|
E-JagFest
2004: A
by LinkoVitch
Having missed
JagFest UK due to a date clash (my son's second
birthday is kind of hard to get out of for a
retro computers day out) I vowed to go to another
'fest this year. I was half hoping that
there would be another JagFest Micro in Birmingham
as that's nice and near but alas no (well not
yet, but it doesn't sound likely now anyway),
so that left E-JagFest.
When a date was
decided upon for E-JagFest (after one false
start), I quickly contacted Blodge (Matthew
Blower) and GazTee (Gary Taylor) who are also
"Northern lads" and hence likely travelling
companions. It took a bit of persuasion on the
part of Blodge him being out of work and all,
but that soon changed. Gaz was much easier
to get onboard. Unfortunately the planning
could have been a little better and well researched
on my part, but going from the information I had available
I booked the flight with EasyJet (£12 each way
per person, bargain), and hunted for a nearby
hotel. Booking a hotel is a pain, but
when you don't even know the country it's more
of a pain, as I was booking well in advance
of the event there were no hotel details available
or addresses of the venue, just an
approximation, Neuss. Alas it turned out
to be Kaarst just outside of Neuss where the
event took place, adding more travel time to
our journey as I booked a hotel near to the
airport (which kinda worked out in the end I
guess). Would have been nice to wait for
the hotel list to be made available, but I wanted
to confirm that there was going to be somewhere
we could stay that night, so booked into a Travel
Inn (£24 per person it worked out at for a night
including breakfast).
Anyway, on with
the diary... The day started
early (more early for some, as poor Gaz had
to drive from south Birmingham to be at mine
ready to depart for the airport as check-in was
at 09:00 at the latest). So we all met at
my place around 07:00. For the first time
since I have known him, Blodge arrived on time,
and conveniently at exactly the same time as
Gaz. A quick brew to re-energise the zombie-like
Gaz and my dad arrived to give us all a lift
to the airport (cheers dad!). One thing
about Liverpool Airport to be glad of, they
have a rather large display of a boob on their
billboards which amused us greatly at this wee
time in the morning. Unfortunately the
bar there is closed at this time
in the morning so we had to settle for their
rock bottom prices on food, so with new mortgage
paperwork neatly folded we sat down to breakfast
(well Gaz and I).
![[Photo: EasyJet]](images/ejl01.jpg)
The flight was
the usual EasyJet affair: get on plane, make
dubious references about air safety, watch short
play performed by wooden actors about donning
the fluorescent orange shackles of the working
man - and thankfully was a quick one and half hours-ish, before we touched down
in Cologne. Of course being EasyJet we
hadn't quite paid enough for the plane to roll
the extra 20 feet to a nice gangway which we
could walk off the plane on, so more tarmac
adventures were had. Cologne airport is
nice and big, just the place for three northern,
non-German-speaking Brits who had adopted the
phrases, "What-ho", "Tally-ho",
"By Jove" and referred to their homeland
as, "Old Blighty" on a lack of sleep
quest to get to JagFest. Thankfully unlike
the UK, sorry Blighty, the public transport
and information about the transport is excellent,
and we were soon touch-screening our way on
some bizarre video game which scored us tickets
on a train (couldn't figure out how to enter
our initials in the high score table though).
Alas I thought
it would be a quick 30 minutes to an hour to
get to Kaarst from Cologne as Multimap claimed
it was a mere 50 miles, but no, a couple of
changes of train, a CurryWurst (yum) and a few
hours before we arrived in Neuss Hbf. At
this point we had already had a concerned Nick
Harlow ringing my mobile to check we were on
our way or not as it was approaching 15:00. At
Neuss we thought about taking a tram ride to
our destination, but after inspecting the map
several times, some wild pointing and gesturing
and no real grasp of German we resorted to plan
B, Taxi, an eventuality for which I had prepared
- get address of venue, print onto sheet
of paper in large bold letters, find cabbie
and point at said print-out. Worked like
a charm and we were soon whisked away to Jaggy
goodness (although a little worrying when
he decided to play with his route finding in
car software which required some CD changing,
while driving... Ah well all fun and games
eh!).
Thankfully Bjorn
had supplied pictures of the exterior of the
venue on the E-JagFest site and we were able
to spot it, and Nick Harlow as we approached.
Paid our cabbie who gave us a receipt should
we need a ride back, which also revealed we were
riding in a "Funk Taxi". By jove! What
what!
The venue was
a rather nice German pub/bar, looked like there
was another event going in the main bar with
lots of old chaps drinking and chatting while
JagFest occupied the larger back room. Right
in front of the door was 16/32 Systems spread
out before us. Lots of tempting Atari
wares as usual from Nick, some now at silly
prices but I held strong and my credit card
remained hidden! Nick also introduced
us to a lovely brown liquid called Alt... and
mighty tasty it was too, unfortunately for poor
Nick his southern complexion meant he had to
take this beer stuff quite steadily as it seems
lemonade wasn't supplied!
![[Photo: LinkoVitch drinking German beer]](images/ejl02.jpg)
In the main room
were several people, few of whom I recognized. One new face
I did recognize was Starcat
(Lars Hannig) whom it was good to finally meet after
all this time, we were quickly introduced to
people there and even managed to convince Arethius
to run a Tempest 2000 tournament after Blodge challenged
since he came kind of third in JagFest UK 2003's
tournament. It was nice to look around and
spot a few faces from the UK JagFest such as
Robert Demming and TXG (eventually! Took me
a few second glances since he has removed his
tash). So with a few Alts down our neck
(ah the liquid refreshment at last) we set about
meandering.
One thing that
was a big shock was the lack of Tempest music
blaring out in every direction, there was obviously
lots of other noises but no Tempest, weird! Closest to the door Arethius had set
up
his laptop (complete with silver Fuji) with some
clips from Duranik showing the bosses for Native,
alongside the PS2 he had brought which was running
Rez, a rather trippy, bizarre but pretty game.
Moving round we had a stack of old retro
Atari stuff some of which looked rather interesting
but I somehow managed to forget to check it
out! D'oh! Next along was the Lynx tournament
of Checkered Flag (in which I did appallingly,
although Gaz gained third place). Next to
this was where Mathias had setup, he had the
JagAds running on a large TV throughout the
event and next to that he had a Jag showing
off Clicks, a game which he is working on based
on the ST version I believe, and a very promising production it looks, too, one to watch
out for definitely. Also in the Jag running
Clicks was one of Mathias' Ethernet Flash cards
(without the Ethernet portion), it looked
of extremely high standard and production
quality.
![[Photo: E-JagFest in action]](images/ejl03.jpg)
![[Photo: Atari notebook!]](images/ejl04.jpg)
Around the table
and behind Mathias was Lars Hannig (Starcat)
showing his Eerievale demo, yet another excellent
title to look out for, the screen shots on the
site are one thing but to actually see it live
in person is another, I was very impressed with
how this is coming along, and cannot wait for
its release.
Next up was Arethius
and the tournament set-up, here was where the
Tempest 2000 tournament took place, I took fourth place
(which is amazing for me) and Blodge took second
place, duelling it out with Arethius himself.
So Blighty did better at JagFest than in the Olympics
I think! Alt was blamed for our lack of gold
medals of course. Further around the corner
were more Jags being used for general game playing,
along with a chap who is (hopefully was) having
problems with his Jaguar CD, I tried my best to
assist and we did get it to fire up without
its lid, proving it was on the whole, working,
but
when re-assembled it proved a different story,
hopefully a few more adjustments would see this
unit right.
Further along
we had Robert showing off his Nuon and holiday
snaps, definitely a machine I must obtain if
I get chance.
Thankfully everyone
there spoke English to a sufficient degree that
my shouting of gradual phrases to make them
more understandable to non-English speakers,
as is the way in Blighty, got my fellow
UK chaps and I through the day, also the folks there
got to laugh at my dubious German pronunciation
of a phrase I was told a few years ago which
was supposed to be quite insulting, to find
apparently it was pure nonsense. I suspect
it meant something and they just aren't telling
me, the rotters!
Making a late
appearance at close to 21:00-22:00 was JustClaws,
who had unfortunately been stuck in traffic
for eight hours! This unfortunately meant
that he missed seeing a few chaps and that his
goodies remained in his car, although there
were still quite a few people around, we were
decidedly hungry at this time.
So off we trotted
to enjoy some tasty food, and my word was it
tasty stuff! And of course we ensured
we had pictures of everything eaten for Shiuming
(or food porn as it has become known) as he
couldn't be there. The food was so good
I even pondered flying back over some time to
have another meal at that pub and bringing along
the missus! After much drinking of beer,
including us northern lads deciding to try a
Stein of beer (which they unfortunately didn't
have so we settled for glasses slightly smaller
than a pint in size), we set about saying farewell.
Nick Harlow departed, planning to sleep in his
van somewhere on the route home, I believe. We
had the fun task now of getting back to a train
station, thankfully we had a receipt from Funk
Taxis so we could call them and try pronouncing
the current location. Luckily we were saved
from this challenge by the very generous JustClaws
who (once stuff was relocated) gave us a lift
back to Neuss train station.
![[Photo: Scrumptious grub]](images/ejl05.jpg)
From there
was another 2-3 hours of train-hopping fun (including
the purchase of chocolate covered ricebread,
very tasty) before we were back in
Cologne. A quick cab ride and we were
at our hotel. When I booked I booked a
single room for three adults, I should have realized
this would mean a double bed and a single, but
it didn't cross my mind until we entered the
room! Ah well nothing better for getting
to know someone than spending a night in
bed with 'em, eh!
![[Photo: Ethernet board]](images/ejl06.jpg)
![[Photo: Group pose]](images/ejl07.jpg)
Gaz
and I spent the night sharing opposite edges of the
main double bed while Blodge took the couch
bed. Apparently several jumbo jets were
flying around our room during the night. I
never heard 'em, but Blodge and Gaz complained
about them in the morning.
Early morning
and we were up, well Gaz and I were up,
Blodge refused to leave his bed, however the
thought of breakfast won me over. When
we came to leave the room we realized that Blodge
would be without power and lights as the plastic
key operated the power for the room - luckily
I had brought the JagFest UK 2004 pass that Gaz
had made me, which seemed to posses enough Jaggy
power to illuminate the room successfully! Off we went for breakfast. Breakfast
concluded that Germany is the place to go for
tasty food, and several rolls with meats and
cheese soon had us satisfied. Surprisingly
Blodge was up when we returned so a quick packing
and off to the airport. A short stint
of trying to will the rather attractive check-in
lady to join us later and we were awaiting boarding
of our flight home. Nothing much of interest
in the airports, a glass cabinet displaying
stuff that you were not allowed to export, we
could figure most of the items, stuffed birds,
crocodile and snake skin goods, coral, but we
couldn't figure out the branches that were in
there. Quick trip through customs - twice
(apparently us UK lot cannot be trusted or something),
and we were homeward bound.
![[Photo: Atari overdose]](images/ejl08.jpg)
One uneventful
flight later and we were back in Blighty. Everyone
was very tired, so I was left to test my single-slot
JAMMA which I purchased off Lars by myself,
and very good it is too! Then it was
simply a case of going to bed and catching up
on the sleep I missed.
All in all it
was a good day out (we spent just over 24 hours
in Germany) although I think a little too much
time was spent travelling. Now the initial
scout has been done and we know what to expect
and are looking for I would hope to be able
to get some more bods from the UK to attend
the next event. The transport system in Germany
is spot on and fairly easy to figure out even
if you are not a German speaker. The event
itself was smaller than JagFest 2003 but still of
interest. And the food, along
with the beer, was first-class.
|