[F] Rotterdam 1.0 Meet Report
Kimberley Verburg
Rotterdam 1.0 - The Halloween Signing
Attendees: Bas Kruit, Eelco Giele, Elmar Bijlsma, Harold Breebaart,
Jeroen Burger, Jeroen Metselaar, Jos Dingjan, Kees van Reeuwijk, Leo
Breebaart, Mahin Ramkisor, Marc Oldenhof, Mark Haanen, Marina Muilwijk,
Martin, Martijn Evers, Michel Lanting, Myranya, Nathalie Kuipers, Peter
van den Boogert, Richard Bos, Rolf Milde (Germ.), Uwe Milde (ditto) and
your humble meet reporter.
A small group of AFPers gathered at the entrance of Donner Boeken on a
grey and wet Saturday morning. A scouting party was despatched to check
on Carpe Jugulum stocks while the others waited for late arrivals.
Someone had evidently done their homework because stacks of books were
in the shop: hardback, paperback, audio, mini-hardback etc.
The first item on Donner's Fantasydag programme was Tolkien music. Now
either you like folk music or you want to be fifty miles away from it.
Most people satisfied themselves with losing themselves among the books.
Particularly eager AFPers subjected themselves to a second round in
order to get a good place for Terry's talk and in the queue.
Terry was introduced as "the man who can write faster than God can
laugh", the packed room applauded and... no Terry. The photographer and
then some embarrassed empty air were applauded before a familiar black
hat managed to work its way through the dense crowd and onto the podium.
The talk was a familiar mix of old and new - even TSBOAFP got a mention.
By the end of it the corner partitioned off for fans had become very
warm and crowded. The mass of fans impeded the location of lost AFPers,
particularly the new ones that the regulars had not met before. A man
wearing a beanie complete with propeller was accosted but turned out to
be an innocent bystander. Richard startled by answering to his e-mail
address.
Michel presented Terry with some of the famous edible lego from Canada.
Peter had the lego signed for Eelco, thereby qualifying it as the
weirdest object signed. Also spotted: a rather cool printout of the
"turtle" spotted by the Hubble telescope.
The signing started at three and was supposed to take an hour (snh,
snh). We left at close to five and Terry was still at his desk,
scrawling away and being funny at people. It was also supposed to be a
joint signing with Bernard Cornwell, W. Maryson and Jan Krediet. These
three were doomed to wander forlornly among the mass of Pratchett fans.
The complete meet made its way through the drizzle to Eetcafe Weimar.
The waitress appeared on the edge of collapse, and that was even before
the standard AFP paraphernalia had made its appearance on the table.
Mahin found himself diplomatically applying de-wibble tactics to her.
First on the table were the toys that Penny Parkin had sent us from
America. Part of the company became swiftly involved in water pistol
geeking. My favourite toy was the keyring with Jaws running up a string
to chew on a hapless swimmer. Second on the table was the scary food,
Teletubby jellybabies and chocolates, in honour of Halloween. The heads
were bitten off with relish.
The Tolkien music and sound quality were discussed. "That humming sound
was the learned professor spinning in his grave." - Nathalie. It was
revealed that possibly the only Ph.D. in India Opera in the world was
sharing a table with us. How Marina evolved from that into a sysadmin is
beyond me.
Later that night, Jos and Leo entertained themselves with binary
juggling balls spelling out Library's IP address. They both claimed to
have a life.
Experiments were carried out on the cloned rats, Dolly and Dolly (also
courtesy of Penny). The ever versatile juggling balls were turned into
linear crystals to convert one high energy rat into two low energy rats
with some appalling sleight of hand. And these people still claimed to
have lives.
QUOTES
None.
No entendres, single, double, shaken or stirred. What do you think this
is? A Dublin meet report?
--
Kimberley Verburg k...@lspace.org
FAQs for AFP/ABP are at http://www.lspace.org/
"You're the closest thing we've got to a woman."
- Leo Breebaart, Delft 1.5
Leo Breebaart
> The first item on Donner's Fantasydag programme was Tolkien music.
"The rrrrrrroooad goez evver on and on..." -- almost as much fun as Terry's
talk, I thought.
> The complete meet made its way through the drizzle to Eetcafe Weimar.
> The waitress appeared on the edge of collapse, and that was even before
> the standard AFP paraphernalia had made its appearance on the table.
I said very unpleasant things about the poor woman behind her back, which I
regretted later as having been childish and unwarranted, but it wasn't so
much the fact that she was reduced to incompetence by our overpowering
presence, as well as that she appeared to actually *blame* us (in an
eye-rolling, sigh-heaving, will-this-nightmare-never-stop kind of way) for
being so completely *unreasonable* as to come to her cafe and make all
these outrageous demands on her such as, oh, desiring drinks every now and
then, or not wishing to order the exact same meal for all 24 persons
present...
> Later that night, Jos and Leo entertained themselves with binary juggling
> balls spelling out Library's IP address.
...using salt shakers as the dots. It was our finest hour. You don't often
get quality geeking like that anymore, let me tell you.
> The ever versatile juggling balls were turned into linear crystals to
> convert one high energy rat into two low energy rats with some appalling
> sleight of hand.
...and this time the salt shakers were used to implement a quantum force
field that neatly succeeded in deflecting most of the edible Lego people
for some strange reason kept throwing at us.
> And these people still claimed to have lives.
Hey, *we* weren't the ones who brought the juggling balls along in the
first place...
--
Leo Breebaart <l...@lspace.org>
Marina Muilwijk
> > The complete meet made its way through the drizzle to Eetcafe Weimar.
> > The waitress appeared on the edge of collapse, and that was even before
> > the standard AFP paraphernalia had made its appearance on the table.
[creative snipping]
> for
> being so completely *unreasonable* as to come to her cafe and make all
> these outrageous demands on her such as, oh, desiring drinks every now and
> then, or not wishing to order the exact same meal for all 24 persons
> present...
... and asking for exotic drinks like something in a bottle or a
glass of milk; and changing places all the time; and rearranging the
furniture ...
I would think none of this would be unusual behaviour, but maybe
Rotterdammers are different from the rest of humanity.
(and her excuse that they only had two cooks didn't convince may;
I've eaten with 30 or so people in a restaurant with only one cook
and they didn't have any problems)
Anyway, such things add to the fun, or we'd be having our next meet
at a Van der Valk restaurant. They're used to groups.
Marina
--
Marina Muilwijk
UU Library
Foul Ole Ron
wrote:
>k...@lspace.org (Kimberley Verburg) writes:
>
>> The ever versatile juggling balls were turned into linear crystals to
>> convert one high energy rat into two low energy rats with some appalling
>> sleight of hand.
>
>...and this time the salt shakers were used to implement a quantum force
>field that neatly succeeded in deflecting most of the edible Lego people
>for some strange reason kept throwing at us.
>
>
>> And these people still claimed to have lives.
>
>Hey, *we* weren't the ones who brought the juggling balls along in the
>first place...
They were brought to be tossed at the air/other afpers/innocent
bystanders. They were NOT meant to be *squashed* (fx: shudders)
for representing state zero.
Ah well. This meet did bring geeking to an entire new level.
greetz, FOR
Phoenix
> Ah well. This meet did bring geeking to an entire new level.
The fact that half of the queue was talking about computers doesn't mean
anything.
To quote my quote application: "I'm not a geek. Merely a techno-weenie".
--
Phoenix - I wonder if I also have a warm personality...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
ea...@telekabel.nl http://users.telekabel.nl/eagle
Kimberley Verburg
>> The complete meet made its way through the drizzle to Eetcafe Weimar.
>> The waitress appeared on the edge of collapse, and that was even before
>> the standard AFP paraphernalia had made its appearance on the table.
>
>I said very unpleasant things about the poor woman behind her back, which I
>regretted later as having been childish and unwarranted, but it wasn't so
>much the fact that she was reduced to incompetence by our overpowering
>presence, as well as that she appeared to actually *blame* us (in an
>eye-rolling, sigh-heaving, will-this-nightmare-never-stop kind of way) for
>being so completely *unreasonable* as to come to her cafe and make all
>these outrageous demands on her such as, oh, desiring drinks every now and
>then, or not wishing to order the exact same meal for all 24 persons
>present...
I said slightly less unpleasant things but still think there was some
justification. Repeatedly reassuring the wibbling waitress of Weimar
that "we know we're a large group, we're not going anywhere in a hurry
so we're happy to wait" had no effect whatsoever. Very frustrating.
Maybe we should have given her some chocolate Teletubbies so she could
have relieved her feelings by biting the head off, say, Tinky Winky.
>Hey, *we* weren't the ones who brought the juggling balls along in the
>first place...
Well, Marc brought most of them...
Foul Ole Ron
Verburg) wrote:
>l...@lspace.org (Leo Breebaart) wrote:
>>k...@lspace.org (Kimberley Verburg) writes:
<snip>
>>Hey, *we* weren't the ones who brought the juggling balls along in the
>>first place...
>
>Well, Marc brought most of them...
>
Hey! Is that supposed to mean I'm a geek?
Err... ok, well, maybe I am. But still.
greetz, Marc