North Party 10 – 18-20.08.2006 in Warsaw

10th edition of North party took place on 18-20th of August 2006 and for the 3rd time as the party place selected student club Alfa in Warszawa. I started my travel around midday on Friday, being quite tired after being in work at night. I came to PKP station in Szczecin Dabie, where Data/De-Koder/Tropyx was waiting for me. Having some time to departure, we went to nearby Netto to buy some drink. After returning to train station we bought tickets and went to the platform. After a while express “Mewa” arrived to which we entered and found our proper places. Of course we started our scene’s disputes in familiar slang which probably was dumbfounding going with us fellow-travellers. Luckily they were much tolerant so they were not looking at us falsely :).

Our travel was passing quite fast and conveniently and in the midway we decided to sleep a bit. Unfortunately, nice woman while checking tickets, found the fact that Data’s identity card doesn’t give him possibility to travel with student discount anymore and commanded to pay for whole ticket. Finally we arrived to Warszawa around 6 PM and went to get back the money for previous ticket. Simultaneously I bought ticked for way back to home and next we went out of train station to find the way to the party place. And of course we went to the wrong direction :). Luckily we turned around and next all the way in the pouring rain, carrying heavy luggage, we arrived finally to party place. I rent the room where we located our luggage and went to Alfa club to see, what’s going on there.

To our eyes appeared quite darkened hall, in the background some demo were presented and on the party place was maybe more than 20 people. Few of them located theirs computers on the tables. We welcomed Spider and Viper who gathered at laptop of the other mentioned. Next we welcomed with few more persons and after this I went to buy the ident from organizers. After chose one of two available and signing at the list, I talked for a while with some persons sitting at the table, met some new sceners, like for example Corwin and Trash, also talked nicely with Cobra who at this time was still lonely on the party place. Later with the team with Data, Spider and Fenek went to the nearby Turkish Kebab, where hardly we swallowed what we got served :). Most problems with swallowing served food had Fenek who was making a fry face mercilessly and finally he decided to resign with eating rest of his kebab. Next we came back to party place and were sitting or doing photos. Arise team also came with Turbosnail, which honor I had to meet and discuss :).

 

Being tired I went to sleep. On the morning after wake up I looked up at the party place and to my eyes appeared four maniacs between them could be enumerated leading Deino, playing furiously with Bombmania. On the party place since night were Ramos, Raf and BoBeR, which of course I greeted. I wanted to borrow from Warlock his monitor who promised him to me after midday. Interestingly, Piotr simply didn’t recognized me, perhaps because of my beard and at the beginning he wasn’t completely aware to whom he borrows his monitor :).

 

Raf and BoBeR were doing something with their laptops. Next we were making some photos, getting by this more interesting effects. I joined for a while for playing with Bombmania, but soon everyone got bored with it and gave up with that game. On the party place appeared the youngest participants of party, 3 persons from QTA group who got with them a lot of computer hardware. Among this pile of hardware at first glance came Amiga 500 or 600, placed in cardboard briefcase and pad made from paperboard :). It was so nice to see that still between younger generations still we can find some enthusiasts. To one of them Raf was fixing soldering bug in C64 which previously was upgrading by himself. Next the team consisting of me, Data, Raf, Spider and Viper went to town to find some place for eating. The target of our walk firstly had to be pizza restaurant, but finally we arrived to PRL’s bar where for slightly exaggerated prices we bought dinners. When I learned that in the set for 5 Polish zlotych I can get dumplings I’ve ordered double portion:). The mood in this food place was more specific and we all felt there like we would move back in time.

After coming back to party place I borrowed monitor from Warlock and we went to my room to finish and pack the stuff for competitions. It took for us some time and finally the disk with stuff I’ve provided to BlackLight around 7 PM. I had in plans also code small 4k intro but I’ve stated that I have not so much time for that and simply I gave up. In meantime I’ve added a couple of words to the note of Arise demo to which everyone could write something. Volcano in sweat was trying to assemble his dentro and he reminded me by his attitude myself at North Party 8 where I did the same mistake, trying to finish trackmo at party place. Warlock was going with big cardboard and collecting e-mails of people who wanted photos from him. When he came to me I said that for sure he has my address and then he realized which person stands before him :). I was quite in a shock that he didn’t recognized me before but if you don’t see someone for a 3 years then everything is possible.

 

At the party place were around 40 persons. Cobra came with his husband which I had honor to meet :). Prezes gave to everyone votesheets and I sat upon Warlock’s C64 and was copying outstanding stuff. It happen that later I spent most of time during competitions accompanied by BoBeR. Just before starting the competitions they asked everyone for rising up and they played funeral march which had to mean the end of Polish C64 scene. BlackLight announced the rules of voting which like he underlined, they are unchanged since beginning – everyone could vote for production in 1-10 scale. For the first shot went tunes, only 11. Between theirs presentation organizers didn’t avoided some mistakes and often they cut the songs before the time. I’ve been a little bit disgusted because for example my tune has clearly signed that it takes less than 2,5 minutes. Apparently organizers had no will to use for example stopwatch or play with mixer for having at least nice fadeout of cut tunes.

After this first disappointment there was waiting for me another surprise. Reflextracker competitions. Presented here modules were extremely cut, primarily thanks to the reactions of audience. First Warlock’s module brought a lot of fun for attendances. Asterion with BoBeR started to shake theirs hairs like on metal concert :). Soon came unnecessary screaming which made big pressure for organizers who simply cut that great song. Second Ramos module was playing for longest time from all 3 works and my last one was cut in the middle. Many hours of work on the song ended up with the same which slightly discouraged me from further participation in competitions. But I decided to stay. I watched graphics competitions where previously Spider’s work had to be displayed beyond the competitions but the reclamation of the author got accepted and his work took part in competitions. Before there were shown 3 works beyond the competition from which the attention deserved 2-screen graphic by Bedrich. 2 other pictures were released only for fun, because one of them was a conversion from .jpg signed as Mysza of Icon :).

GFX competitions persisted very short. During presentation of Spider’s graphic some people started to murmur under their noses that this is a scan. Before that, when BlackLight’s work was showed, the audience had more fun with that. This work was done against competition rules. It contained music and 2 separated pictures, and there were known, that only one graphic can be released on competition per author. However the content of this “release” actually deserving for the demo name, not the graphics, was sufficient to take good place, as it later turned out, kicking out simultaneously much better graphics. There were presented also one 4KB intro done by Viper which wanted to be anonymous and he released his production under extreme nickname Ziombel :).

Finally came the moment on which everyone were waiting – demo compo. For the first shot went my trackmo which caused of more darkened projector wasn’t presented good with colors. The audience laughed with Lodaing part but it took some time before they realized, that there is something wrong with presented inscription. Seems that the first person who started to laugh from the caption was Kisiel :). As the second one was presented good Arise demo with really professional graphic from Bimber and masterpiece effects by Fenek. The one and only thing which was missed was Wacek music. Fenek worried before presentation that some effects because of weird quality of projector could be wrongly displayed than it is in the reality. Luckily there wasn’t so bad. The audience while watching the demo were wonder what is wrong with the end part where butterfly was displayed. I’ve noticed small caption THE END and together with BoBeR we shouted that this is the end of the demo. As it turned out BlackLight said that this butterfly is controlled with joystick and soon he will shit on the flower, which of course made laugh everyone at the hall :).

Soon like me 3 years ago, came Volcano with unfinished demo which he showed on big screen. It was also interesting demo and it’s a shame that it was not finished. After a while Volcano came with last effect which was pointed out by one of sceners “But don’t write nothing anymore” :). Volcano said that this is the fastest vectors calculated in real time on which Fenek said that he is counting his own on matrix :). It was also very nice for me that Fenek himself with Bimber (and later also Prezes) personally congratulated me successful production.

After finished competitions I had to go to bed but some conversations with other sceners got extended and finally I’ve reached the results. After receiving the prices we went with the team to sleep, 4 persons to one small room :). It’s worth to mention that the prices in competitions were gifts founded by Cobra, mainly cartridges and ever printer and datasette :). Any person who took rewarded place, could choose the price personally and talk with some short words to broken microphone. Next took place drinking the wine competition and karaoke competition which because of tiredness I didn’t watched but I went to my small room. There the team with V0yager, Data and Spider located themselves on the floor. I’ve distributed all the blankets and sheets and even curtain to V0yager :). Instead of sleeping we were talking about everything and nothing, trying also to wake up V0yager, but we failed. Finally I felt asleep for one hour and I woke up, packed my things and went to the train station. I had to carry quite much, because besides of my own C64 I had with myself also the printer which I chose as the price for 2nd place at demo compo. Barely alive and sleepy I arrived to the train station to after several minutes enter the train „Blekitna Fala” (Blue Wave) to Szczecin direction. Straight from the train station I came to work where I spent most of the day.

North Party 10 – photo gallery:

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Generally I think that the party was quite common, although much more than previous edition. Organization screwed up in more aspects, atmosphere on the party was quite odd and total absurd was that few persons found the idea about the death of the scene and decided to make her funeral. They perhaps forgot, that scene is not only computer and us, people, which they still are doing something, cannot bury with this one event. Nobody can decide for others, what is and what’s not…

 

I would like to thanks everyone who attended the party and I’m happy, that more of you I could meet again. If it was last on the party, we will see. I hope, that no :). See you! And by the way, who fuckin’ said that the Polish scene is death?

V-12/Tropyx