we are back home

we finally arrived back home after a very very long drive with some good and very bad stuff happening to us in spain. but let's start from the top..

at evoke jeenio got some prize money from the compos, that secured the gas money needed to get to portugal. we also got a couple donations from digital kulture and the food leftovers from evoke partyplace cleanup process. a most welcome surprise. a quick trip to ccc to drop off and pick up stuff and ultrasound finally had to get separated as we hit the asfalt on our way to frankfurt to drop some of knutzler's stuff on his apartment before going to portugal.

a couple showers and a hunt for the gatekeeper after, we stop for a last decent meal in germany, donner teller for 5e at some turkish place. leaving frankfurt by night gave us the happy blues. quite a warm feeling hard to describe in words.

and on we go to france listening to piano solos and jazz trios! it was around 3am, we were almost arriving to paris and i decided to just dose off while jeenio kpet driving. when i woke up, we were somewhere in the middle of france desperatly avoiding tolls and buying fresh bread from a bakery we spotted during a redlight stop in a small vila. i must say i truly appreciate the overwhelmingly peacefull sensation that the french countryside delivers during the dusk of the day, the dark and long trees and isolated villages give way to more rustic houses, small river creaks and the most amazing morning fog settling through thick wheat fields scattered occasionally amongst the forests. soon after our breakfast and filmmaker activities we started looking for a nice place to park for the night, it was already day time. we found a nice forest side-road to park and undisturbingly dose off for a few couple of hours.

waking up i was required to strongly and deeply fight my yearn to kickwake jeenio up whilst he carelessly and unknowingly snored loudly and joyfully as a world class opera snort-pig champion could only ever dream of being compared with; my dark side won and i let him sleep some more so he could rest properly before driving some more. i took a couple short strolls in the nice and open forest and wondered where all the food from the bakery had disapeared into. settling myself (or my stomach rather) with some more of that not-so-cold water we had and a couple few slices of bread.

soon enough we were back on the road fighting our way through toll-free france and meeting random portuguese drivers who hinted us with directions.

a few borders and gas stops later we finally arrive in spain, on our first pitstop there we get approached by a funny looking german trying desperatly to ask us if we spoke french. and we wondered why the bloody hell was he trying to ask portuguese people if they knew french using english language, as we later discovered it turns out spanish people dont know german, nor english, nor french for that matter; but the french language seems to be the closest he had been to maintain a successfull communication session with any spanish people living near this border with france, i guess beeing a german who can't speak spanish didn't help much. to cut a long story short, paul and irina joined our party on the quest to cross spain as they also seemed to require a lift to burgos. jeenio was happy to finally have a worthy (and more actively responsive) victim for his nonstop chatting, and i was happy i wasnt required to be the victim anymore so we both defnitly enjoyed the company and the talks that so successfully kept jeenio happily driving without feeling sleepy.

the whole crossing of spain is a particularly interesting chapter that, given the way the day slowly progressed as the hours ticked, from growing greatness into growing tragedy, it's best left for jeenio to describe later. on a reassurance note, no animals or plants were injured and/or horribly killed during this chapter of our journey, and i defnitly don't regret coming by car through this part of the trip one damn bit. on the contrary, all the misshaps of the spanish chapter of the trip only bring warmth, joy and laughter to my soul. ^^ sadly, i don't think jeenio shares my love for hazards. :) one thing is for sure, i'll defnitly never forget those amazing stars blinking in the sky that night. ^^ i wonder if wishing for same wish on two diferent shooting stars cancels its effect or not. i didnt want to be very greedy. :) i think i might have failed. :D

after dropping off the germans and many turns on the foggy dam road (its not a typo, there was litterally extremly thick fog and a real dam, looking gloomy and imponent with all the scattered lights blinking in the dark, facing the gorge of rock beside us) i soon grew tired of admiring the darkness and decided to dose off for a while, to ensure we wouldn't crash and burn while i was sleeping i instructed jeenio to just park when he felt tired instead of playing captain america with us, and he probably took offense to it since he insisted on re-assuring me had done exactly so (parked to sleep a few hours) the moment i appeared to be waking up. when i finally woke up i came to realize we aparently already where in Portugal since the roadsigns would now say "Porto Maia" and suddenly we were ascending the street where rup once lived and i used to go every once a month to get my hair cut short and spiky at the local barber. we turned the roundabout of the tribute to the flight pilots who crossed something which i can never quite recall what exactly (apparently it's the pacific), and arrived at good old praceta do colégio de gaia where i was required to take everything out of my bag looking for my keys before recalling i had placed them inside the glasses' box. we carried my stuff up, dumped it in the floor, i hugged jorge goodbye and sms'ed my parents a short "im alive and sleeping at home", and attempted to proceeded directly into that very same activity: it's a strange thing about comfortable old beds, after a month of separation they seem to feel alot more comfortable. i soon found myself disturbingly hugging my pillow and releasing a quite few sighs and purrs and damp moans, i then moaned and purred and purred and moaned some more, and contemplated how good and comfortable and warm and fuzzy and nice my own bed can feel, i soon purred and moaned and sigh'd and purred and moaned my way into dreamland.

i woke up to realize the tour wasn't quite over yet...
..and don't forget to come to inérciaDemoparty2005

evoke evoke

last day of evoke. everyone seems to be waking up, idling waiting for the prize giving.
unlock and dodke are sitting next to me wondering wtf im typing about exactly.

it seems to be a live report from evoke.
we went to a demoparty and had some beer.
and chilled in the oldskool area and talked about future crew.
and how they are dead.

i guess plastic will win the democompo, maybe calodox the 4k, we shall see.
later today (or maybe tomorow) we'll start our long drive back home. i seem to have decided to tag along with jorge on the car instead of catching my plane, just to make sure he doesnt kill himself, and i always wanted to check out french treescape at nightime, there is a rumour floating around that they are dark and long, so it should be nice. ^^

andry sends fuckings to kewlers and greetings to accession only!

the dark side of the tour

moi,

jeenio took a while to give me access to this blog so im abit late to write on past events as they surged upon us, but i still defnitly must lay down some words concearning the dark side of the epic journey on this blog, just for the sheer sake of typing some.

so lets go backwards in time.

it's now the 24th, people are starting to arrive in köln for evoke. dipswitch is finishing his work so he can push his bank account out of negative numbers and im supposed to be fixing the co-work track for the streamed music compo. (which was starting to sound pretty decent but is still unifinished and missing some cheesy vocals if we truly wish to beat wayfinder and paniq in the compo)
yesterday there was yet another evoke orgas meeting (where they speak german all the time at this nice fancy pub and i get bored to death trying to get any of it) and some small happy demowatching session.

bunzli:
just a few days ago we were boozing in switzerland. most of my idle time was spent harnessing free beers from the stricht 5711 + bm germans that persisted in talking german while i was present despite my reoccuring pleas. so we made a deal, each german sentence, one free beer for me, lets just say i have enough free beers to last me all of this and upcoming editions of evoke.
but bunzli owned! big time. like i told the orgas, i dont see how a demoparty can possibly be any better then this years bunzli, more cool people and prods maybe, but thats really out of the orgas reach. the location was great, the feeling was perfect, the orgas open and helpfull.
"sitting in the oldskool area we talk about futär3 krü"
watching all the small foreigners groups there was just so cute ^o^ (i wonder what happened to the spanish posse this year) newbies getting stupidly drunk while the old farts finish their prods :)
we even got some prizemoney for the gas with the dark and long deepness in the sky remix (which actually played wrong on the bigscreen but looked better then the version we had been working on whole day and uploaded to scene.org.. and ofcourse everyone hates it and keeps asking where is the music *rotfl*), and a cowee for the ohp entry (which we defnitly should have practised atleast once before presenting, oh well, lets hope there is no video capture of it).
with the prizemoney and the donations we might even afford to get all the way to france now! \o/ only gas for travelling through 2 whole countries missing! \o/

hjb bbq:
1 week before bunzli we were boozing with haujobb, black maiden and limp ninja in the south bank of the rhein back in köln making jokes about all the christians about to arrive to see the pope.
"at the party with my scene friends, we eat, bbq and have some beer."
"so nice!"

amsterdam scene event afterparty:
boozing with the ninja limps and joonas and jarig sparcus in amsterdam. we found some nice bars and some nice sunglasses. we got shitfaced drunk on our reoccuring 3rd beer and hopefully rup knew how to drive back to roterdam.
a few days later, on our way to köln for the haujobb bbq we passed by venlo and we smiled and giggled and laughed and smiled and giggled some more. then we stopped for a while, and then went back into giggling like silly girls talking about their first kiss.

scene event:
crowded partyplace, no euros, no food nearby, no beer for sale anymore, heavy rain all day long. then suddenly we drove to town and got pancakes and the clouds scattered and the demos played and the bbqs felt warm and fuzzy after a well won soccer match. and we cuddled and laughed and chanted around the camp fire, happilly stealing booze from unaware norwegians who were too busy hacking danish flags and finishing their demos to care.
i just have one request, dont let okkie and jeenio start freestyle rapping when their drunk ever again. the first 10 minutes were cool, the second 10 were cute, the other 40 got somehow boring. how many times can one rhyme with "again and again" and "portuguese faggot"? one too many.

orebro:
an innocent pre-party meeting with some flt members turned out too hardcore :)
lets just mention that depression leads to beer, beer leads to more beer, more beer leads to sceneboylove, sceneboylove is the path of the darkside, and gargaj was perfectly sober realizing he had just been drinking till he puked and was now completly lost in a foreign city while trying desperatly to drag a shitdrunk swede who kept dropping his pants while trying to hug him :) "no! no! hug ps instead, he's right there! hug him! hug him!.. dude.. we're so screwed."

stokolm:
in stokolm we had a small stay at a friend of jeenio. and met up with a couple tpolmers for a couple of beers and generic "hows it going" moments. it was good

helsinki afterparty:
i'll sumarize it into a "showing riika the best side of the scene"
lovely time. even better then preparty ^^

assembly:
4k, 64k, asd, sts, blablabla.
giving comments for asmtv was fun. i have no clue how i managed to get sober during the 4k compo (which i spent mostly commenting with tournesol how fucking drunk i was and how i needed desperatly to get sober enough to look sober at the 4k comments interviw thing) but the water helped and they didnt ask complicated questions (thank god) so everything turned out ok, i even got to meet blueberry/loonies. :)
the 64k comments were alot more easy (mostly couz i had been sober during the compo watch) and the questions alot more carefully asked, which was defnitly good.
anyways, abyss gave us a nice tour of the orga section for the foreign partyorgas. too bad it made us miss the fastfood music compo (we would have won for sure), and the cd burning compo.
and i hope the seminars will get online by the time im back in portugal (which they prolly wont) couz i was too busy failing to get drunk and somewhat succeeding at not feeling depressed elsewhere at the time ^^

boozembly:
the dark side of the scene ^^
hanging with the usual friends started getting boring after a couple days and too many beers. but chilling with zania and kb to watch the ukscene sing really compensated that lack of international suomi socializing somehow.
bzm 10y ruled too much to be put into words right now. i defnitly had a cool time there this year :)

pre-bzm:
as always we had a pre-party at suomelina, or actually the location got changed to a park downtown couz of the trickzy unreliable weather. we were the first to arrive there. the .pt people, matti and niko. we had beers, sun, weird african people randomly coming to ask us strange questions and soon the scene started arriving. leia, arto, joonas. timo and his friend. ansichrst, nosfe, jobe. sgt, ddt. the swedes and even a greek. it was fucking great. we idled there the whole afternoon and most of the evening and somehow ended up going to ddt's work place for mindcandy2 comments section. the demos were pretty cool and the people were pretty drunk but somehow i managed to get out of the mood (the torturing laughter from the back started piercing too deep). after a few dozen demos timo had the godsent idea of going out for a smoke. enough to recover the spirits, and soon the torturing laughter went to bed and the resistance could laugh and smile at amiga demos once more. and it was good.
didnt beat the mytical riot-e sauna pre-party, but it was good enough ;)

demozone:
just a couple days before i was in holland, and a couple days before that in portugal where i took a plane to schipol, and then a train to amsterdam, met with okkie and gargaj, train to middle of nowhere, bus to middle of even more nowhere funfair thingie, car-ride to back entrance of middle of nowhere funfair thingie, and found myself getting drunk with more germans than dutch, and i wondered where they - the dutch - were all hiding, and i looked inside and the chairs were empty and the organizers were organizing and we reckoned the party was really outside this time. many beers passed and fruitful discussions with many old and new faces alike arose and soon the organizers informed me that my seminar would happen soon. and then delayed it, and everyone kept asking me what would i seminar about, and i told them "i will explain to you what a demozone is and why is it that you're here exactly drinking some beers and watching some silly animations on the bigscreen, and i will mention several diferent platforms and several mytical dutch prods and girls with voluptuous breasts and that it will be good." and so we all got some more and more drunk and suddenly i needed to take a piss and organizers were frantically looking for me and rushed me in an asked me to go on stage, so i went on stage and everything worked like a charm, cheap entertainment for the real sceners present and heavy bafflement and amusement for the newbies. people laughed, said job well done, pat in the back, nudge nudge wink wink, and i felt like i had well-earned my free entrance ticket and kept boozing with the germans.
the germans were carefully trying not to show their german superiority, so tobi held up a stricht marker to count the german superiority references they made throught out the party, he was clearly in the lead. to repress the superior german presence (the only ones who seemed to be boozing and grilling and having fun outside of their tents), the organizers frequently came around and asked them/us nicely not to keep open fire (since it could obviously burn the wet grass and wet tents and inflame the whole wet campzone to the very ground in huge grotesc flames leaving nothing but grey ashes like the last time the germans were there - stricht!). they did this request reoccuringly everytime they spotted a tiny little flame near our tent. on one ocasion, and after many abused uses of the utensil, they also asked us to not use the megaphone, since we were camping on the quiet zone, and not to grill there because we were not on the grill zone. and we looked and frowned and wondered what exact size the stick that was up their buttocks was and armed ourselfs with water and more beer so we could put out the open fire when in need. and stopped using the megaphone for a couple of hours. (megaphone which incidently they came ask us to lend them when the power outage came on the second day and pushed all the poor gamers out of their tents and into the great cold lanless outdoors where other gamers were also baffled and scared for they could not keep on trading pr0n and gib each other and chat irc as if they were at home). on another ocassion, after a heavy night of tobi constantly asking all random chicks that passed by us if he could touch them in an improper manner (and you can imagine the severe boozing that occured at the german tent before he decided to get up and go on his quest of asking dutch girls if he could touch them in an improper manner), and while we were all recovering from our deep hangovers and barely still waking up, they insisted that we should clean up our place immediatly. and we looked around and agreed to do it as soon as we had actually woken up, which we slowly started to do so (the cleaning not the waking up) when another organizer (higher ranked one) came around and asked us if we had fun last night and shortly after inquired about the mess we had around us, occasionally mentioning the place was rented and making sure we knew that most people who claim they'll clean up usually go away before bothering to do so, and we assured him we were germans (or well, the rest of the ppl in the tent were, i just pretended to be) and had no intention of disgracing holland's land and leave it all messy behind us (like we did before - stricht!) and so we started cleaning more speedly and when we were nearly done we started thinking of healthy breakfast and ate some nice biodegradable pears, and ofcourse steam0r flung the pear into the woods (since its biodegradable and we like to encourage recycling) right at the point where another organizer was passing, who looked and kept walking and then suddenly stopped and came to us asking us if we not had been warned to keep the place clean yet while beeing absolutly convinced that what steam had flung was something alot more evil and dirty and non biodegradable than a pear. i tried extremly hard to contain my overwhelming laughter as steam explained to him it was only a pear and we had been cleaning and everything was nearly done, to which the organizer once again reminded us of our duties as visitors to keep the place clean as we found it and did us the immense favor of pretending not to have seen us throw litter into the woods instead of the bags. to which i stopped beeing able to restrain myself and cracked up laughing while telling the organizer it was the third time they had told us that and that we had been cleaning the whole place for the last 20 minutes. ofcourse he repeated the obvious and went away proud of his heavy influence as an organizer upon us.
apart from the funny organizers and throwing mnemonix's broken computer into the mud, we didnt have much else to do, we sletp and watched some compos, boozed and eaten and watch some compos and then 303f starts playing and we went dancing (we as in mnemonix and me, everyone else was just standing there waiting for something to happen, wtf is wrong with these dutch gamers?) and before we notice jeenio enters the dancefloor jumping and shouting and hugging bassie and smiling and recording 303f and jumping and smiling and hugging some more, and we watched the gig and tried to help the compo winners (raimo and skrebble) light their commemorative grill (which incidently shouldnt be lit in that zone couz it constitutes open fire on the non grill zone) and we soon had to leave. car trip 15 hours, ferry ride another 12, train from turku 40 fucking euros, and we arrive in helsinki "ready to demo".

the first Epic Donor!

The main organizer of Buenzli, Unlock / Vantage / Padua was the first official Epic Donor! He read this website and he gave me a donation! HOORAY!!!

It's worth to mention that without the following people I would never be able to make this Epic Voyage:

- my mum, for the car and support
- melwyn / scene.org, for VIP tickets at Assembly
- shifter, for agreeing to play against us for some tickets for Scene Event (and losing)
- xxx / haujobb, for inviting Ultrasound to play at Evoke right after the gig at breakpoint and, thus, securing us with a free entrance
- Unlock / Vantage / Padua, for accepting our self-invitation to play at Buenzli and, thus, securing us with a free entrance

and finally,

- brainpower and ps for the obvious reasons. You rule my world.

I'm sure I'm forgetting someone, but that's the beauty of posting here, I can edit it later :)

Ok, now to the party! What am I doing still here?!?

Fear the Mighty Swiss Cow

19.08.2005 23:46

The first part of the rehersal sessions at Buenzli is over. Finally, some time to write in here and afterwards enjoy the party.

Yes, we made it to Buenzli! The Epic Vehicle it's still top notch (if you forget about the noise on the LEFT transmission axel) and the Epic Voyage is still very much epic. The day after the Haujobb BBQ I went to Frankfurt and started rehearsing with the bass player from Ultrasound. The goal: a kick ass concert at Buenzli. With one little difference, we would be only the two of us on stage. "That's not Ultrasound, then!", you might think. And you are completely right, it's not Ultrasound, it's Soundblastorz. :)

Staying at Frankfurt always reminds me of rehearsing with Ultrasound, and it brings me fond memories to me. Specially playing all these wonderful tunes, it's just heaven on earth.

Between playing, cooking, eating and sleeping knuetzler and I had time to discuss loads of subjects, from war on middle east to advanced psicology. Just nice talks through the evening, just to realize that it was getting day already and we should sleep a bit.

Then, on Thursday, we went to pick up MadenMann from the station at Frankfurt. And the Epic Vehicle got as surprised as we did by the size of his bags. Apparently, he had brought his pc, a screen, a television and who knows what more. In a normal car, those would never fit together with 2 guitars, a large keyboard, bags from 2 other people and the people themselves. But the Epic Vehicle can take much more than a normal car. Yes, everything fitted and there was plenty of space left, so we decided to take 2 speakers with us, so that we could hear what we would play when we rehearse here at Buenzli.

The trip itself was just like any other... Driving, driving, stopping for 15 minutes, then some more driving, and then some more. Beside the landscape, only the license plates change. We did actually have the privilege to enjoy a beautiful sunset as we were leaving Germany, it was nice to see the sun disappearing between the mountains. It's a rare sight for a portuguese guy that lived in the Netherlands (explanation: in Portugal the sun goes down on the sea - no, it's not the Earth that is moving - and in the Netherlands there are no mountains - not that we know of at least).

For the first time, we had a border check. Because it was the only one until now, I will call it the Epic Border Check. This very nice cop/military guy/Village People fan made me stop the Epic Vehicle and told me something that I later found out it was Swiss German. I had once a girlfriend that spoke this language, and I tell you, it's weird. Normal German it's already hard for me (hard? what do you mean hard? I don't get anything from it) but this language it's like somebody had a great time yesterday evening and forgot to drink water before going to bed. Either that or they just like to speak like that. I don't think it's awful or something, I actually like the sound of it, but the problem is that it doesn't resemble anything, not even German. Really!

Anyway, the mr. Nice Cop made me stop and asked me why we were so packed. Knuetzler helped me out and spoke german with him, saying that we were going to a computer event in Winterthur and we were going to play there. Apparently, a portuguese guy driving a car which is not on his name, and carrying two german guys and a shitload of stuff is not normal around here, so he made us park on the side while he was going to do some "checking business" on the computer. My greatest fear would be that he would tell us to show what was the content of the trunk. Not that I have any illegal stuff - I even left my portuguese water bottle in Frankfurt to avoid any problems (don't ask) - but we were already 4 hours late and that would take forever to unpack and repack. Fortunately, after he finished the "checking business" he gave our passports back and told us to go. Maybe he was just checking if we were being looked for the police or if we were in the top 120 of the most wanted terrorists. I guess my name didn't pop up or anything, that fake passport really came in handy.

We arrived at Winterthur without problems (best site in the web: viamichelin.com . It's really amazing, if you follow all the indications you will get to the DOORSTEP of your destination. MAD PROPS!) and after speaking with Unlock we unpacked the car. When we arrived at the party place my jaw fell in the floor: there was a massive organ right on the stage and around it. What a sight! Would be great to play on it during the gig, but Unlock promptly destroys my dreams: they didn't get permission to use it. Oh, bummer... but what's that? It's a grand piano! I have to go and take a look... it's a Steinway! And what a sound!!! And the touch!... Unlock was not very concise about the use of the piano, so maybe in the middle of the gig I just sit at the piano and start to play. MUHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[note: I should be aware that this is the world wide web and that he can read this before the gig and give me that look... oh well, his look is anyway nice, so I wouldn't mind... hihi]

We went for a late night dinner at McDonald's where we ate nice salads and terrible burgers and payed A LOT - everything here is twice as expensive as in the Netherlands and Germany - and then came back to the party place to have some sleep...

... because at 10:30 the orgas were again busy with building up while playing loud music (damn you Perry!!!) so I couldn't sleep anymore. Ok, time to build up the practice room and work for a while on the stuff... so now I deserve some party and then some rest.

See you tomorrow! (some pictures tomorrow, sorry too tired to dig up knuetzler's laptop now...)

14.08.2005 12:40 Cologne, Germany


(now playing: some drum'n'bass from Dip's laptop)

Right now, ps and I are at Dipswitch's place, chilling out after helping him with the moving. All his stuff is now finally in his appartment and he is quite pleased. We are also very pleased. Specially after yesterday.

We left Rotterdam around 5am yesterday so that we could drop Rup at Eindhoven Airport in time for his flight. There, we had our farewell from him and drove away to Cologne. I think it was one of the worse driving experiences I had until now. Somehow, the night before I was working in the computer, making some music, and it got really late, so late that I thought it wasn't worth it to sleep just until 4am. But... maybe it would have been a good idea. In the middle of the journey to Cologne I had to pull over and sleep for an hour. I think ps was a bit scared of driving with me afterwards, but we made it to Cologne at around 9:30 or something like that. We woke up Dipswitch, he let us in, we crashed.

I woke up with ps kicking me and telling me that we had to go to the Haujobb barbeque. I really needed to sleep a bit more, but he didn't let me. So we went out to the city and walked towards the party place. We crossed the city centre, passing by the cathedral - HUGE - and by the river. The bridge that we had to cross was already in sight, but took us around 40 min to actually reach it. The Südbrücke is a train bridge that passes above some meadows in one of the banks of the Rhein. When we crossed it we were shouting "HALLO" in the vain hope of hearing some "WAS?" somewhere from underneath. We started to get worried as we didn't get any response.

Down the stairs, around the bridge stand and, sure enough, there were a nice group of people having fun. From far away, xxx recognized us immediately and waved at us. We shouted a loud "HALLO!" and didn't get any "WAS?" back. Then, I realized why: we are in Germany, to say "HALLO" to someone is normal, not a demoscene shout. Sorry, speckdrumm, can't do anything about it...

The barbeque was very cool, people were chilling out, talking with each other in a relaxed way, and the upcoming Evoke was in the mouth of everyone. Of course, we are in Cologne after all! The german sceners were speaking german a lot, it was good for me to try to understand it. Naturally, after some beers, they could speak whatever language they wanted to, I would just smile and wave. And hey, the grass was green and the weather was fine... nice to lay down.

Surprisingly, the Limp Ninja crew appeared after some time, bringing Synteesi with them. That was nice, we were not the only foreigners there. It's always cool to hang around with Shifter, Mnemonix and Avoozl, speak a bit of dutch to avoid losing it and make fun of german sceners (ooops!).

The night was already upon us and we were still having loads of fun. And loads of Kölsch. And then some more... ps had to kick me again to get up from the floor so that we could leave. We've managed to get a tram at that late hour and arrived safely at home. We got in, we crashed.

This morning, I woke up with ps kicking me and telling me that we had to wake up and help Dipswitch move. So we've done that, and here we are. The hangover is fading away (the trick of the glass of water before going to sleep really works) and I have to decide if I sleep here tonight or go already to Frankfurt. To go tonight to Frankfurt would give me more time to rehearse with knuetzler, the bass player from Ultrasound. But to sleep here would give me something that I really thrive for:

waking up with ps kicking me.

Become an Epic Donor!

Here we are, almost leaving to Cologne for the Haujobb BBQ, and we are going to lose one of our "permanent" passengers. Unfortunately, Rup will leave us and go to Portugal by plane. Nevertheless, ps and I will continue our Epic Voyage, because no-one can stop us!

But we are running out of money. In order to this Demoscene Summer Tour come to its final destination, we need your help. Please please PLEASE, if you see one of us at any of the remaining demoparties, and if you have some extra bucks, just give them to us and support the demoscene in a very special way. You can also do it via bank transfer, just send the donation to:

Jorge Silva
IBAN: PT50 0033 0000 0023 4183 5120 5
SWIFT: BCOMPTPL

In return, you will have your name in the Epic Donors list, you will have the good feeling of contributing to the cause and, of course, you will be able to read this blog and its reports of all these summer demoparties.

Let's make this Epic Voyage a complete one, shall we?

THE FIRST BIG UPDATE!

09.08.2005 15:04

Ok, after some time not having internet really handy, it's time for the BIG UPDATE! YAY! You will be able to read, finally, what we've been doing this past week. Finland, Sweden, Danmark, and now Holland. It's great, going around, meeting sceners, having loads of fun and feeling that the demoscene is far from dead.

I suggest you start reading from bottom to top, because that way you read chronologically. Just find the last post you've read - if you never read anyone, start with the first post in the archives, on the right column of this blog - and make your way up.

So, STOP READING THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE REST!

---------------------------

I'M SERIOUS, SCROLL DOWN!!!

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Now for some reporting business...

Waking up on sunday was hard. The body was sore from the football action the day before and all the excitement from the compos was still in the bloodstream. But we had to be quick, the prize giving ceremony was about to start and we had to travel around 10 hours. So, quick breakfast and pack. NOW!


cereals: breakfast of champions

The prize giving ceremony was short, but nice. Fuzzy was calling all the names and groups and Tournesol was distributing the prices. Besides the white envelopes, people won Renoise licenses, keyboards, mice, steerable kites, mouse pads, lava lamps, plasma balls and other stuff. We, as the soccer compo winners, won 2 lego cars! YAY! Gargaj kept one and ps kept the other one. Rup and I will just remember them with the fondest of the memories.


Gargaj receiving his prize for his intro

Then we left. Besides Rup, ps and I, Synteesi was also coming with us to Holland. Which was nice. We almost ran out of gas at some point, but everything was under control. The Epic Vehicle is awesome.

When we arrived in Rotterdam, we went to eat - we were starving - and then proceeded to sleep. That was very nice also. The next day, we went to Amsterdam, where we met Shifter, Okkie, Mnemonix, Avoozl, Dixan, Sparcus and Brainpower. We had some beers, then food, then more beer, and then more beer. Good thing that Rup can drive, I was able to join the drinking beer part! :)

Today, we just woke up and did some laundry. And now, I'm here writing this, uploading all the pictures... and I'm already tired. Time to sleep more, I guess... see you all tomrrow.

07.08.2005 2:20

Alright... this was a nice day! We've done so much stuff and enjoyed ourselves quite a lot. But let's start from the beginning.

Having gone to bed at 00:00, I woke up at 12:00. I woke up lots of times during the night - the car is confortable but exposed to people, weather and light. Still, I was rested and some cereals made the trick to get me awake. Once again, we were hanging around with Gargaj, Dixan, Synteesi, Okkie, Shifter, Mnemonix, Sparcus and... I hope I'm not forgetting anyone... well, it doesn't matter. They were all nice guys, really, and it was just cool to hang around with them. :)

After some time, we started to play soccer. Eventually, the real soccer compo started and we won them all! In comparison to the Assembly compos, this time we really rocked! Of course, we had a much better team this time, and the other teams were not so... errr... competitive. ;) Gargaj, Rup, ps and I managed to win the compo and win 2 free entrances (well not really free) which made me install the laptop here in the party hall, where I'm now writing. YAY!


the party hall. and i'm inside!

[note: the price was 37 eur, and not 47 as I had written before. Still, too expensive for us at this time.]

We had some cool dinner afterwards. The organization provided everyone with meat, salad and bread and we could grill it ourselves. YAY! It was really nice, specially when everyone had eaten and then there were some meat left, so they gave it away for free! I guess I ate too much meat tonight, specially after the sausages we just ate at the bonfire... Oh well, it's not everyday.


sceners on the grill

Then the fun part. Fizz ball and G3 throwing competitions. The first one consists in shaking beer cans A LOT and then throwing to someone, who will hit it with a bat. Baseball with foam flying around. You get the picture. The second was just that: throwing G3 laptops and see who would throw it further. Fun.


ps dispatchs a fizz ball

Then it was time for compos. Animation, intro and demo compos were held. Some good stuff, some horrible stuff, some fun stuff and some boring stuff. Stuff. At least, we had fun most of the time. Our demo was shown on the big screen and we were quite happy. After 10 hours or so of demomaking, the result was pure "mindblowing art" (tm). We had loads of fun indeed. Rob is jarig was submitted to the compo again, and we had EVEN more fun.


compos! fun fun fun

I'm tired, but happy... I did enjoyed this day much more than yesterday. The weather was very kind to us - it didn't rain - and we could have some quality outdoor action. More than that, we met other sceners and actually SPOKEN to them. The danish are some closed people, but with time you can actually be friends with them. :)


meeting sceners is so nice

I just came from the bonfire, but I don't think I can come back there... too tired... need some sleep... tomorrow we will have the prize giving ceremony and then we will drive back to Holland, where we will rest for a couple of days. Yeah, one week without demoparties! :)

05.08.2005 16:00

Weather report: it's raining and it's quite cold. We are sitting under some plastic tent while with some other sceners. It sucks, specially for a party that is advertised with lots of promised outdoor activities.

Well, so far, we've already played soccer and did some nice stunts in the swings. I didn't go inside the (mini) party hall, but that's ok because I didn't pay the entrance fee. They really want us to pay 47 Eur for it, and I don't really want to do that. While I'm here freezing to death, I decided to write some more.

The trip yesterday was ok. I discovered that the cute swedes and danes are not travelling by boat - or maybe they took another one. Or maybe I have now very high standards, now that I'm living together with the most beautiful girl in the planet...

We arrived at the party place at the beginning of the evening. Its location is on the middle of no-where. Really. The closest thing in the radius of a mile is some kind of farm and no-one lives there. It's the perfect place if you want to do a huge fire and drink beer all night long... When we arrived, people were already boozing and having fun. It was delightful to see Okkie again and do some beat box and sing with him. I heard there is a video of us doing some weird things, like rapping in the "ing" form... :) where are they?


check it out yo!


yeah!

This party could be almost perfect, if it wasn't for this stupid weather. Yesterday, we could watch all the stars, the Milky Way was absolutely clear, even though the bonfire was quite high.


ok, maybe not THAT high

And when we wake up, the sky was replaced by this towel of clouds, and we just saw the sun for 15 minutes or something.

I can't really tell how the party is going inside, from the windows they look just like any other bunch of nerds that you expect to find at demoparties - the real sceners are outside, where the real party is - but so far the organization has been quite strict about a number of things, like the volume of the music (c'mon, there's NO-ONE around) and the entrance fee (why can't they understand that we come from far away to attend THEIR party? Really... I will NOT pay the entrance fee, specially when it's 47 Eur.)

Right now it's raining a little bit less, so I guess I will be a bit more social and hang out with the guys here under the tent. More stuff coming soon(ish).


looks like the sun might just come...

04.08.2005 16:00

Here we are in a ferry boat again... This time, we are going from Göteburg to Frederikshavn. Some time again to write a little bit.


Stockholm

Sweden was just great. Even if our staying was short, we did have some good time. We arrived at Stockholm on the 2nd at around 9:30, Tobias went to pick us up and he drove us to his place. The question there was: either we stay there and rest, or we go with him and meet the city. I was the only one who took off with him, because they were all too tired, but instead of meet the city, I met body workout. Tobias was teaching some street dance class to 15 year-old kids, and I joined. Oh man, my abs still hurt.

In the evening we went to meet the city (finally) and city was very pleased to meet us. As we met, we went to various places, always with Tobias. It has that scandinavian touch to it, with the colourful houses and the mountain landscape surrounded by water. I was surprised with the ammount of tourists, I had no idea that
Stockholm was such a touristic destination.


the king's palace... or castle... or something

We had dinner at a chinese restaurant, where the service was very funny: the plates arrived empty in the table, on top of each other, and we were supposed to deal them around. The same with the cutlery and glasses. Funny. The food itself was good, and we had some fun with Jonas (whizzter) and Nisse (thor), some oldskool sceners who met us there.


whizzter and thor

[note: I have now too much free time... I'm writing all these details in comparison to other parts of this blog! Oh well, who cares?]

We went to have a drink in a pub with the guys. During that, Tobias, Rup and I went to get the power cable of an old laptop that Tobias had. Why? Because he GAVE me that laptop! OH YEAH! I have a laptop now! It rules! Thank you Tobias!


Tobias rulezzz!

[note: it doesn't have an operating system yet, but it rules already.]

The next day we departed to Örebro. From Stockholm, you have to take the E18, which leads directly to Örebro. Ok, until here there's no problem. What do we do? We see the E18, one direction to Stockholm and another one to Norrtälje. We have no idea where Norrtälje is, but we are sure we don't want to go to Stockholm again, so we take the direction Norrtälje. After some 60 km, ps decides to find the city in the map. Unfortunately, Norrtälje is NORTH of Stockholm. This means that we were all that time driving wrong.


That was quite funny.

Well, not THAT funny, but we had some laughs. Instead of driving back to Stockholm, we decided to go west, where we should have gone in the first place. [off topic: GO WEST!!!!!] Anyway, we went through the country side of mid-Sweden, and that was beautiful. In the highway we just saw trees and some fields, whereas in that small road we saw many small towns and lakes and other points of interest. I was thinking: maybe I should have a small hut in the middle of Sweden, just to get away from everything if I need. It would be extremely nice, now that I think about that.

We finally arrived in Örebro at 18:00, just in time to go buy food, booze and go to Oyiseer's place to cook and eat and drink. At 22:00, I was ready to bed. Instead, we just sat there and boozed while watching demos.

It's amazing how better the Assembly entries sounded in his sound system. It's the disavantage of such a huge party place, it's a hell to provide a decent sound system there. [note: the Hartwall Areena sound system is MONO! Yes, mono. Oh well...] Anyway, Rup and I were very tired and needed to rest so that we could drive the next day, so ps and Gargaj went with Oyiseer and Maktone - who had joined for boozing and watching demos - to some pub in the city.

Now, as I wasn't there, I will not write anything further about that night. I heard some stories, but I don't want to post anything as I was not an eye witness. So, for more information, contact ps or Gargaj. ;)


the day after...

The next day we just had breakfast and drove straight to Göteburg. No detours this time. Just one stop to refill humans and machine and we arrived with more than enough time to the ferry.


it can carry loads of trucks, cars, passengers... incredible.

I'm still sitting here, Rup is watching some photos with ps and Gargaj is listening some music from his pda. I guess I will stop writing now and check the swedish and danish chicks in the boat.


After all, I didn't come this far to stare at a computer screen, DID I?!

02.08.2005 4:34

I guess we were too bored, that's the only reason to make a demo in the ferry boat. Gargaj and ps made the code, rup helped in the graphics and I composed the music. We hope, of course, to win at scene event, other result would be unthinkable.

We need some professional help, seriously... :)

01.08.2005 18:00 (T 8 days 11:30 D i really have to make some calculations...)

So, right now we're in the boat between Helsinki and Stockholm, once again having some time to write something in the Epic Laptop. For all that matters, this has been a great trip. Not only the people, but the places, the events, the experiences... it's so worth it.

After Assembly finished, we went out to eat with some people in a nepalese restaurant. The food was great, and I was enjoying myself until the point that I tried some food from kb's plate. He forgot to tell me that the sauce was extremely hot, so when I ate a big portion of it with a bit of bread, I went through a bad bit there. I barely could breathe and I thought I was going to throw up... Very nice, wouldn't you think?

After the incident, we went to have an after party to some park close by. There, we had loads of fun talking about the old days of the demoscene, and planning the future years. This kind of events is what it really makes it worth to come all the way from down there! Really, it rules so much...


after party in the park

We ended up in some bar, and when it was closing time we went to drink a few more beers in the disco under the bar, where I danced my arse off with all those 15 year-old girls. It was nice for some time, but then I got fed up and went back to the guys' table. I guess it was around 3 am when we got home.

The next day, it was time for us to leave Helsinki. After the lunch with the remaining of the überleet sceners, Leia took us to the terminal of the ferry boat, and that was it. Our short stay in Finland was drawing to an end. The city is beautiful, and we had a great time. I sure did! Thank you, Helsinki.


food with the überleet sceners


Suomelina with Helsinki on the background