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- <link=g6.scr>A ParaCon 3 report</l>
- ------------------
-
- The organizer's point of view.
-
- Paranoid / PARANOIA
-
-
- As anybody would expect, the ParaCon 3 started long before the party was
- actually held. It began with a DLRG meeting that i attended to ask them whether
- I could "borrow" the location for one weekend. In case you don't know, the DLRG
- is a swimming-club that saves and rescues people in jeopardy in pools and seas.
- The do have a cosy little club-house in my home-town in Selters that we had
- "borrowed" already for the ParaCon II and so i attended their monthly meeting
- to 'register'.
- They agreed so we also fixed the time: November 30th.
- Der Komtur succeeded in finding a sponsor: Otto Fuchs, who once ran a small
- business using an Atari ST, now using a PC but who has not forgotten the glory
- of those days and who provided us with the main prizes for the competition, a
- ParaCon 3 - Atari inside button for everyone to wear on the jacket or shirt and
- a stamp with a ParaCon 3 logo. Many many thanks to Otto Fuchs once again, he
- really helped a lot and made the event even better, more special and easier for
- us.
-
- On November the 29th, the current 'boss' of the DLRG called me and told me that
- they had a leakage in the central heating pipes and that half of the top floor
- was under water. My father and I (we both helped build that club-house) went
- there to have a look and found out that there were indeed 2 problems: The
- central heating was under pressure - more than it was supposed to - while the
- furnace leaked. We tried to get the carpet as dry as possible, reduced the
- amount of water in the pipes and hoped that this would fix the problem. It
- didn't. Instead, next morning, before the ParaCon 3 began, we checked again and
- the pressure was far too high again. So we had to disconnect a few pipes
- because obviously, some valves were not functioning anymore. Of course that
- meant that all through the party, one of the organizers had to check for the
- amount of water in the pipes, the pressure and the leakage. Meanwhile, der
- Komtur and Marcstar prepared everything needed for the breakfast. 505 arrived
- early btw but left again to visit Limburg, the next larger town in the area.
-
- Okay, so at 17:00 on friday, we were complete, more or less. Marcstar and Der
- Komtur came and brought in the stuff needed for breakfast. We arranged the
- tables and No and Spex arrived. The only permanent present DLRG member,
- Thorsten Lenz, was already there. The rest of the day was gathering. 505
- arrived a little later, so did Charon and Jan Kiefer, Ray of tSCc, Sage,
- Zerkman and Flash. They all brought in their equipment while we, Marctar and i,
- kept checking the water pipes. On this evening, we watched a few C64 demos and
- a few Falcon demos using the little beamer that Strange organized, but it was
- rather quiet and "laid back". The usual Pizza-ordering, the usual lack of
- knives and forks, doing graphics, code or music and of course, lots of fun
- talking with the people present. Even the "temporary Paranoia-member" J paid us
- a short visit.
-
- Saturday morning Marcstar and Strange prepared breakfast, something the ParaCon
- is (hopefully) famous for. We went to get fresh bread, prepared coffee so at
- about 9:30, ParaCon-breakfast was served. People got up and enjoyed breakfast
- while we did some minor organizing about the breakfast on sunday, taking
- pictures and about the competitions. J came back to help with the cleaning up
- after the breakfast and at that time, MC Laser, Scy and Dynacore arrived. We
- had to reorganize our set of tables a bit but then, Scy and Dynacore were happy
- and put up their equipment. MC Laser had some interesting news and a proposal..
- But that should not be discussed here. I rather let MC Laser spread that news.
- :-)
-
- A lot earlier than i expected, the rest of the frenchies came, ST Survivor, ST
- Cooper and Kephy, also known as Matt'Us Alem. They, too, brought in their
- equipment and slowly, but surely, it got a bit crowded. In the afternoon, Earx
- and D-Force arrived as well, so by pure "scene"-estimations, everyone that
- registered had by now arrived. Saturday afternoon was filled with the usual
- party-stuff : Ordering pizza, buying at the supermarket nearby, smoking and
- drinking a lot and also preparing stuff for the competitions. Obviously,
- everybody was enjoying the party so far. Der Komtur came to bring another
- small table because shortly after, Oliver Kotschi of Frontier Systems, the
- company famous for the Deesse-card, arrived, too, and our special guest, a
- non-scener but Atari-fan from a town nearby, arrived too, so we really managed
- to put 19 sceners + 1 DLRG-member plus 3 organizers permanently in the small
- location.
-
- More Pizza-ordering and the deadline fixed to 21:00. Strange complained so we
- moved it to 22:00. MC Laser played a recording of a radio show he made about
- chipmusic, ST Survivor and MC Laser made up again - BTW, ST Survivor was
- terribly drunk ;-) and i slowly, but surely started to gather the competition
- entries. D-Force and 505 begged for another deadline so we shifted by half an
- hour. Our entry was finished and Ray handed his one in, too, so we waited some
- more time. Finally, everything was complete besides Kephy's entry so i spread
- the vote-forms and "pushed" Kephy, who had a lot of assistance from Zerkman, a
- bit. With just 2 hours over due we began the competitions. Unfortunately, there
- was no other contribution for the graphic competition, even though i asked
- quite a few people. Therefore, Strange's only contribution, his C64 logo, could
- not take part in a compo and was just presented on the little big-screen. Well,
- we had some problems making the video-beamer accept a VCR, but by then, it
- worked. Music competition featured 3 entries, 1 by MC Laser, 1 by D-Force and 1
- by 505 which were then played. Finally, the demo-compo which was rather an
- intro-competition: A 4k-TT-demo by Ray, a 96k-demo by Kephy and finally, a
- 64k-intro by Paranoia as well.
-
- Votesheets were collected afterwards and Marcstar and i went to the kitchen to
- count. We checked the counts and put the votesheets away. Strange went to sleep
- Marcstar fell apart (more or less) and i enjoyed the rest of the evening with
- the people still awake (ST Survivor had more or less dropped dead on the 1st
- floor already). I lasted up to about 5 o'clock in the morning until i managed
- to put myself in my sleeping bag.
-
- At 9:00 on Sunday i was shocked by a singing Rudolph-the-rednose-reindeer
- puppet by Der Komtur who came in to prepare breakfast. I gathered my aching
- bones (i had to get up and check for the water pressure one more time, finding
- Dynacore still awake) and helped. Sunday's breakfast took a bit longer but it
- was definatly worth it - It was almost upper-class hotel-standard. People
- slowly got up and enjoyed coffee, tea, boiled eggs, fresh bread, jam, bacon,
- sausages, cheese, corn-flakes and all that stuff. I still don't really know
- how Der Komtur managed to get fresh and excellent croissants at this time of
- the day, but he did. Anyway, after the breakfast and after most people had
- gotten up, Der Komtur lead the prizing ceremony, giving awards to :
-
- Graphics compo:
- Not held due to lack of contributions
- Music compo:
- 1.) 505
- 2.) MC Laser
- 3.) D-Force
- Demo compo:
- 1.) Paranoia
- 2.) tSCc
- 3.) Troll & Co
-
- The main prize was a black T-Shirt with a stitched, not printed ParaCon 3 logo
- by TNT on it (wear it on your head ;-), unfortunately, since we never expected
- to have three contributions to 2 categories, second prize was just a bottle of
- italian Rose-wine. Sorry for that.
-
- Der Komtur then took photos of the winners in front of the building while most
- other people started to pack their stuff, take some of the left-overs of our
- breakfast (there was a lot for them to take) and leave. The usual bye-bye
- ceremony of those parties took place then, a lot of shaking hands, happy faces
- and the best wishes to the organizers.
-
- We of course then still had to clean up.
- During our breakfast, the pipes of the heating were repaired so we didn't have
- to worry about that anymore, but instead we had to clean everything up. We
- succeeded in getting the carpet on the 1st floor (sleeping area) dry by then,
- so everyone started cleaning up. As usual, this went well simply because
- everybody took over certain jobs. Der Komtur managed all the financial stuff
- in the end, then we took the left-overs of the breakfast and left the building.
-
-
- So what can i say as a resume ?
- The party was very nice, even for the organizers, simply because the people
- present were so friendly and easy to manage. We had 19 sceners, each of them
- bringing a computer, monitor and other stuff, in a really small location - and
- no beer was spilled into power sockets, no quarrels, no fighting, no damage, no
- screaming, everyone managed with the little room we could offer. Even though it
- is hard for us to exlude anyone but in case we repeat this event (ParaCon 4),
- we will not allow 19 pre-registrations, but rather 16. It is not the fault of
- any of the 19 people present, but 19 people + 4 others are really too many for
- that small location. But then again, everything went well and after thanking
- all the people that had been there for a really nice party i also want to thank
- my group for mastering the organisation of this party. Everyone of Paranoia
- contributed and did his/her best - thanks to J for drying dishes :-) - to make
- this event the way it was.
-
-
- -- ----- - ---- ------ --------------------------------------------------------
- CHOSNECK team contact us:
- people faithful 2 da roots! atarimsb@wp.pl
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