happier after
previous Paracons already, mostly depending on the small number of people who
came this time. It's kind of dissappointing if you look forward to meet people
and then they just don't come. But well, at least this made this Paracon some-
what special :-)
There is no way to critisize the organisation part of the meeting. Paranoia
kept their promises again and made it all so comfortable for us.. and as every-
one should know, Paranoia guys are just the most friendly ppl you can imagine
(at least regarding guests;-) They arranged a great breakfast, a beamer and
whatever you need for a computer meeting. Just imagine, you wake up on a
computer party (oeh!) and then you go to a kitchen, where you get EVERYTHING
you want (hmm.. coffee.. hmm! milk,.. hmm! cheese!.. hmm.. ). Nothing to
complain about here really! :-)
BIG THANKS to the organizers (Paranoia!) and the guests who came there too. It
would have been not as good without you (hehe.. thats somehow clear, aint it?).
SOME SPECIAL GREETS hereby go to:
- Sts and Zerkman (it's always a great thing to meet you!!)
- Charon (I hope to have more Escape meetings with you!)
- Ray (hehe.. actually the first time we have been talking to each other
in real... still didnt get this bitmap-shit you explained me ;-)
- Paranoid (keep on squeezing out your STe!)
- Luebke (try Sidsound Designer after all!)
- the others there (nice guitar sound and stuff..;-)
- and my dear Normi of course! (it was great to travel with my brother:)
SO MUCH for this kind of chaotic Paracon text. Sts/Alive asked me to write
about what I am thinking of Paracon 4, so here we went. :-)
[505/Checkpoint]
And back to STS for the final words
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To put it in a nutshell, -PARACON 4- was small and friendly, maybe even
friendlier than last year (or was it because I skipped part of it ? :-). It
was nice to meet active people who do things, have projects and have positive
thoughts, a real fresh air to me ! Since there are no Atarians living close, I
really enjoy meeting these friends as often as possible. If there is another
PARACON, I attend, no doubt ! Thanks are addressed to our Paranoia hosts !
-------------------------------------------------------------------------- STS
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