S e c o n d A L T e r n a t i v e P a r t y ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ July 2000, The Revenge of the Rematch! Monday before, 3rd July.. Grud damn, we're running late! Time for bed, qui-i-i-ck! What to say? Well this lot started, and my competition entry for the obscure music compo has been completed. The initial version of this on Sunday night, sounded like it was on barbiturates, a slight misunderstanding between a 49 khz original replay speed, and an MP3 file converted to 44.1 khz! A little tweak with the pitch of the vocal parts, and another two hour wait to encode the end result, has seen this one safely done now. The general 'sounding like shite' aspect, we can do nothing about. Still, it is likely to be the only UK entry for anything this time, as there will be no Reservoir Gods or anyone else going from here? Dunno if Felice has got something up his wizards sleeve or not? Right, bed, now! Tuesday 4th July.. American Independence day.. Good for them, what about the rest of us? Otherwise not a lot to report. Pick up Finnish money tomorrow. We've been promised a post-match sauna. Interest is simmering, rather than bubbling about the party. Am I getting too blase about these things? Probably too much going on at work, which makes me tired and apathetic afterwards. We've been taken over by a bunch of Danes these last two weeks, so being surrounded by Scandinavian folk at ALT is going to feel like I'm back at work!? Also keep thinking about the likely future direction of Maggie. This never puts me in a good mood at the moment! Still, let's see who I can talk to at the party? Don't forget the notebook! (On screen post-it note type thing for my own personal use!) Wednesday 5th July.. Day after Independence day, lots of Americans with severe hangovers.... Reworked my competition entry AGAIN! - I'd been thinking about it all day, firstly hoping that there are going to be one or two others that are going to be equally dire, as to take away a bit of the cringe factor. Later on, some more thoughts started creeping in how I could do it tidier and sounding less like major brain surgery is taking place at the very moment I'm using Graoumf tracker! Anyway, I sat down and did it all again, and endured the slow crawl whilst it encoded to an MP3 file. Anyway, it sounds less like the audio equivalent of falling down the stairs with a plugged in keyboard, and more like something I'm not so scared to put into the obscure music compo. I have a new notebook for the writing of the realtime bit of this report. It has a pinkish cover, which should make it easier to spot, hence (hopefully) no leaving it behind styled mishaps this time! Tomorrow is phun with Phelice day! Time for bed! DAY 1 - Thursday 6th July.. (Around 8.30am.) Get up slowly, hey this is something of a lie-in for me, as I don't need to be at Felice's before 10am. Usual breakfast, and final checks. No sign of Jack Barnes latest version of Necrophilia, in fact, not much from him at all. Eventually, head over to Felice's place, which is back in sunny St Neots, in fact from where we set off two years ago for the first ALT Party. Get there, and I am slightly disorientated by the fully completed and made up street scene. Previously, I used to have to dodge between raised drain covers, as half of the road was still a semi-finished construction site. After parking up, we really don't hang about at all, as Felice takes the wheel of his car for the next stage of the journey to Stanstead Airport. In an eerie echo of the early stages of the SV2000 trip, we manage to pass and closely admire the aftermath of a small car accident at a roundabout. Bent metal and recriminations are strongly featured here! A small and trivial bit of realtime fills the gap here: 9.05am. At home with coffee and ready to go. Going to bumble about a bit more, then leave c.9.30. 10.15am. Arrived at Felice's. The good news is, we're not using the dual purpose St Neots railway station waiting room. ("Dual Purpose" as in waiting room/urinal!) Instead, Felice is driving us to the airport. Dramatic stuff, no? No?? Oh, alright, back to the main narrative it is then... Stanstead comes up remarkably quickly, and after parking, we soon enter the terminal building with loads of time to spare. In fact, we decide that Stanstead really should be our airport of first choice, as it is A) Local, B) Convenient, and C) NOT Heathrow! Checking in, finding somewhere who will take Felice's outsize bag of bedding (did he have a double king size bed in there?) and getting some food (Burger King) sorted takes up a bit of time. We eventually transfer our long wait to the lonely outpost of the departure gate, where various and mainly Finnish people gather. A small delay to 3.00pm blinks and is missed, and we eventually board the aircraft. We did fill a little bit of time filling in part of the realtime notebook :) 12.15pm. Stanstead, are these updates a bit slow in coming or what? Burger King rules, but we'll have to set our watches to Hesburger local time soon. We ran into a Happy Shopper budget version of Julia Sawahla at the oversize baggage counter, so not too bad here.. There is a small departure delay to 3.00pm, which isn't too much of a drag. Looks like I'll have to stop using my copy of the Economist for pose cred among the business travel set, and start to actually read the thing! (Reading a copy of the Economist, Tsschk! What possessed him?!) 12.20pm (Felice) Not too bad in getting here, apart from a shunt near Cacken Gibbet roundabout on the A428.Just eaten at Burger King, that's better, fills the hole up that existed since breakfast. CiH has gone to the bookstore... (Attempted witticism about CiH looking for pornographic material killed off before it really got going and squiggly line put through it?) 2.20pm. Departure lounge, the great happening sound of dot matrix tears through the air. We are not due to do the same until 3.00pm. Digression note:- Finnish banknotes design is crazy in a hot and humid sense. The 100 mark note is pretty sensible and restrained, a famous dead music composer (Sibelius) is fair enough. The craziness starts with the 50 mark note, with some bloke who looks like an old grammar school headmaster c.1965, and whom non-Finnish people haven't heard of. The 20 mark note continues this scholastic misinterpretation theme, with some other locally famous person, who looks like the deputy head of that same school! Relax now, back to some sensible text. This is a bright yellow 'Buzz' airlines twin engined smallish Boeing job. I get the double bonus of a window seat and the extra legroom of the seat next to the overwing emergency exit. All the time I am remembering this is less than half the price I paid for the first ALT Party visit just two years ago! I don't even bang my knuckles on the seat in front, rubbing my hands in glee! Stanstead is wet, sullen, overcast as we take off, but the takeoff is not as dramatic as the Heathrow roller coaster session with added storm effects that we got before. Indeed, the whole journey passes in a blaze of being rooted to the same spot for a couple of hours or so. We are also missing the presence of Q-Funk who kept us on our toes previously, with his extensive preparations for in-flight vomiting, which thankfully didn't come to pass! We are anticipating remeeting him, in a hopefully non-emetic frame of mind, at the party place itself. Yes, I did write a bit more.. 3.00pm, or 15.00hrs, if you wish to be picky? On the plane, seated by the emergency exit, so baggsy me out first if it all goes horribly wrong. Also the far from mundane enhancement of EXTRA LEGROOM, tons of it! This is going to be a very nice flight! The only slight downside is the lack of a picnic table in front, so I'm resting this notebook on my knee. Immediate deterioration in handwriting quality follows (if it can get any worse?) 3.15pm. Getting ready to leave from sodden Essex styled Terra Firma. 3.17pm. Let's see if our pilot can beat the adjacent 'Go' jet away from the lights? 3.22pm. Steep climb after takeoff. The cabin crew struggle with mountaineering equipment to get the the front end of the aircraft! 4.15pm. The uninteresting things some people read. "A day in the life of a quality co-ordinator". Being avidly consumed by the bloke in front of me. The article culled from the pages of "Dull and Worthy Monthly". I've got to be careful, this Stena Line pen is cheaper than I thought! 4.17pm (Felice) Just had a sandwich and coke, and I am about to have a muffin as well. These cheapy flights mean that you have to buy food etc, but the more than ample legroom on this plane is pretty fantastic! Why the hell don't Airtours use planes like these, rather than the sardine pack ones they use? I'll never know. Ok, rant over, enjoying the flight so far.... (The Stena Line pen of suspect resilience and cheapness just described, was a souvenir of the earlier SV2000 trip! A distressing act of 'desertion' involving this writing instrument, is described in the next knot of realtime text..) It is at a now familiar Helsinki airport, where we land. Soon getting through the formalities, and not having to worry about lost luggage, we make initial contact with Setok and tell him we are heading into the centre of Helsinki. This is easy enough, and we soon end up at the best (from our viewpoint) landmark of the central railway station, and try to contact Setok again. Felice's newly acquired mobile phone isn't up to the job, being capable of international dialing, that is, to the UK and back, but unable to make any local calls. The railway station is incredibly useful for the fact that it has retained payphones, and Setok is soon told where we are. After some minutes of watching various strata of Helsinki high and lower society pass by us on the stairs to the taxi rank, a very familiar and long-haired figure greets us! This is Setok, essentially unchanged in appearance since our first visit, two years ago. This kills off any lingering anxiety that he completely changed appearance in that time, say, had a skinhead haircut or a double leg amputation! Our bags are placed in a very full car, but just the bags, as we walk to the party place in the (insert here) across town. It is quite a pleasant evening to take a stroll, but when we get there, a less pleasant one if you are suddenly helping transport various party goods and chattels down four flights of stairs! Still, this has a benefit, as it negotiates 50 FIM (Finnish marks) off the 150 FIM entry price. Downstairs, the party is in a basement, and consists of a central hall colonised by tables, chairs and the main sound system. There are rooms off to the sides, including a lecture hall turned into a sleeping room for the occasion. Several long bus-style seats or sofas are there to act as a reasonably good makeshift bed, for those people not sleeping under their desks. This room is accoustically sealed by a massive blast door or airtight miltary-surplus submarine bulkhead , which certainly does the job, but proved too difficult for some people to get opened when the party was running! We don't even have to crowd together for the demo competions, as the big screen is actually in a proper projector room! This is put to good use during the party period, apart from just running the competition entries. The venue is quite a decent one, and from the organisers viewpoint, brilliant as it is free of charge. Indeed, it could have comfortably accomodated twice the size of party that actually turned up. Our bags are carried downstairs too, a buzzing noise from one of Felice's bags turns out to be his electric toothbrush, and not the bomb I made him leave at home! All around, various Fishpool/Aggression people are setting up the area known as the organisers desk, but there is not too much organised activity just yet, as the loose piles of junk testify. There is a plan for Felice and I to stay at Setok's family apartment in downtown Espoo, and we eventually leave the party place, and the bulk of our gear behind, to catch a bus to get back to Setok's. This is on a scenically attractive route, so loads of views of lakes and islands and boats feature strongly. Setok is contacted by someone who is sizing up 2 ALT to see whether it is safe for their 14 year old son to go, whilst we are en-route. Setok tells smooth lies beautifully! The lad will be visiting us tomorrow, is this a good idea? About twenty minutes later, we decant ourselves into Espoo centre, Setok's place is in a block right by the railway station, and a few floors up, so time for another of those continental lifts with no inner doors! The apartment is deserted, so we sort out bedrooms pretty quickly, and the Finnish cable network is flicked on, which rapidly resolves to BBC Choice, so no nasty looking or bizarre tele gameshows to watch. Instead, we catch the highlights of Wimble- bumble-don! Also of interest, a bit later on, was the over the top style of the presenter of their business week programme. He would start a fairly dull sounding business analysis piece off calmly, but suddenly, his voice and mannerisms would heighten in passion, as if an underling, hiding under the desk was covertly injecting our man in the shin with cobra venom?! (The subsequent post-party sauna party revealed a lot of the Fishpoolers were very proficient in Fast-Show speak, which suited us, sir! (Eth-eth-etc!)) Food next, we go out again, to a nearby kiosk over the other side of the railtracks. This offers a mixture of fast(ish) food, a small selection of corner store type goods, and a faux mid-west American roadside diner atmosphere. Food is awaited, and we pass the time looking at a copy of a Finnish tabloid. Somehow, we are unable to get away from a headline with the dread word "Fergie" in it! Spirits sink, only to be restored when the food is ready, so we go back to the apartment. The food is home-made in taste, which is okay. There is a small dog who tries to share it with us, but we keep the packaging just out of reach! It is around midnight before we realise that the halfway twilight evening is as dark as it is ever going to get! After some amount of scene related chat, we head for bed. My room is in a curtainless junk room, with a choice between hot n' humid, or an open window with various street noises making their presence felt! It is not so bad a room, but the terrors of first night sleeplessness or 'strange bed syndrome' make themselves known, so I don't really remember sleeping too much of the time. Bearing in mind the previous ALT Party's reputation for sleep user-unfriendliness, this is not a good idea! The time does come in useful in bringing the sadly neglected since the flight realtime journal up to date. Friday 7th July 01.05.. (Yes, I did leave it that late!) Now I'm writing from Setok's place in Espoo, sorry this update took so long. Got to Helsinki's main railway station, there we found Felice had a wooden mobile phone, allegedly set up for making international calls, but not when you actually got abroad, hmmm. Anyway, we managed to track down the last surviving payphone in Helsinki, Setok collected us and took us to the partyplace. We negotiated a 50FM reduction in the entry fee,in exchange for blood, sweat, tears, and carrying strip lighting down four flights of stairs. Felice didn't forget his toothbrush, it was electric, and had decided to switch itself on! Back at Setok's place, more scarey lift with no inner door shenanigens. The television highlights include what can only be described as "The Oscilloscope Hour"?! Which came up as a bunch of jaggy lines on a gridded screen hogging an entire tele channel. We got food from a place that was a cross between a burger joint, corner shop on an extremely small scale, and a potential low-life hangout. Still no sightings of Hesburger yet. One other thing, the Stena Line pen is an early casualty of the trip. It disappeared on the plane as if it had never existed in the first place? Time for bed, Helsinki is fairly hot and humid, with an open window, there is an uneasy city soundtrack, Night night! DAY 2 - Friday July 7th.. There is a plan, which is vague and generous in its timescale. This is, to get up at 9am, head over to Fishpool for 10, and on to the party place for midday. My brain, which never really got to sleep properly, wakes up a bit, and feels the need to add more to the realtime text, a little while prior to the rest of them getting up. 08.58.. Awake, had a restless night or half-twilight sort of thing, as it never really got dark at all. I'm going to find the cricket or other wing-rubbing insect that was below my window all night and kill the little bugger! I think I did sleep in the end, which was pretty good, considering the factors working against. Things such as strange bed syndrome, a certain amount of humid hotness, even with the windows opened, and various nocturnal street sounds in the background.... Still, time to get up and on to the party. I get up slowly, Felice and Setok follow, Setok looking like he has already been through three days of sleepless party phun! Which in a sense, he had, with the pre-party organising and load-shifting he had been doing. We briefly meet Setok's mother. She is the Finnish half of his dual Irish/Finnish genetic heritage, and seems to be a very nice lady, apart from wanting to wash the clothes currently residing on Setok's back. (Notwithstanding a half-hour deadline before we set off to Fishpool!) It is Matti, one of the directors and co-founders of Fishpool Developments, who arrives next. A selection of Setok's own gear makes the journey down in the lift, crusty prehistoric ZX Spectrum and all. Matti's car is already loaded, but somehow, we manage to fit all of this in, and us three too! It is with a sense of having my face pressed against the rear window, and my right leg wrapped around the gearshift, that we make the ten minute journey to the premises of Fishpool. Ten minutes being *plenty* long enought to develop a severe disabling cramp! Fishpool is a revelation. No longer the cosy cramped central location in Helsinki City centre. They are occupying a huge suite of offices in a plushly smart technology park complex in a more 'out of town' sense. Apart from the familiar stuff, people prodding purposely at various items on higher end workstations, there seem to be some more darkened and closed-off offices, which puts me in mind of a certain high-budget action movie involving James Cameron and the not so obscure Arnold Schwartzennegar! The realtime has a little to say here too. 10.30. Splashing around in the Fishpool now. They're at new and vastly expanded premises. Maybe they should consider a name change to something more suited to their expanded role, such as 'Cyberdyne Systems'?! As in "Don't go in that room, it's got the *special* hardware!" I'm currently breakfasting off free coke, and looted pringles. I've also got to ask myself, will history from two years ago repeat itself, will the realtime notebook get left here once again!? Damn good question too, answer shortly. Time to shift more gear, ohhh Gre-e-e-at! A precarious human chain bundles various bits of Sun Sparc Station, oversized monitors, Table Ice Hockey table (more on this fascinating sport later!), miscellaneous cables, and sharp metal sticky-into-your- body SCSI drive-bay things into the lift and out again into the bottom level loading area. This all has to go into, you guessed it, Matti's already heavily loaded car! There will be no room for us to travel this time, the car will be 100% freight carrying. We are to make our own way to the partyplace. Strangely, this comes as something of a relief to us! Amazingly enough, apart from the odd bag or three, which travel down with us, he just about does it, after two or three major repackaging attempts to get it all in. Then he sets off to the party place, nervously wondering if the traffic police will object to such an obviously overloaded vehicle? He needen't have worried, as the following apocryphal bit shows! Traffic Cop - "Excuse me sir, I couldn't help noticing that your car seems to be very heavily loaded with computer gear. Could you be so kind to tell me what O/S is running on that server in the back seat?" Matti - "Errm, Linux of course, why, is there a problem officer?" Traffic Cop - "No, not at all, carry on, but if I catch you with a Windowze box in there next time, I'll book you for sure!" Setok, Felice and I follow up, phoning for a taxi, which sadistically waits until the bus, our plan B failsafe option, turns up. Meanwhile, we can tell that it is getting closer to the 12 o'clock opening, by the number of frantic phonecalls of a "Where the f*ck are you!?" nature, that Setok is getting on his mobile! Not too long after, we arrive at the party place, travelling in COMFORT! Downstairs in the basement, a few Fishpoolers and Wiztom, of previous ALT Party infamy, are busily unloading/setting up their gear. Felice and I, learning our lesson about being over-helpful to totally strange people earlier, manage to keep a very low profile for a bit. I manage to look busy by lingering near to Wiztom, who is sorting out the big black snakelike main power cable for the whole party. We do also take time out to prepare our sleeping places, grabbing a couple of the long narrow couches, and dumping our sleeping gear onto these, in a minature act of gaining colonial control. Any fool can be uncomfortable sleeping on the floor! The realtime notebook, having successfully pulled away from the suction-like grip of Fishpool, is here, having small chunks of its rearmost page to assist in Wiztom's crazed wiring diagrams torn out, but it is otherwise hot and ready for the first 'official' party entry! Okay, here it is, the first CiH despatch from the party place... 12.05. No, I learned!! (see end bit of last log entry.) We're back at the party place. Wiztom pinches my pen for marking cables. All the better to blow up the electrics properly? I used the bathroom just now, the water coming from the tapes is scary. It starts off clear, then turns yellow, urine yellow! I managed to clean my teeth and get the hell out just in time! (This cleared up shortly after, the place hadn't been used for months, before this party, hence the strange wee-wee coloured water.) 12.22. Gone into hiding, or keeping Wiztom company? You decide! People come and go with loads, but we got caught out on that one already! Someone else can lift that bale! 12.45. (Felice) Bit of a sleepless night last night - It got fairly dark, but not as dark as I'm used to. Setok's sister must be a very broadminded girl. A certain type of magazine on one of the shelves certainly was an eye-opener! Now waiting for some breakfast... Let it roll :) (No lingerie drawer unpeeked into by our fearless investigator, hmmm?) 12.46. What magazine would that be exactly? Widows Knitting Monthly?! Some other, rather familiar Swedish people start to arrive shortly afterwards. 1.06. Baggio, Tam, and the NoCrew gang arrive, more big boxes with computers in them are thrown carelessly into the mix! As things are slowly coming together, the occasionally rumoured search for solid food starts to become fact. In this instance, Setok, Felice, and I wind up at the on-site catering facilities, the 'Uni Cafe'. These are a couple of levels up, so almost street level, but not quite. According to Setok, they are running in a temporary makeshift fashion, pending reconstruction work on another part of the site. We catch the tail end of lunch, or at least the choice of menu available. Maggie editor, who is working towards being carnivorous, is forced to go vegetarian on this occasion, but this wasn't actually too bad. As a re-acquaintance with the principles of how solid food worked, the Fishpool Pringles weren't really up to the job, this was a lot better... We amble back downstairs to our party bunker retreat. There is a little more life, not too much yet, but the Swedes, a mixed party from NoCrew and Wildfire are settling in. Evil, the Dead Hackers Society linchpin person, isn't present today, financial or travelling hassles given as the reason why not. This has fortunate consequences for a certain 'Eat all you can' pizza restaurant in the centre of town, a bit later on! Anyway, pen returns to paper.. 1.42pm. Lunch is had in the Uni Cafe. I had to go vegetarian as everything else seemed to run out just before I got to it? 1.55pm. Setok killed the video star! Well, he pulled the power cable out from the bigscreen projector.. 2.25pm. Checked out Baggio and company in the Swedish Atari corner. Their recently seen, but unreleased ST demo from SV2000, should be out in the next couple of weeks, whether they get certain artwork from a well known Dutch graphics person, or not. (Still waiting for this "2 weeks" to go by, as of a month later!) Bonzai minature (10 inch) VGA monitors rule! It doesn't get any better, does it? Anyway, I had been chatting to Baggio, of Wildfire fame. They were planning a new Falcon demo, based largely on existing Amiga effects that they had already written, which could be converted to the bird! Hopefully, we'll see something of this before too long? Baggio had an erratically performing recased and accelerated (?) Falcon with him. Tam was witnessed in the area of that machine, slightly later on, waving a soldering iron, dressed in his priestly robes, and muttering ancient Babylonian incantations, before setting to work on it. Baggio tries to relieve his inner tension with a display of piss- poor juggling. The realtime picks up on things once again.. 3.10pm. I tested and evaluated the sofa's in the sleeping room. They are too damn comfortable, especially if you are in a sleep-deprived state already! There is a tendency to narrowness, so some arm-dangling hassles overnight are going to be likely. Also, one of the Swedes has brought his treasured ancient Vectrex with him! Yes, the real thing, with a built-in mono vector screen. I didn't spot any transparent coloured plastic overlays though? 3.20pm. Looking around, there seems to be a lot more equipment turning up, but no more people in the room? 3.55pm. Baggio juggles... Drops it. Is he the ideal juggling masterclass tutor for Setok? 4.19pm. Thumb Wars, where do I get my copy?! Quite a bit happened in a short time there. I'm sure most people reading this will know what a Vectrex is, but for the odd uninitiated person, the Vectrex was a unique console with a built-in monitor, in effect, a minature arcade cabinet. It strode in on the early eighties home computer/console boom, and a couple of years later, strode out again. The games that were produced for it resembled many of the early Atari vector line arcade games, so it could play a mean game of Asteroids. What was interesting, was the fact that death of the parent company didn't mean the death of the hardware. There was, and quite possibly still is, third party software cartridges being produced for it. We got to witness, amongst the normal shooty death bang-bang, classically styled vector mayhem. a Vectronic vector styled Frogger game, vector-Tetris, and even a pinball sim, for grud's sake! The Vectrex is emulated on the PeeCee, and actual physical hardware is quite rare now. If you do pick up one very cheap at a car-boot sale or similar, cherish it, as it could well be worth a lot more at an auction! As for Thumb Wars, I'm sure most people have been to thumbwars.com by now. One of the NoCrew Sun Sparcs was running it in MPEG form. It rocked hugely, of course! However, the distracting business of getting more food barges forcefully into our mental 'to do' listings, and it is off to the centre of town, that Setok, Felice, myself, and a bunch of very hungry Swedes, go, reluctantly dragging ourselves away from the unfolding thumbsized parody drama on the small screen Setok swirls around the restaurant-bound party pedestrians, for all the world like an anxious urbanised skateboarding shepherd, the plank with wheels on it concept having undergone a revival since the original late 1970's craze, which I took an active part in! Skateboarding digression:- The party organisers all had these, some people using them for freight transport in the party place. I was briefly tempted to have a go, but remembered that it hurt a lot when I fell off, and it would hurt even more this time around! Not a lot of protective padding was in evidence, which also took me back to those bygone days where we would spend all our money on improving the boards to make them go faster, but skimping on the protection! What a stupid short term idea that was, eh! Still, I'm here writing this today, so I couldn't have been that reckless. We decide on a cheap but filling visit to Rax's, the Helsinki version of an 'all you can eat' pizza restaurant. The concept is very simple, you pay an 'entrance fee' (with or without ice cream), and then grab a plate, and refill it as much as your stomach can stand from the constantly replenishing pizza ovens and the salad bar! The soft drinks are on tap in an unlimited way, and the ice cream is a help-yourself affair too. Very simple and straightforward. The pizza is at the better end of okay, rather than the best thing you ever tasted in your life, but the ice cream definitely hit the spot. Did we stop eating like a bunch of smug grown-ups when we were just at the stage of 'comfortably full', or did we pig out until out stomach walls exploded? What do you think! There isn't an outright winner for the unspoken pizza eating contest, although Baggio and Setok were strong contenders. It is reckoned that Evil, mentioned earlier in this text as sadly missing, would have out- eaten them all! The groups splits into two for the journey back. I opt to go with Setok who is taking the scenic route back to the partyplace, via some electrical hardware stores, as he is looking for more electrical extension cables. Nobody is in a great hurry, apart from Setok who realises that the majority of these places are about to close shortly! He finds a hardware shop, the sort of place that sells anything from a fuse-plug, to an entire fitted kitchen, and goes inside with Baggio, whilst Felice and I try 'hanging tough' outside. This is not a total success, Felice not being the ideal candidate for that sort of behaviour! We get back to the partyplace, Setok swathed in armfuls of electrical cable, where the Swedes and Finns opt to go for a sauna. I don't, unsure if this is the best thing to follow such a huge meal, and things go rather quiet for a while. Some more people have turned up by now, principally the local MSX demo scene, and some more obscure hardware is lying scattered around some of the centre tables. Once more to the notebook, which is lying around in a nonchalant manner... 6.12. Food! Ate too much food! We took off to Rax's, the Helsinki 'eat all you can' pizza mecca. They saw us coming, a group of confirmed food monsters and perverts, and tried to lock the doors and phone the police, but it was too late for them! I think Baggio was the eventual winner, with at least four visits to the main counter, and three ice-cream refills. Setok may well dispute that total, with the large amount of end-crusts left on Baggio's plate! Afterwards, partake of Helsinki evening airs, with a digestion destroying walk around to find extra extension leads. A few more people have turned up, including the return of Wiztom with his Neo Geo. 6.45. (Felice) Feeling more comfortable now, especially after the pizza's. Next time we go, I shall go for the ice cream too. I had a good walk around the centre of Helsinki, loads of nice women here. The centre itself is pretty busy with people but not too crowded. 7.15pm. More people arriving now, some Finnish MSX'ers? Some of the Swedes have disappeared for a while, looking for a sauna. Also, someone has got a Highway Racer or Pole Position type game running on the Vectrex, hang on, it IS Pole Position! With the Swedes, and most of the organisers, apart from the on the door duty person, temporarily away, we wander over to check out what the new arrivals have brought with them. Hardware-wise, a very large and varied selection is now in the building. A couple of specifically Finnish models, from the dawn of home computing itself, more familiar 8-bit models, such as the Mettoy Dragon 64, Vic 20, those memorable from the previous Alt Party Spectravideo and MSX machines, and even a rare sighting of a SAM Coupe, the supercharged ZX Spectrum clone! There was also something very obscure, called a 'Socrates', but I suspect that was more of an educationware toy computer, rather than a proper fully programmable home computer as most people understand them. Some of the MSXer's are coming slowly to life. Tantalising hints of a new production are being shown, but this isn't going to be for this party though. Instead, the producers, a dual PC/MSX crew known as 'Bandwagon', are going for the big one, an entry to the Assembly 2000 Wild competition! This turned out to be a huge mistake on their part. Their entry struggled against a backwash of misunderstanding and pro-Wintel prejudice. The Assembly 2000 party did have an 'oldschool' demo competition, but restricted the entries to Commodore 64 and Amiga platforms! Instead, Bandwagon were having to put their entry into the 'wrong' competition, where it struggled against a whole bunch of people with their humourous 'Matrix' take-off styled home movies. They got thirteenth place in the end, I think they would have done better, (as in winning prizes) and been much more appreciated at 2 Alt! Still, here's the realtime again.. 7.45. I've been watching some MSX productions, those from ALT '98, which gave that scene such a huge shot in the arm. There was something new too, a weird and wobbly spiky hi-res mono sort of thing, now is this a production from the past, or for the present? A name on the MSX scene to play with, 'Bandwagon'. Thumbwars update - I've been told that the thumbwars movie is an 80-meg download. This is frankly a bit too much for my humble 33.6kb modem to cope with! I've got to find someone with an unmetered high speed line and a CD-ROM burner! 8.00. Some more hardware has turned up,. Sam Coupe,Dragon 64, and something obscure and educational called a 'Socrates' Probably works okay until you stuff hemlock into its IO port! 8.40. Felice reveals the location of the nearest petrol station to an eagerly waiting world. Errm, we've no car with us! He must have a secret addiction to diesel oil we weren't aware of previously? The Sam Coupe is running something with stars in it, very slowly. Meanwhile, the Socrates is philosophical about staying in its box. The Swedes return, the party is settling down again, in fact, an early evening 'lull period' is upon us, where not too much of note is taking place, mostly people playing around, but not in any spectacular or organised fashion. There are things scheduled to happen a bit later on, but not too much right now. Meanwhile, something stirs in the main projector room... Someone has been busy in there, hooking up a Jaguar console to the big screen. The lights are down, and the not unnatural choice of game, is the ultra-trippy Tempest 2000! Putting it through a good quality sound system is the next logical step. For the next hour, the nearest thing to a full-blown LSD trip that can be obtained, without chemically hurling individual brain cells and neurons into the trackless void, is the Tempest 2000 induced sensurround overload! Eventually, when motion sickness, and a deep post-Rax pizza induced thirst start to predominate, I stagger back into the main hall, searching for the drinks dispenser. Mission successful, and suitably calmed and refreshed, I look around to see what is transpiring in the main hall. There, people are getting ready for the first table ice-hockey tournament, and something called a "C64 live DJ" a bit later from there. Meanwhile, paper is taken out and brought up to date once more.. 10.00pm. Tempest 2000, probably the Jag's finest hour, is being endlessly played and slayed on the big screen in the competition entry viewing room. It is still going on now, and seems to be stuck in some kind of perpetual motion groove? 10.10. Baggio's method of enjoying or enduring this early party period. He puts an ugly screen saver on his computer, and gets drunk! The table ice hockey commences by me, in an over the shoulder fashion. Table ice hockey, explanation promised earlier, still owed to you, right, here goes.. You know the game called table football? Well, it's like that, but with ice hockey instead! Before you all start to gather underneath my window to yell "Lame!" I might add it is a table-top based game of two players, a bit more elaborate than its distant footy-based cousin. Rather than the blind and furious 'hit 'n hope' approach of table football, the table ice hockey player is able to attack, defend, twirl breathlessly on the spot, and take killer shots at the opponents goal. Indeed, it can be played with a surprising degree of deliberation, skill, and subtlety. Or you can go all out for the frantically physical approach, only then, bits of players and the ball/puck, tend to go flying in all directions! As the championship tournament, played the next day, showed, the most successful players, were those that were able to most effectively combine these two different approaches... Back to the party action, and what we are getting is an informal warm- up for tomorrow's tournament, from some of the Fishpool mob, who just can't get enough of this game! Meanwhile,a semi-formal addition to the entertainment, as the MSX'ers make their presence felt. 10.55pm. We're in the dark! Several MSX demos from different parties are being shown on the slightly smaller version of the big screen in the main hall. The demo scene from an obscure 8-bit Japanese computer was still capable of producing the required expressions of surprise and delight, even after they had got over familiar with some of the material. (The original ALT Party demo's in particular) Mixed in, were several other productions that we hand't seen before. Filled in the time nicely until the C64 Club DJ Live Mix, due to go off just a bit later on. 11.15pm. MSX demos have all stopped now. Meanwhile, the table ice hockey is still going on in an ultraviolet and ultraviolent fashion. 11.25pm. There are people turning up still, even now. Tempest 2000 is still going on in the main hall, and yes, it's still on the same game as when I left it. Surely he must be down to the last couple of dozen lives by now? 11.30pm. The C64 Live DJ mix starts in just a little bit... Ah, what we're all waiting for! The C64 Live DJ promised a musicial experience totally nothing like we had ever seen before, unless you attended the coding party that was rumoured to have a SIDchip 'Disco'? (But I would find same-sex disco's solely inhabited by the geeky end of the male population, to be very depressing affairs!) We are not disappointed, it is late, we are tired, but the grooves are kicking in a metallic tangy Mostek stylee! There isn't quite enough room to dance, but that is alright as most people are rooted to the spot, in an attitude of 'not quite dancing but nearly..' The crowded conditions in the narrow hall don't deter one reveller, who is well into the groove. Closer examination reveals this to be the short and perky form of one 'Pahartik', a Finnish Space-Gipsy and thoroughly strange but nice. A later chat with Baggio reveals that Pahartik could be motivated to dance by almost anything, even soundtracker modfiles from his own computer... Meanwhile, as the beat goes on, Baggio extravagantly strums on Wiztom's Neo-Geo arcade joystick, answering the mysterious rhythms in his mind? Regrettably, it is all over a while later, the realtime picks up again. 12.15am. The C64 DJ mix has finished. Pahartik is getting down to it. Surely, it isn't safe to dance with all the cables on the floor? Baggio indulges in the computer age equivalent of air guitar! Ice Hockey sur la table suffers an interruption as the puck skitters off into the darkness. Oh yeah, it's Saturday now! DAY 3 - Saturday 8th July.. Getting wrapped up in the C64 DJ mix meant that the passing of midnight went by with scarcely a blink of a sleep-lacking eyelid. In spite of our very long and eventful first party day, some of us still aren't quite ready to quit. Setok revealed earlier that he was a big 'Dr Who' fan, especially enjoying classic episodes from the Tom Baker era. He had gone as far as bringing several videos with him, for appreciation on the big screen in some of the quieter moments of the party. Now, it seemed such a time was upon us, as he commandeered the projector in the viewing room. It was the entire four episode run of 'The Horror of Fang Rock', otherwise known as 'Death in a Lighthouse' (by me) that rumbled before us on the big screen. It had been a long time since I last saw it myself, late childhood in fact, so I was quite pleased with the refresher. Setok, who spends more time on these things, finally decided to call it a day about halfway through, trying to snatch a little bit of sleep before his next early morning 'on-duty' spell by the entrance. Notable things about 'Fang Rock', almost nobody, apart from the two principal characters, were left alive by the end, even the more sympathetic Victorian repertory theatre style acting characters, and Louise Jamieson as the cutie savage sidekick 'Leela' was in it. Dr Who ends, the viewing hall is darkened, I am alone, apart from the occasional sleeping-bag huddled figure in the further corners of the room. So I quietly switch off the projector, and update the realtime before going to bed myself. 2.15am. A quick belt of classic Dr Who (Tom Baker era) keeps the viewing appreciation going. They all died happily ever after! The others have gone to bed, Me, I don't feel that tired.. But he did go to bed soon after! The narrow-cushioned bench seats beckoned. Sleeping bodies are gathered in a gently breathing mass. My own pre-booked bed/bench is still free, good! I try to settle down as best as I can. The lights have been dimmed, and even more thankfully, the waterfall/white noise rumble of the air conditioning has ceased for the night. There are a few misgivings, as the sleeping room does seem to be pretty airtight, with the sealed accoustic door. I wonder if oxygen levels will drop dangerously low, only replenished by chance visitors opening the doors in the nick of time! If no-one comes to us in the middle of the night, surely we are doomed to perish on the outpouring of our own waste gases? (Speaking of which, no, nobody was putting any methane or sulphide particles into the local ecosystem, fortunately!) But I don't worry about it for too long, sleep is far more important, maybe it was some of that excess carbon dioxide getting to my brain? What follows, is a strange uneasy kind of sleep, common to people who inhabit makeshift beds, in strange places. There is another guest DJ active (Non Commodore 64 variety) whose activities occasionally seep through even the generous layers of noise protection into the sleeping room. Eventually, at around 6.30am, I struggle awake sufficiently to add quite a detailed chunk to the realtime text... 6.35am. (Yet again, that early, c'mon, are you really surprised anymore!) Back again, I went to bed very shortly after the last message. Sleep was of an "intermittent but reasonable" quality. If you don't know what kind of sleep you get from a bus seat, than the last few hours would have been a pretty good preparation, as I was guest- crashed on a sofa very much like that. Felice had the supreme advantage of being able to assume a corpse-like rigidity in his sleep, so he is probably going to be smug and well rested. I got up and checked out the vast amounts of nothing much happening at this point in time. This issue's stats, or 2 ALT so far.. Number of notebook pages (Thursday) filled with this garbage - Four. Number of notebook pages from Friday - Ten Number of C64-remixed chip tunes by andrenaline addled DJ - Too many to count! Amount of pizza eaten by Baggio at the Rax food orgy yesterday - Earth's gravitational pull has serious competition! Number of times my brain has rebooted in 'Felice Mode' - None, (so far at least!) Time left to breakfast, about two hours at a guess? That done, I collapse back for a bit, but hunger proves to be a prime motivator, as I get up once more in search of food. First thoughts turn in the direction of the Uni' Cafe, but the door from our end on the stairwell seems to be locked. As it is still a bit early, I decide to leave it for a short time. Going back down, I find Setok, awaiting the non-existent flood of early morning visitors, looking like he has had even less sleep than me, and looks like a tall and grey version of something seen on television, filed under 'refugee'! Our little early morning chat does reveal that there is going to be something Atari related turning up at 2 Alt after all. The Finnish crew 'Fit', who shot to immediate acclaim with their Indian-styled 'Mahabarata' demo, earlier in the year, have brought themselves to 2 ALT, and are busy on a new demo. It is a little unclear at this early stage whether this is going to be a party release or not? 7.54am. I went away again for a time, fractured chainsaw noises rise from the sleeping room. I've got to find some breakfast soon, as I've got a load of stomach acid sitting around and doing nothing! We also need to find out what is happening with the competitions soon. I only know there is a good response to the ST.01 music compo, about half a dozen entries so far. There may be something worth seeing on the demo front, but I'm not authorised to reveal any more at this time! I've also got to find out who to hand my entry to the obscure music compo to? Let's go and check to see if the Uni' cafe is open yet? Another anecdote coming up, this one admirably covered by the next stretch of realtime.. 9.05am. I think I managed to blag a free breakfast by accident! Explanation called for? Okay then, I went out to see if the Uni' Cafe was open, but I found the door at our end of the stairwell was still locked. I then went upstairs to find the entrance at street level was open. So I went downstairs, and I managed to get tangled up in the early morning rush, as the overnight hostel guests crowded in. Chaos rules, everybody is trying to grab their share, so I blend in. I go up to the till, but no-one seems to be paying anything, or collecting any money. So I didn't want to feel out of place ;-) A great victory for the principal of a free lunch! (erm, breakfast.) It is still very dead back at the party, Setok has borrowed my sleeping bag, and looks like one of those appeals for food and money you see on the telly! That about covers the free breakfast affair in a nice and factual fashion, does it not? Saturday morning, the party place is still darkened, and the party- goers, for the most part, are in the final stages of a fretful uneasy sleep. There are isolated bursts of activity, and even the odd new guest, as someone very familiar from the original ALT Party arrives at this point. 9.25am. Q-Funk is in the building! There is more hair on him, but less of it facial than the last time I saw him. Q-Funk turns up suddenly in the still semi-darkened and very quiet main hall. Appearance wise, he seems to have reverted to the long-haired muso guise popular a few years previously. (Look at his web site if you need an actual picture!) He asks lots of questions about the party, and the people in it, gets to meet none of them, as most people are still asleep, and is never seen at 2 Alt again! This comes as a disappointment to a few people, particularly Felice, who was looking forward to meeting Q-Funk, but missed his brief appearance window as he was still asleep. There is a little bit of activity around the MSX'ers area, as Viznut, the coder of the winning Vic 20 multipart 'Bouncing Ball' demo, resurrects his creation on an authentic crackly battered old portable television. The soundchip seems to be generating something equal parts music, to equal parts crackle and distortion. All around, slumbering bodies stir uneasily in their gonk bags, trying to fight off the cacophony. Other local 8-bitters are engaged in quieter forms of activity... 10.00am. A Vic 20 is fighting a crackly tv to replay the ALT '98 winning competition entry. This looked quite good, even close up without a big screen. 10.05am. The obscure computer likely winner is... Something not seen outside of Finland? The "Salora Fellow", which may be an average spec 8-bit home computer, say the Finnish version of the Oric? It dates from an era when just about anybody tried to break the market with their version of a home computer. But does it have its own version of Jet Set Willy? At that point, I go back to bed for a little while, to try to ride out a late-arriving wave of tiredness. Still a deathly hush in the sleeping room, broken only by the gentle rushing sound of the restarted air conditioning. The best part of an hour passes... 11.05am. Erm no, 10.55 - So I'm going time dyslexic now?? I had an hour's worth of 'brown out' time, not strictly asleep, nor awake either. Now Felice is up, Baggio is about, the lights are back on, and the balance has tipped back more in favour of people being awake. Something Japanese, cultish, and violent is playing on the smaller of the big screens. 11.12am. Subtitles on the film need a bit of explanation. The Finnish subtitled dialogue based on the single word "Alas" seems to translate to the following spoken Japanese extract onscreen, "Quick, let's hide in the sewers, as some heavy shit is going down in the old town right now!" A remarkably compact language, is Finnish!? 11.30am (Felice) Yep, a good night's sleep was had by some of us. I haven't yet seen the legendary Q-Funk as yet, hopefully this will happen soon. Been messing about with some MP3's, whoever's PC that is, must have tons of HD space. I'd also hate to see his telephone bill - it must be huge if he had to download all of these! 11.35am. With reference to the comments above, it probably is a Fishpool resident machine, which means a permanent high-speed internet connection, more or less free of charge :) Whilst Felice browses the music collection on one of the organisers machines, I manage to get some more solid information on the forthcoming Falcon demo from 'Fit', which is going to be a party release after all! With the first official event fast approaching, the players for the table Ice Hockey tournament start to warm up. In the corner, a computer bookseller, one of the sponsors for the party (?) sets up his wares. He sells computer books, with a bare-surfaced but well-stocked panache. As these are mainly about a Linux or Unix theme, I'm not too tempted. Meanwhile, things start happening again for this early afternoon stretch... 12.05pm. It looks like there is going to be at least one Falcon demo for 2 Alt. This is courtesy of our friends in 'Fit'. The table ice hockey tournament is about to commence. Yes, it is official, 'Fit' and company have been working long and hard to bring a brand new demo to fruition in time for this party. In fact, later events reveal that this was the only really serious entry to the demo competitions, the rest opting for the fake or joke approach. The table ice hockey tournament begins, the table is bizarrely 'floodlit' by some of the strips of ultraviolet lighting that we helped to carry down into the basement on Thursday evening. A league table of hopeful cup-winning candidates is drawn up, and seems to loosely translate to a 'Sweden vs Finland' derby. Not a good start for the Swedes though... 12.15pm. NoBrain crashes out in the first round. 12.45pm (Felice) These computer books which are on sale are VERY tempting, may well be inclined to get one. The prices are also a fair bit cheaper than at home too! Anyway, just had a latish breakfast, consisting of 2 pastry-based food items from a garage down the street. Both are very nice, may well have these again another day. Will probably go for a stroll shortly. Wheee! What unfolding drama will whirl next before the disbelieving eyes of the readers? Whilst out on walk, man notes that it is a sunny day with only a few clouds? Man comments on albino coloured dog?? I'm sure it is going to get better, so please hang in there.. Anyway, more on the pastry-based food items, as I venture out to see this vendor of such wonderful foodstuffs for myself. It is a garage, it stocks a reasonable range of food, the assistants are alright, if not in the uber-babe class of the Polski SV2000 garage serving females. I get the food items back to base, and some sort of sausage roll influence is detected as they go down, almost too rapidly for me to tell. Meanwhile, the table ice hockey rages on... 1.00pm. Hunt for Food-ji (groan!) The Uni' cafe seemed to be closed, possibly as an expression of shock and outrage over my "free" breakfast antics. So I tried the garage instead. Theirs wasn't free :( 1.20pm. MSK (Matti) upholds Fishpool and Finnish national honour with a 3-nil victory against the might of the remaining Swedes, who are rendered powerless in spite of their vast expertise, and who can do nothing against the puck skills of the dazzling Finn! 1.35pm Someone else is putting together their own obscure music compo entry, and I feel much better about my own efforts after watching them do it! The table ice hockey comes to a natural and favoured conclusion, as Matti wins. One of the MSX groups is busy on their entry to the Obscure music competition. It consists of someone shouting and banging into a porta- studio. No more words are needed to describe this breakthrough in production methods! Meanwhile, an old and familiar friend from the first Alt Party is rediscovered. 2.25pm. The 6800 evaluation kit (c.1976) has made it back here too! A new demo to hand, consisting of two lines of an LED display!? This justifiably crusty and ancient piece of hardware dated back to a time when the Apple II was rad new hardware, and the term 'home computer' was still unknown. The 6800 evaluation kit seems to be an engineers curiosity, with little real world application. I can just see the "My 6800 evaluation kit is better than your Z80 benchtest gubbins" arguments raging back in '76! The rather long gap to the next realtime entry (4.30pm) is mainly accounted for by a few things that happen. The fourteen year old, mentioned in an earlier part of the report has turned up, and he is interested in what people are doing with the ZX Spectrum. Wiztom and some other friendly people oblige, Wiztom by turning his PC into a tape recorder for the loading of TAP files into a real Speccy. By these means, we witness some rather high quality demos, some of which came quite close to the levels of excellence on the ST. Which either suggests the current standards of the Speccy demo scene are extremely high, or possibly, we on the ST still have some way to go yet? Yet again, this is cut short in the search for food. Setok's suggestion for this afternoon, is a quiet visit to a chinese restaurant, that is quite close to the premises of 'old' Fishpool, and which used to be a regular after work hangout. The decor is traditional, so is the food. The atmosphere is quieter as there are only the three of us, Setok, Felice and myself attending. This is Setok's main chance at a meal before the Megazone tournament, so we manage to eat and get back before 4.30pm. Some light relief is provided by a couple of very blonde and very attractive Helsinki babes sitting on the other side of the restaurant, but our stay there is all too brief! 4.30pm. Has it been that long? We went away to a chinese place that Setok was talking about. It was pretty good, and not too expensive, but will we feel like going back there in another ten minutes? Got back to find a piece of decaptitated electrical cable on top of this notebook. Is this some kind of DIY proficient mafia threat? As in "Stop doing the realtime, or the 3-way plug gets it!?" I nearly forgot to mention Wiztom's PC being used as a very expensive tape recorder for a ZX Speccy. His "tape recorder" has Windows on it, so it works less well than the real thing! Speccy demos, at least the ones we saw, were very high quality. Breaking news, Fit have confirmed they are entering the main demo competition with their Falcy entry. The Obscure music compo looks like being very well represented too. I'm off to collapse for a bit, stop my feet from killing me... Whilst Setok and company prepare for a swift and sweaty bout of Megazoning, the effects of poor sleeping patterns, and too much food suddenly rush up on me, and I rush back to the sleeping room. Setok finds me thus, realise that Megazone isn't an option, and leaves me there. The next hour is taken up by the strange water-gushing sounds of the sleeping room air conditioning, as I slide around a netherworld of 'not-quite-sleep', but unable to pull myself away from the dehabilitating whooshing sounds. Eventually I do get up, and check out the action in some of the more faraway corners of the party. This way, I get my first look at the virtually complete party entry from Fit, it is a demo worthy of the new millenium, some parts an expanded version of their previous 'Mahabarata' demo, other parts, such as the environment textured duck at the end, entirely new. The presentation aspect hangs together extremely well, and this entry is approaching Amiga levels of slickness. Should be in the prize winners category at the very least. I shift my attention over to some nearby Amiga '060 tower systems, which are running a selection of demos from recent parties, including the April 2000 Symposium party! Wonder if they got the shuttle-bus sorted out yet? The Amiga demos are hugely terribly wonderfully impressive, but with the levels of development and investment on the hardware side, compared with Atari people, so they ought to be! Still, if this CT060 takes off, maybe we can port some of this fantastic stuff over? By now, I am sufficiently back together to attempt some more realtime.. 6.30pm. The problem with the sleeping room is that the air conditioning generates a white noise or water rushing sound, so that your brain writes its own soundtrack after a little while. You can almost trip out on the tiredness! 6.40pm. Spent the last hour watching Amiga demos. Lots of nice ones, and probably not an '030 in sight! I saw Fit's new demo, and part of it is very oldschool. A record breaking fractal flight! They were apparently expecting more Atari scene to turn up than actually did! 7.00pm. Baggio returns, the rest of the Mega Zone crew to follow shortly? Meanwhile, Wiztom, and one of the other Aggression bods (probably Lance) are busy recreating some of their greatest moments on an emulated ST. The reason is a thorough road-test of the just released latest version of WinSTon. A disk image of the 'Nostalgic-o' demo appears. This seems to (mostly) work okay. It is notable that the 3-D parts from that demo, the intro sequence, and the Overlanders 3-D textures run like the veritable clappers, when the emulator is set to run at the maximum speed the host PC permits! 7.25pm. WinSTon with Wiztom, and it's the Nostalgic-o hour. The 3-D bits run very quickly, more so than its normal 8 mhz environment would permit it. Running an Equinox demo reveals that one or two bits are slightly out of breath if the emulator is running in full screen mode though! All good things eventually have to come to an end though. 8.40pm. The informal entertainment program(me) dies away, amidst a barrage of floppy drive related stubborness. We are now firmly in that tricky pre-competition period, waiting for something to happen. The sounds of some of the ST-01 competition entries fills the air like some cheaply mass-produced harbinger of doom! To be fair, the problematic machine, was Lance's old STe, which rebelled at being locked away and neglected since the previous ALT party? People start to drift in the direction of the projector room, as some sort of competition activity is imminent. Not wanting to miss out, I join them. 8.50pm. This only feels like a couple of seconds after the last log entry? There is a heap of eff-all happening right now, ther emay be some problems with the main projector? Ooh look, a votesheet! Protracker front end appears on the big screen, so the projector seems to have got better. 8.55pm. Competitions starting now! The first part is devoted to the very oldschool Amiga modfile sounding Modfile from the classic ST-01 sample disk competition. The end results aren't too bad. A bit samey-sounding and perhaps over familiar in places, but the musicians of today, with their years of experience do their best to stretch the utmost from what is a tired and overworked format. The realtime tells a little bit more about it. 9.07pm. The ST-01 music compo is over. Nice of the organisers to keep the lights on! Makes it a lot easier to keep up to date on this, and use the votesheet. 9.10pm. Err no, it isn't over yet. Someone found some more entries on another Amiga! 9.15pm. A short break before the next compo. The final ST-01 entry was a tune called 'Bus Trip'. Totally unlike any bus trip I've been on in my life! The tempo was all wrong, too frantically fast, it should have been so slow, it would be going backwards? Anticipation, and fear, in one case, builds up for the next competition, which is the extremely open-minded 'Obscure music competition'. 9.40pm. The next compo coming up, is the most worrying for me, the Obscure music compo! 9.51pm. Going to hide now.... Note, that time measurements get very precise at this point, and updates fairly frequent... The band, or MP3 of my entry is first up. For those people who have been lucky enough to avoid it, it consists of a converted Graoumf GTK 8-channel module, made up from samples generated from Jack Barnes 'Necrophilia' softsynth (beta version) and some piss-taking comedy samples from Jody Smith, a regular contributor to Maggie, and totally off his head when he made them. The end result certainly isn't "music" as most people would understand it, but is instead, a desperate attempt to blend the very different speech samples into some sort of 'soundscape' concept, and try to keep it a reasonable length, within the data carrying capacity of a standard PC-formatted hi-density disk. Taking all of the above (severely) limiting factors into account, the end result, known as 'four cheeses', or to give its full title, "My pizza topping has four cheeses and three hallucinogens", seems to work. 9.55pm. Audience reaction to my entry, a moments stunned shock and silence, then applause! The field is clear for the rest of the pack to come chasing in. There are about four other serious entries, all by the same people, the Finnish crew VLP. These are even more obscure than mine, consisting of (from memory) A drum and rhythm effects machine, a lot of white noise, some shouting, lots of shouting, some other improvised percussion effects, possibly when a button of the recording device stuck down? And an attempt at acapello emulation of 'proper' musical instruments. I think the eventual winner was another soundscape concept kind of thing, which was impersonating a radio station? There were a few very non-serious 'entries', which the keyclick and tone commands on a Spectravideo 8-bitter being given formal entries on the votesheet! 10.00pm. The second entry falls into the category of "No more, please!" 10.20. The Obscure music compo ends on a caterwaul of Casio. Now I can start to pick up the pieces of my ruined reputation? A longer break follows, people drift back to the main hall to resume their pre-competion activities, table ice-hockey, hiding under the table panic attacks, or whatever. People start to return to the projector room gradually. 10.35pm. The Jaguar VLM (Virtual light machine) is up on the bigscreen, with a selection of Jeff Minter's greatest swirly hits. 11.05pm. There is some more competition action due shortly, the thrilling to coders and listing freaks ASCII source code compo, and then surely, the demo competition after that? 11.15pm. A jumbled miscellany of hardware arrives in the projector hall. The hardware to run the demo competition entries on, gathers. A weirdly tower-cased Falcon with an ST keyboard and a fake-wood effect front panel sticks in the mind (this owned by someone from Fit?) One of the features of ALT party competitions, is the broad range of hardware that needs to be connected to the main projector, some of it with reasonably standard connectors, some with TV modulators, and some of the oldest stuff falling into the "Where the f*ck does that go?" category! ASCII source competition first, this was fairly brief, about four entries altogether, reasonably well-ordered, after Setok managed to get his Silicon Graphics box to compile the entries properly, and the strongest contender, was an entry by NoCrew, with a pretty Atari Fuji /|\ source listing, which compiled to produce a sentence along the line of "Atari rules!" More time passes, as attempts are made, to make the demo competition entries host hardware make some sense of the big screen. Eventually, the first results of this hard work start to make themselves apparent. 11.50pm. A screentest of the Amiga entry, with a contribution by Laika. Good going from a dead cosmonaut dog left to die in space! Closing in rapidly on... DAY 4 - Sunday 9th July.. 12.07am. In the inexplicable wait for the final act, we're being entertained by a selection of random extended characters from the MSX keyboard character set. At this point, the lights go down for the demo competition. A brief resume from the post-compo realtime to set the scene first.. 1.05am. The competitions are finished, and so am I! (Almost) The only really serious offering this time, was the Falcon entry from Fit and Friends. Spedes, the Amiganauts attending this party offered their take on the fake/retro demo market. This competition was also memorable for two vividly executed PC demos with a "live" soundtrack performance by VLP! Otherwise, there was more amusement than cutting edge material this time, MSX and Vic 20 dudes, where were you? 1.07 (Felice) Yep, compo's just finished. The new Falcon demo was good, I'll have to make sure I download it. Spedes was a bit silly, but there were one or two good retro style effects. At least the compos actually started and finished in reasonable time! ;) BTW Chris, I saw the Amiga zone in their deep sleep :) And in a little bit more detail.. Fit were first out of the blocks, with their entry "Manchester Sausage- eaters" or whatever. It was clearly a very good looking demo, with reasonable to good effects very smoothly tucked together, and running in perfect harmony with the soundtrack. Quite mellow, perfectly suiting the midnight mood, and surely a strong contender for that coveted first prize? I don't really remember from there, what the running order was, but the ones that stuck in my mind, were the two old (286 or 386) PC based demos, which were clearly submitted as a joke or fake entry. What made them memorable, was the performance of a live soundtrack by one of the obscure musicians, who gave it all he got from his drum/rhythm machine, with an overwhelming salsa beat! There was a nice joke demo from the Amiga dudes, who did their best to cover up the fact it was running on an expanded '060 based machine. The 6800 evaluation kit rolled or flipped its character set, and there was even a short and very 'BASIC' entry for the most obscure computer in the hall, the Telmac. This was an ancient metal-cased beast from the era before 'Home Computer' became a widely used term, only 600 of these were made. This one was on loan from the Arctic Computer Museum, the other 599 are probably stuck out of the way in people's attics!? Don't know what happened to the Salora Fellow, as someone was working on a promising demo entry for that, at one stage? Anyway, those were the 2 ALT competitions, which are out of the way now, so the party immediately slips into a euphoric post-competition frame of mind. Back in the main hall, we join in a large gathering of Aggression people, and Swedes. Teque is among them, and in a supreme gesture of generosity, the big guy starts doling out large dollops of single malt whisky. As we are talking, the rest of the party rages by. 1.45am. The C64 portable is fully demo compatible! Yes, someone had brought a rare Commodore 64 portable (Known as SX64) with a built-in minature screen. Right now, it was running some pretty freaky 3-D stuff, which was getting close to some of the best that the Falcon had to offer, never mind the ST! (Atari scene not achieving its best potential again, according to Setok!) The C64 portable does indeed reveal itself to be fully software compatible with its more common desktop based brother, which is rather neat. 2.00am. We met Teque of Aggression, and he's given us a fairly large measure of malt whisky to assimilate. This will help no end, with any late sleeping hassles! 3.15am. I'm in no pain at all now! Nearly time for bed, and someone's spare drink is nearby.... Is that the time!? I'm pretty sure the 'spare' belonged to Felice, a closet tee-totaller (for all his macho hell-raising talk!) Setok and I 'divvied' this between us. We were not exactly drunk, but we were moving in slow motion! We drink a whisky drink, and another whidsky druk, and errr... (With NO apologies to Chumbawumba!) Bed beckons, but the long narrow bus-seat styled sleeping accomodation proves to be no obstacle to a good nights rest this time. Lights out... Brain out!! The 'sleep thing' actually goes to plan. I sleep solidly through to around 10.00am, others are still very much unconscious, somehow, I manage to revive enough to make a fairly determined attack on the realtime. 10.00am. Awake, and only just. The scene in the sleeping room looks like an extremely low budget version of the Alien films, specifically the bit where the camera looks into the cryogenic storage chamber, just before everyone wakes up. (To be devoured slightly later on!) I slept remarkably well on the bus-seat sofa. The large quantity of whisky may well have helped beforehand? I am awake, but I can't be asked to respond too quickly. But I did get up... 10.40am. Breakfast! I didn't see if the Uni' cafe was up to providing another freebie, so I went to the garage shop instead. Manic Miner on a nearby Speccy is my soundtrack. It's as if I'm in an 8-bit themed restaurant or brunch bar! Setok is up, and staggering about like a great big grey ghost. He managed not to sleep again, the foolish boy! 10.55am. A tape loader squawks in the background. I wonder how the results from the competition are going to turn out? I glimpsed a few vote sheets just after the compo's had finished. I seemed to be getting a lot of third place entries, which isn't bad at all. Not that I'm expecting too much from this in the first place.. 11.25am. Setok is Merlin the Sorceror! The Amiga demo hour passes some more time. There is classic A500 stuff, and some more modern slick poseur-ware rubbing against each other. There was a gently rushing quality to parts of the soundtrack which was explained by the presence of the person on the floor next to us in a sleeping bag! That amazing discovery about Setok seems to put into jeopardy, his attempts to turn himself into the Tom Baker version of Dr Who! Setok shouldn't fight his amazing resemblance to a major character from Arthurian legend! The Amiga people were running such classics as 'Desert Dreams', seen at the previous ALT Party, and some more of the Symposium 2000 entries, to add a contemporary twist. Meanwhile, behind the scenes action is close to a conclusion, with the counting of vote-sheets nearly complete, other people start to rise from the sleeping room too. 12.10am. Setok has temporarily shed his magic pixie persona to help out with the votesheet counting. 12.32 (Felice) That's better. Just under 9 hours sleep last night, with some breakfast of pastry from the garage. Most people seem to be sleeping atm, however, 2 ppl who are actively coding are ZPQ and Pahartik. ZPQ had been helping him earlier on to sort out a problem with his Falcon. It was cool to see Teque, let's hope we see him again soon. 12.43am. There is little to do at this time of the day. I'm admiring a Finnish Fanta bottle, with a multimedia design featuring a typical family and a dog called 'Spraada'. He wears spectacles, I guess it must be due to all the close-up work he has to do? Vangelis on the soundtrack. At last, what we've all been waiting for! 1.10pm. The compo results are up! I got third place with 41 votes, which is about fifteen places better than I thought I'd get! Fit's Falcon demo came top of their tree, the rest of the rankings were more or less predictable. The Amiga demo was second, the PC demo, with 'live' soundtrack third. I don't know if there is a third prize for this, but either way, I'm not in this for mercenary gain! Anyway, a fair result all round. There wasn't any third prize! There was an awards ceremony in the main hall, where first and second prize winners are applauded, and given a mixture of books and software, and owing to the fact that the party venue was mostly free of charge, some quite generous lumps of cash as well. Back to the main hall again. 1.40pm. The Vectrex is out again. A bunch of old Space Invaders and Asteroids stuff you might expect, but not Frogger, or Tetris. Most incredible of all, a full pinball simulator! 1.50pm. Also, it look like it has got its own conversion of the Star Wars vector arcade game classic. No sit-in cabinet and fighter-style control yoke though! The Amiga dudes come up trumps again, this time with a wild competition entry from Danish group 'Beyond', which is an MPEG movie consisting of their own unique take on a typical 'South Park' episode! This can be summarised as "The South Park gang go to a demo coding party,and get into some pretty f*cked-up adventures on the way!" The production standards are pretty much spot-on, the voices aren't quite! I get the impression that there isn't an adequate substitute for the voice of 'Chef' anywhere in Denmark! However, it rocks, it is also an 80-meg download (URL to follow in realtime shortly!) and it will probably have to wait for whatever '060-based hardware I acquire to run it properly, as Aniplayer struggles with MPEG, even on a CT2 accelerated Falcon. The Amiga people deserve a favourable mention for this time, as they weren't disruptive or obnoxious, and indeed made lots of positive contributions to much of our in-party entertainment. It took a long time, but there are some nice Amiga people out there, and we met them at last! Respect to you all! 2.25PM. www.beyond.dk - Another URL to remember. A South Park meets a demo party adaptation, which is extremely cool! The party is starting to wind down in a big way now, most people are packing up and getting ready to leave. The Swedes have got a ferry to catch sometime later in the afternoon, but in the meantime, are able to go with us for one final restaurant visit in Helsinki Centre. This time, we opt for a Hesburger orgy. AT LAST! The holy grail of Finnish fast food, made so memorable from the first ALT Party. Apparently, Hesburgers aren't so common in Helsinki, being regionally concentrated more strongly in the Turku area. We whisk past a whole load of smart department stores, cross against intense traffic flows, and find a Hesburger place. We all decide to go for the biggest thing on their menu (translates to something called a 'Mega Meal'?) remembering the mouse-sized burgers from the first ALT Party (The one criticism of otherwise good quality fast food). In a spasm of Polish retail panic (see SV2000 report, also in this issue) they manage to fulfil some orders straight away, but run out for the rest, who have to preorder. I get mine immediately, but that is because it is the wrong meal! Never mind, food in the stomach is better than a bigger meal which never turns up at all! Which is what happened. Some time waiting, and the staff are remonstrated with, about the missing burger portions of their Mega meals. These eventually turn up, honour, and hunger, is satisfied. At this point, the Swedes and ourselves part company, they have to get back and pack quickly, to make their ferry home. The Finns and ourselves head back in a more leisurely fashion. 4.10pm. Out in the centre of town, and we manage to fit in the Hesburger experience at last! Great food, long queues, and an inexplicable disappearance of a lot of preordered stuff for some people. Us and the Swedes parted company from there. We got back to the partyplace just now, which has virtually cleared out. The only sound we can hear is the air conditioning rumble in the background. Setok decides to do something about this, so let the music recommence! 4.15 (Felice) Yep, a good meal of Hesburger. Hopefully we'll go there again b4 we leave on Tuesday evening. Looking forward to the Post-Party party at the sauna tomorrow evening :) The party venue has miraculously vacated itself, of all its occupants, apart from Wiztom and the party organisers, who are left to contemplate the clearing up that is going to be needed. For a change, this isn't too bad, as the really gross piglike people who sometimes come to these sort of events, have stayed away this time, and there isn't too much overtly horrible rubbish around. The major job of work is to come for tomorrow, when we repatriate the borrowed tables and chairs back to their rightful resting places elsewhere in the building. Meanwhile, we are told that delivery of the special party T-shirts are imminent, at least in the next couple of days. We have had a preview of the design, and have taken a fancy to it, so the organisers have been taking pre-orders throughout the day. They are now inputting these into one of the last machines still running. 4.50pm. Souvenir T-Shirt ordering is going on. I just have to tackle the strange intricacies of a Swedish language keyboard first. 5.15pm. The great clear-up commences. This place is in a remarkably clean condition, considering the coke-bottle and nameless organic waste distressed state, that people tend to leave party places in normally. Not too much of excitement at this point, finding rubbish, putting it in bags, lifting and moving chairs and tables around all predominate. As I said previously, there is still much to do for tomorrow, mainly in the realm of furniture removal, but for this evening, the party place is left with most of the furniture that is normally down there more or less back where it should be, the chairs and tables that need moving positioned by the freight lift, and most of the rubbish caught and bagged. There is the small matter of getting the organisers gear back upstairs to waiting vehicles, and Wiztom's dad has turned up to help too. This is the most exercise we have done in over two days, and were we pleased about that! Yes we were sooo happy! All good and naff things alike do come to an end though, as we withdraw for the night from the party venue, and head back to Fishpool. 7.45pm Back at Fishpool, with a second chance to leave this notebook behind :) Hours of moving things more or less back to their correct places later, and we leave the party place. Now to get back to Setok's place and slob around in due course. By the time we get back to Fishpool, most of the gear has mercifully arrived ahead of us, and made it upstairs into the Fishpool offices. A brief period of rest and web-browsing follows, before we travel back to the Setok family apartment where we spent our first night. It has been a while since the Hesburger expedition, so we manage to summon up just enough energy to our legs to take us to the nearest pizza restaurant, just over the railway bridge in Espoo centre. This turns out to be the Pizza Taxi, which according to Setok, offers an indifferent quality workplace delivered pizza, but the end result here is fresh and delicious. May well be something to do with the fact that the food didn't have so far to travel from the kitchen? Momentary amusement is derived from the Helsinki equivalent of Time Out magazine on the premises, which has its own advertisement or press release for 2 Alt dubbed by them as "The Geeks Revenge!" Back at Setok's, we settle down for another gentle winding down with BBC Choice, but what is this? Setok grabs the realtime notebook and starts scribbling in there. He is doing this for quite some time. Setok's Entry Not enough people, not enough organisers, not enough sleep. Was the party a success despite these minor details? A horribly difficult question to answer. Certainly I feel guilty for having so little time before the party to deal with everything that really should have been done. But how much of an effect did that have? I admit I enjoyed meeting the people, talking crap, seeing the rare machines. The obscure music compo particularly was something I found inspiring and fun, but is that enough? The Alternative Party is a rebellion against the boring mainstream, but is there any point rebelling if nobody notices? Is the Alternative Party to become the computer party version of the Russian Monarchists? Is it a rebellion that has had its day? An event that really is too Alternative? I don't know if the 2 Alternative Party was a good party, or something that should simply be forgotten forever. That is a question that can only be answered by the people who decided to visit. Some did actually claim they enjoyed it more than any other party, and asked when the next one will take place. So maybe the event fulfileld its purpose to some small extent. One might hope it didn't success too well, only to be killed by its own obscurity? 23.30 hrs 9/7/2000 DAY 5 - Monday 10th July.. There isn't really too much left of the day, and on that note, we head for bed. There has been a change of rooms, as Setok's sister, Faye, is back home, so her room, interesting to Felice reading material and all, isn't available. Felice gets my previous room, the junkroom/bread storage zone, and I get the other spare room, which has a permanently connected to the internet PC in it. I do get a real bed, and sleep comes very easily even in that half-twilighted night. The next time the realtime comes into play is when I have awoken again the following morning. 9.50am. Overnight collapse at Setok's place in a PROPER BED! A permanently switched on PC, with a gentle swish of cooler fan replaces the water-rushing noise of the partyplace air conditioning, but I didn't notice or care anymore. Today, we are to finish clearing up at the party place, and thence to Fishpool for the post party Sauna party. Reading back on Setoks comments he wrote late last night, I would suggest that post party tiredness and depression had a lot to do with them. There were valid points that need to be addressed in more detail though. Numbers of people, it seemed that the majority of attendees were the same people to come to the first ALT Party in '98. Taking this as the likely maximum local response, it looks like a future ALT Party will have to attract more visitors internationally? I am very reluctant to suggest this, but if more people is really what it is all about, would a more central european location be better? But then, you would lose 99% of the original ALT experience. Conclusion, the party should stay where it is, but much more advertising and attempts to get foreign visitors are needed. Then there is the fact that the very smallness of the party may well be a fundamental reason for the good atmosphere and party spirit. Do we really want to draft in large numbers of people and totally change or dilute that? The competitions were interesting when you compare the original ALT '98 with this one. The ALT '98 had the novelty of the local MSX scene making an impact, and that totally amazing Viznut Vic 20 demo. These all seemed to be on holiday this time? The entries we got, were more humourous and not intended to be taken so seriously. The one exception being for us lucky Falcon '030 people, who have Fit to thank for a rather nice proper demo. So it seems the conundrum of hard core demo sceners vs a big bag of silliness still needs to be resolved. My own view is that there is room for both approaches, and another award winning Spetravideo demo or two would be very nice for the next time too! On a related note, we did get to top up on a lot of current Amiga demos (Symposium/Mekka 2000) and revisit old friends for the last ALT too. Wonder what the chances of a killer Vectrex demo for the next time might be?! And for the record, yes, I enjoyed 2 ALT hugely. I agree with Setok that some changes are going to be needed to stop it getting stale, which we discussed last night. Right, that's enough for now, I'm off to get myself cleaned up a bit and get up very slowly. So I get up very slowly, Setok's mother is the only other person in the apartment in an awake state. As described previously, she is a very nice person, and rushes eagerly to make breakfast. In a moments early morning foolishness, I agree to let her make up some traditional Finnish style savoury winter wheat gruel. (Which I'm sure has some snappy one line traditional name for it?) The best that can be said, is that it is an acquired taste as salt is added to it. More traditional forms of breakfast and some excellent coffee follow from there. The Finnish gruel experience leaves me with the feeling that I have gone through some secret local initiation rite. As later events reveal, this wouldn't be the only time that happened to me today! Eventually Felice, and Setok struggle awake. Setok hitting an unprecedented 8.5 on the Bedragglement Richter Scale, even in spite of twelve hours sleep, or because of it? We are joined by Setok's sister Faye, one of a pair of very nicely featured twins, identical we hope (hooray!) but we learn one of them is already engaged (boo!) She has been busy at an Irish Folk music event (Finnish-Irish folk music??) whilst we have been preoccupied with the SID Chip DJ and his crazy friends at 2 Alt. She is going to work right now, strangely enough, at the kiosk where we bought our first night hamburgers. 12.55pm A very prolonged breakfast later. Our shaggy haired wizard of parties Setok, emerges.. (Felice) Another good nights sleep had by all, no doubt. It was certainly good to sleep in a bed again! Now chillin' out on the balcony, hmm..... A plan has been put together for the non-sleeping half of Monday, which is, very simply, to go to the 2 Alt party place one final time, for clearing up and furniture removal purposes, and then head to Fishpool for the keenly anticipated Post Party Sauna party. A train gets us back into the centre of Helsinki, we meet up with Matti and one of the other Fishpool guys, who have been detailed on to the clean-up crew. Wiztom turns up shortly after as well. The next couple of hours are rather dull, narratively speaking, consisting of putting chairs and tables back where they came from. This entails moving them to the lift, and then once these are up a level, to their resting place in the reconstructing Uni' Cafe. Shifting these through the kitchen corridor consists of an elaborate ballet of avoiding assorted debris from the building work going on. It seems that the builders aren't too keen on all these tables and chairs coming back into their cosily arranged work area. Fortunately, they disappear shortly afterwards, for some kind of extended Finnish tea break, so we manage to squeeze the tables into an improvised storage area before they get back. We also leave an accidental 'present' for them too, guaranteed to boost our popularity, as we manage to catch some freshly laid plaster work with one of the very last tables to be shifted back in! Downstairs, not too much to do, and the halls look the way they were before the party took place. The clean up crew have succeeded in leaving not a trace of 2 Alt behind them. After much elaborate camcordering of the final moments of the farewell, symbolic closing of the main doors etc, we leave for the very last time. Setok makes a promise to Felice and me about negotiating a better entry fee discount for next time, for services rendered. This paragraph serves as an official document recording this intent by Setok, so if there is any quibbling in a couple of years time about that, we'll refer you back to this text! Food is a very popular topic of conversation right now, so we find our way to another chinese restaurant fairly near the premises of the 'Old' Fishpool Headquarters. There, we opt for a three course meal, and whilst waiting for the first instalment, the realtime makes a rare appearance. 4.55pm. At the Chinese restaurant, the clearing up is finally done. We only damaged a little bit of the plaster work in the rebuilding Uni' Cafe! Serves them right for not giving us room to put the tables back. All thoughts are pleasurable ones from here, food, then sauna. The hard work is finally done! The waves of relief splash hugely across that realtime extract, do they not? The meal is superb, consists of a selection of dishes, so we make up our own combinations thereof. Even chopsticks, that strange chinese eating implement, are easily overcome, in the conditions of ravenous hunger. We get a bus back to Fishpool GHQ afterwards, where the second part of our evening of delights awaits, the all-improved sauna experience! 6.30pm. A long leisurely meal later, and we're back at Fishpool. We're in the pre-sauna anticipation zone. Wiztom searches (vainly?) for some missing personal effects that were swept up in the mad rush to get clear of the party palce yesterday. 6.38pm. Wiztom finds his book. Meanwhile, Felice is the leading black market cotton-bud smuggler in Central Europe! Also possibly the leading ear-wax smuggler too? 6.40pm. My legs are dead from under me. Put me on wheels and get me to the sauna that way! Shortly after that gruesome realtime extract, detailing a little-known part of Felice's domestic routine, the action shifts from the Fishpool offices, to the basement sauna in the office complex. The large gap in the realtime until Tuesday morning is effortlessly explained by the fact that the RTA notebook remained upstairs. The basement sauna isn't just a bare-bones sauna installation, but has a lounge, with such essentials as a television and beer-fridge. Other Fishpoolers have been out shopping for essential supplies, and the fridges are soon alive with the sound of clinking beer bottles. Also there is a handily placed kitchen, as at least one person fancies themselves on Masterchef, with their toasted ham and cheese open-topped sandwiches. Not to mention things like showers, changing areas, a bathroom etc. No Flinnying out of this sauna! Felice and I have done this before, but the last time was two years previously, at the very memorable post-match sauna party at Wiztom's place. A refresher course is due, so we are handily provided with such. The main rule of Finnish sauna talk seems to be that, whatever steam- box you are sitting in, it isn't really that good. There is always another sauna that is hotter, has a bigger oven to generate more steam, that is better and more authentic than where you are right at this moment! Previous sauna japes and anecdotes crop up, such as the midwinter-based genuine log-fired snow-rolling sauna, where a couple of the participants decided to have a snowball fight to cool down, in temperatures of minus 20 degrees celcius (and don't forget, both of them nude as a NoCrew swimming Swede!) After it was felt they had been out there long enough, someone went to look for the snowball combatants, and found them barely able to move, trying to crawl back into the sauna! Talking of anecdotes, there was an interesting one heard at the party, about a certain rude insertable item packed in one of the other Swedes luggage, by the ever helpful Evil! This was discovered by this person's mother who was unpacking his bag for him! If memory serves me correctly, it was after one of the IMP Parties? The unlucky victim was --*SNIP!* Paper towels for sitting on, a good one to remember, to avoid sudden shock and heat damage to those delicate sitting down bits of your body! The telly goes on. There is nothing overtly horrible from last time. We don't get re-runs of the 'IFI' series of branded electrical goods adverts.. "IFI Nuclear weapons components guaranteed only SLIGHTLY defective!" No Finnish general hospital daytime soap with cardboard enema treatment area sets. With the sauna wired for cable, the choice is too vast to focus on any single lowlight. The German version of MTV seemed to be just a little bit more cruddy than the rest, in an un- ironic Billy Ray Cyrus loving crowd pleasing sort of way. Or that may have been the 'Long Drink' kicking in by then? Alcohol, an essential part of any serious Finnish sauna evening. With booze being priced around these parts at parity with gold, by weight, a flipchart tally is being kept of who consumes what, so they can be hounded for the money later on. As guests, Felice and I are exempt, part of the payback for the earlier furniture removal efforts? Felice is not too bothered, so I manage to consume his share too! 'Long Drink' a grown-up version of Alco-Pop, in various flavours. The grapefruit one was damn delicious! This is needed to put out the fires caused in the roof of the mouth by the cheese and ham toasties, which are great late night sauna snacks, but the cheese is heated to the temperature of combusting napalm! The final sauna session seems to be a bit more intense than the rest. A lot of water is thrown around, a LOT of steam lifts off the oven. (Handy tip from watching Setok - cover your face with your hands, saves steam burn trauma to those delicate nasal passages!) Vodka is passed around, and some traditional toast, with a lot of 'R's rolled around the mouth expressively, is drunk. A little while after that, Setok seems to be writing something on a piece of paper. A closer look reveals that it is a 'Stage One Sauna Certificate', which states that I have completed the said authentic Finnish style Stage One Sauna! Stage Two is a different matter, consisting of a full-dress (or undressed?) midwinter log-burning sauna, with no cissy showers, but a nice frozen lake to cool off in! From there, it is a case of winding down. I get hopelessly beaten in my first attempt at table Ice Hockey, people gradually disappear, until there are just the four of us left, who are stopping overnight at Fishpool, watching some old movie channel. Carrying as much stuff (drinks, Ice Hockey tables, etc), we head back upstairs. Just the small matter of sorting out sleeping accomodation, as Felice and Setok grab the bunk beds in the Fishpool sleeping room, and I set up my airbed, for the first time for this trip, in an unused office nearby. S-l-e-e-p, gently my little ones... DAY 6 - Tuesday 11th July.. As soon as my brain goes active again, the first thing to know about it is the realtime, which is mainly an exercise in recapping what I have just written about, sorry. 8.55am. Currently lying on the floor, on an airbed, in Fishpool, and I've been certified! About time too, I hear you all cry. But this was no ordinary certificate, it was a stage one Finnish sauna experience certificate! Hurray for me! The evening and early hours of the morning passed by in a blaze of multiple saunas, beer and 'long drink' consumption (A kind of local adult alcopop) A lot of bad Deutsch music television, toasted ham and cheese sandwich ingestion, and even the odd bit of table ice hockey. I forgot to mention Setok's sister Faye, she is a total babe! What is it about the younger sisters of scene people? Anyway, today is the final day, so our last few hours on the soil of sunny Suomi commences. It is very quiet, apart from the arrival of a few people to their place of work. A spare Linux box with Netscape Navigator is borrowed for the duration, the better to indulge my urge to carry out massive amounts of web-browsing, at no cost to myself. I do check out some of the interesting animation and demo related links that cropped up at the party, the South Park imitating www.beyond.de and the thumbtastic thumbwars.com both spring to mind here. I also find out that Java demos do not like Netscape, which is very buggy under such provocation. Quite a long time passes before the next realtime entry.. 12.15pm. There is very little life still, Wiztom has made it up, no-one else just yet. Playing with a contrary Netscape (Linux edition) box. Discovered that access to Zetnet from here is deeply slow and shite. Also a couple of the cih_hq web pages STILL don't display properly on this machine, Aaagh! 12.55pm. More Fishpool people needing their machines for work related stuff, so booted off the net for now. It looks like someone has discovered the state we left the sauna area in last night? It wasn't that untidy, and someone did go down as the clean-up team. Anyway, in the sleeping room, things start to stir? 1.05pm. I think there is now ample reason to change Felice's name to Arnel. He's still not up yet! 1.10pm Ahh, signs of life, a bedraggled Setok in a (Tom Baker) Dr Who scarf, and Felice staggers awake in his beach hunk disguise! The 2 Alt official T-shirts have just turned up too, all action here! I think Setok and Felice were deliberately waiting for this moment! A big box with the entire order of jet-black 2 Alt shirts. These are smartly designed, and we lose no time in picking ours out and changing into them. 1.15pm We are wearing our official 2 Alt party t-shirts! Now we are up, it takes a while longer, to decide what to do next. Some food is a priority, then we are to go to somewhere congeniel afterwards, the name 'Molly Malone' is mentioned. Matti is to accompany us into the city centre. 1.45pm. All dressed up, and somewhere to go, but we're still hanging around Fishpool. Setok, the ninja master of bus timetables presence is sorely awaited. We leave Fishpool for the last time, and yes, the notebook did make it with me. (I did forget my toothbrush though, which stayed over at Setok's place for an extended holiday.) Matti has volunteered the services of his car, so we end up taking a slightly more scenic route, past the ritzy uptown bits of Helsinki, and the busy waterfront, and the traffic jams that result from that. Finding a parking place is sheer enjoyment too, as we suffer from 'just too late for the last space-itis' - a kind of tourette syndrome condition, that afflicts our driver Matti with violent swearing attacks! We do find an underground place to leave the car, and then we find the centrally located MacDonalds where we first ended up two years previously with Q-Funk, when trying to make contact with Fishpool. Their burgers are predictable, the same worldwide, if available straight away. From there, to our final destination, Molly Malone's, again, of past ALT Party fame. The decor is unchanged from back then, so are the prices, unfortunately, at 3 UKP a pint, no binge drinking going to take place this afternoon. Matti has parted company, with a plan to take our bags to the airport, and leave them in the left luggage area. So it is Setok, Felice and I, who stretch out luxuriously in the sunlight courtyard behind Molly Malone's. 3.30pm. We made it to Molly Malone's. Alcohol is not any cheaper, at 3 quid a pint! Alcoholics must be wealthy people? This place backs onto Wiztom's place of work at software developers Housemarque. We sampled Helsinki waterfront life, and Helsinki traffic in MSK's somewhat overcrowded car a bit earlier. Also completed our junkfood tour with a visit to MacDonalds and their streamlined lean cuisine burgers. At least theirs were available straight away. 3.40pm. Windows is good for something shock! It makes running Netscape more stable, according to the shaggy-haired one. 3.50pm. Setok will disappear shortly, our bags have gone ahead to the airport already. From Molly's, we head back to the bus station. We bid farewell to Setok, rather more quickly than we anticipated, as the bus to the airport was impatiently revving up to go. From there, more predictability, as we know the route to the airport by heart. Get out at the airport, locate the left luggage area, with just a touch of nervous anticipation, in case the authorities don't recognise the bags belong to us. No problems there though, so MSK has done his job well. There is just the matter of filling the time to the flight at the airport. There is a lot of it, as even the check-in desk is empty and folorn. As ever, the versatile realtime springs to hand.. 5.15 (Felice) Finally at the airport, we found the bags in the left luggage bay, so this was cool. Nice of MSK to drop them off for us. Now we're waiting for the check-in desk to open, so we can get our larger baggage in the storage hold. It's been pretty hot again today, but quite cool here at the airport. Molly Malone's was cool too, but it was a shame that Q-Funk wasn't with us :( 5.17pm. This is what they call making our own entertainment? A relaxed atmosphere at Helsinki International Airport. Various Finnish squaddies (army people) wandering around in an unrestricted fashion. There is still over three hours to go to the flight, and an hour before we can even check in. Aaagh, it's all too much... BIOS FAILURE - DATA CACHE TRANSFER ERROR - BRAIN REBOOTING INTO FELICE MODE! (Aaah, Feck it!) I am enjoying my 2 Alt t-shirt though. It is slightly subversive and worrying looking to outsiders, and also a badge of honour to those people in the know and other fellow sceners. So a cool style icon, either way! Wandering around, food and drink purchasing, and a final assault on the realtime all soothe the time away. 6.15pm. Felice gone away again. Not too long to checking in time. I might try to read back on this lot sometime, if I get really bored before the flight. The Guardian (Europe) edition is 3-4 times the price for half the amount of paper as back home! What a joke! (A little while later) 6.50pm. We're rapidly getting nearer departure home. Time for those on so famous and drop dead gorgeous last words in the realtime... (Felice) Well, another good (and cheap!) trip to Finland over. Generally it has been cool to see Setok, Wiz and the others. MSK did a great job as well, transporting us about on occasions, etc. Alt Party 2 was also very cool :) Hopefully, we shall see them again soon. 6.55pm. I SAID drop dead gorgeous last words (grin!) Okay, enough is enough, back to mundane-o-ville reality. First to check out some duty free or snack-based action. END OF REALTIME. Little else to report from here. The flight leaves when it should, Stansted is where we left it, so is Felice's car. It is reasonably late by the time we get back, and there isn't even a suitably witty parting shot to finish the report on. The odd Conclusion or two? Ahem, most of this we already covered in the bit following Setok's own post party ramblings on the realtime. I'm not sure what else we can add here? Still.. Now the second ALT Party is over and done, it is valid to compare it to some extent, with the first event, back in 1998. The first ALT was buoyed up, to a considerable extent, by the sheer novelty of the host nation to me. Finland back then was a new and exciting proposition for a computer party. Now, it seems to be a lot more familiar as a venue, but on the other hand, it also means we could get around with a lot more efficiency than before. This time around, the party venue was a lot more convenient and accessible, being located in the centre of Helsinki, although Turku had proved to be an unforgettable venue previously, fortunately for the right reasons. The people consisted of more or less the same crowd that attended the first ALT event, but unfortunately lacking one or two, particularly from our end. It would have been nice to have had a rerun of the two day frenzy of creation that resulted in 'Bugger', but it wasn't to be. Maybe Mr Pink and co should have a word with their gaolers, sorry, employers to let them out of the office from time to time? The level of activity on the competitions was as intense as before, but focused somewhat differently. The serious demo entries mostly seemed to stay away this time, or not have anything quite ready? We did get a stunner for the Falcy, from Finnish new boys 'Fit', and the comedy entries were a bit more comedic than the last time out. (No more IRC simulators in Finnish!) So things balanced out, overall. What chance of a new groundbreaking MSX demo for 3 ALT, I wonder? (Or a new game from our missing Deities of the Reservoir??) Maybe if I DIDN'T offer up another Obscure music compo entry, would these be prepared to come back?! The overall hospitality was brilliant, yet again, with Setok going out of his way to make sure we were 'at home' as far as possible. We did enjoy our time at his home, where we felt properly relaxed away from the party, and it was interesting to meet some of the rest of the family. Things at the party place were sociable and cool too, with the welcome addition of a proper sleeping area, compared with the free-for- all the last time. With this second party out of the way, it seems that the ALT party series can be placed outside of the mainstream of Atari parties such as Error in Line or SV2000. That said, it still offers a very worthwhile experience for anyone prepared to travel a little bit further than 50 metres from their front door! The more people who are able to make the effort, then the more worthwhile a 3 ALT would become... Up to you, folks. CiH, For Maggie Dismag, Sept '00 e