GoudaMeet 1.0: Report

From: Sanity <sanityDELETETHIS@affordable-hedgehogs.co.uk>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: [F] GoudaMeet 1.0 Meet report
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 23:11:09 +0200
Message-ID: <am5of5.3vvhr3f.1@news.klijmij.net>

People's Republic of Gouda, Office of Sanity, 15/09/02

Comrades,

Despite apparent capitalist efforts to block our Great Reports, I will 
repost it so the people beyond the borders of the People's Republic of 
Gouda, long may it's Golden Rules shine in the sun, can read about 
great things like meets!

The sun was shining above the Great People's Republic of Gouda, when 
the meet commenced slightly earlier than sanity expected. Biking back 
from the shop with the last necesary bits of food, a small flock of 
Germans invaded the suburban street where I live...Uwe & Rolf arrived 
slightly ahead of schedule. This was celebrated with a cuppa tea. 
After I had dinner we left for the station, where the rest of the meet 
was gathering for the Official Dinner. Upon arrival I left Uwe & Rolf 
with the excited crowd, which was slightly out-of-balance because Leo 
decided to arrive _exactly_ on time (as he insisted; he was of course 
a few minutes late).

While I set out to make radio, the rest of the meet wandered into the 
city centre, marvelling and gaping in awe as many centuries surrounded 
them and looked upon the humble afpers. They went into La Strada, the 
local affordable-pizzaplace where they apparently had nice food and a 
good time. Unfortunately they finished at 8 o'clock, so they didn't 
have time to geek the local radio equipment. Leo had sent a text 
message to a complete stranger about this, but we managed to find each 
other and crossed the Markt collectively towards the pub. This did of 
course mean breaking the Golden City Rule #4: "Hanging around in an 
intimidating way is anti-social". This was however canceled out by 
adhering to Golden City Rule #2: "Don't use violence". Whilst crossing 
the Markt I told I was extremely happy that they didn't actually come 
and watch as I made the huge mistake of ejecting a CD that was 
actually playing, nearing 8 o'clock...

While some people extracted money from a bank (the legal way) the meet 
sat on the terrace, enjoying the nice temperature and surrounded by 
the Markt, featuring the Town Hall (1489). The money-extracters were 
guided back to the pub by your humble organizer. Thud boards were 
produced and Eelco "but Mike, that is grrrreat!" and Patrick "Dial 
0800-THUD" explained the basic rules of the game. Soon after people 
started either playing Thud, watching it or chat in general about 
various subjects, and voices were raised over subjects like the Green 
Heart. The staff was probably wondering about this weird bunch of 
people, then again, our first waiter [1] was from Boskoop [2]. 

We received rumours from one of the afpers that there was room inside 
for about 13 people, which was what we needed. Of course, in these 
rumours there wasn't included that, in fact, this wasn't room for 13 
people _near_ eachother. But we coped, and as the music went louder, 
we went outside again - confusing the staff who immediately started 
demanding money before we might run off. 

FiX was presenting the special bottle of wine he bought. The most 
interesting about this wine was, that it's cheap. You can see that the 
cloggie influence is already quite big on FiX, as there was no mention 
of special grapes, growing methods etc.

As could be expected, the waiters got rather curious at this group of 
people, and wondered whether we were nerds. This was countered by "no, 
we are *geeks*!". Upon the question "what is the difference between a 
nerd and a geek then?", snow gave the definite answer: " A nerd is 
basically obsessed and lonely, while geeks have found a social group 
to geek with". 

As thud games neared their finish (maybe due to the "Eelco Manoevre", 
which apparently is very spectacular), and it became later, the 
non-crashing bit of the meet went homewards. At 1am, the terrace 
closed and the nicest option seemed to go towards the Home Of Sanity 
to enjoy FiX's wine. We walked along the canal [3] and out of the city 
centre, through the Rough Areas of Gouda (well, not really, but it's a 
bit more exciting when you create something of a jungle-feeling) 
towards home. The wine was opened using the Geeky Wine Opener ("It's 
Sauron's helmet!") and consumed with much pleasure. It was a spicy, 
dry red wine with a fruity bouquet and very nice indeed. 

When people started falling asleep on the couch, it was considered 
better to do that thing in my room on more comfortable mattresses, 
which we did. 

This is when it began.

The snoring! The horrible snoring!

And, apparently, mosquitos. But they didn't bother me, as they prefer 
fresh blood <eg>.

In the morning, the weather turned out nice enough to sit in the 
garden, and enjoy breakfast there. I could show of my egg-baking 
skills again, though the absence of proper lids makes it a lot more 
difficult to make a proper /Oeuf à la Sanité/, but the persillade 
escargots made up for that. The heat (and maybe the 6 to 8 litres of 
coffee) inspired geeking of CPU heatsinks and cooling methods, only 
interupted shortly by the Brother of Sanity having a quick look what 
all those people were doing in the garden.

When people had to catch a train the meet ended with a walk towards 
the station, where Boris showing off his athletic capabilities didn't 
help him catch his train. He did get the next one though, so all ended 
well and the first GoudaMeet ever can be called a nice meet indeed, 
worthy of repetition, which is already planned for next summer: a 
GoudaRadioMeet, with a 2-hour programme about fantasy/pratchett 
containing music information & interviews.

And maybe, there might even be a meet where there will actually be 
stroopwafels and cheese for consumption...

This meetreport, and photos, are also on 
http://www.affordable-hedgehogs.co.uk/meets/140902gouda.htm

Michel
     reply-to sanity at affordable-hedgehogs dot co dot uk valid

[1] After explaining Boskoop[2] to the non-Gouda afpers, we got
    another waiter. Apparently he overheard the explanation <g>

[2] People from Gouda take the piss out of Waddinxveen because it's a
    small town where nothing's happening. People from Waddinxveen take
    the piss out of Boskoop.

[3] The canal is part of the river "Gouwe", where it joins the river
    "Hollandse IJssel". In the Good Old Days, this was the main water
    route towards Amsterdam from the south. The purpose of this canal
    was to slow down traffic as much as possible, so the crew would
    have to spend money in Gouda. Yes, that's a nasty thing to do but
   it's what made us big :-)

-- 
"Sanity shall make ye -ing fret" - Doing Affordable things to AFP
   14/09/02: GoudaMeet 1.0    |   21/09/02: London meets Sanity
Seafood fetish:                    No buggering at all:
www.affordable-prawns.co.uk        www.affordable-hedgehogs.co.uk

---

---

The L-Space Web is a creation of The L-Space Librarians
This mirror site is maintained by A.H.Davis