Alternative Party 2013 - Hospital!

Explanatory wail to start with:- The realtime elements of this report have been written with yet another non-standard method due to sudden hardware failure. Felice's famous freebie Dell laptop breathed its last at the 2013 Alternative Party. Attempts to revive it by someone who knew what they were doing failed, so I turned to the screen and cramped UI on my mobile phone.

This was exactly as grim as it sounds and the cramped restricted feeling of the text definitely comes through in the report.

I will be elaborating in a non-realtime fashion on random things as they come up.

- CiH

We commence on the first evening just after the awful discovery. There were no hand towels to hand this time, something else had to be done.

Predicted patient outcomes..

Friday 19.09hrs

Diagnosis is terminal!

Symptoms include tiredness, slow typing speed, a scratchy feeling behind the eyeballs and terminal bios failure.

We're up against the slings and arrows of adversity for the fifteenth anniversary of Alt Party. The ancient but otherwise uncomplaining Dell laptop decided to boot its last breath. So I'm scrambling to improvise in order to get some sort of party report done. This time we don't need to resort to hand towels as writing paper. A high tech solution is to hand with my Android phone and a helpful text editor.

Only we're working very very slowly with an onscreen keyboard which lets you choose between a usable keyboard with a single line of text displayed, or something you can read and a tiny keyboard which my big fat sausage fingers struggle with.

Wonder how quickly this will get very old?

Ah well, back laters.

19.57hrs

So far the party is pretty quiet. There have been some familiar faces such as Wiztom who is otherwise under the cosh of a game release deadline. Setok is in the building in a quiet background sort of manner. We do have Pahartik close by who has reappeared from the mists of obscurity. There are meetings with other people who are dear to our past memories of alt party.

As for the party itself. There's still a lot of arriving and setting up taking place so not so much to report right now.

20.31hrs

Wiztom has prodded the recalcitrant laptop. suspicion is glaring at the bios battery which came out of the machine in a non standard fashion. He may get the time to look at it some point over the weekend.

As if to make up, we're off to the elite bar which is at the other end of a vast asphalt desert swept bare by an Arctic wind. The elite bar contains alcoholics and sceners which are often the same thing. Some sidchip music is playing.

Did I mention the weather is fresh to say the least? A chillness blasts tired legs to action

Heat Treatment Oral Therapy!

Some confectionery terrorists loosely connected to the party dropped packages of chilli sweets on our table. I'll say no more apart from that if anyone eats one, it's for the sort of bet where they are careless for their lives. I wonder if Dr Felice is up for some of this exciting new treatment?

22.13hrs

A short description of the Alt Hospital.

The Alt Hospital grounds are located in an ex-industrial site. Indeed the main building appears to be a former power station, guarded by two massive chimneys at the entrance.

Inside resembles a smaller version of the Nokia cable factory cathedral. at this time soft and healing music is playing and medicinal vapours waft in the air. Many patients await treatment for compulsive coding disorders. Shame that most of the medical professionals are in the bar!

All the failed compo entries went up the chimney.

Non-Realtime:- Shortly after this bit of text, the music became a lot less soft and healing. Shock therapy was prescribed! The artiste concerned was described as a 'dark industrial' musician. Later discussion suggested this was nothing more than a cunning disguise for Death Metal! It was at this point that we decided to call it a day, due to the unfeasibly early start we had.

23.35hrs (And tucked up safely in bed, are we old or what?)

After a long and challenging day travelling to the Alt Party Hospital and sampling some of the revolutionary new treatments on offer, our tired heads and legs wished to call it a rather long day.

Tha' Journey Over..

This was commencing far too early to want to recall. It's tucked away in the obscure memory storage bin marked as 'early start, it's still dark.' Due to the lateness and lack of other complicating human beings on the road, there were no dramas or disasters. At Gatwick Airport, there was just a little bit of goalpost shifting on the part of our airline Norwegian. Their delay was a small one, which gave me time to test samples of multiple orally based treatments in the duty free shoppe. The rum based one had a light and zingy flavour. Tssk! Typical medics, knocking back booze at 07.30hrs!

Having recovered from the more interesting than usual landing at Vantaa airport on a runway made out of bouncy castles. The oft featured in previous party reports number 615 bus stopped right outside our cloud-based hotel accommodation. which was nice.

Final thought for today. This crudely improvised word recording machine would be a lot better with a bigger screen. And a proper keyboard. Whilst the wishlist is open, how about some inspiration on my part?

See you in the morning.

Non real-lime bit:- There was one other thought about the journey over. Some of the design work on the Norwegian Airline's flight safety information card was a little bizarre. The overall design was sort of 'Nordic Anime'. Whilst the depiction of the infant in the 'infant life jacket' looked like an evil dwarf scientist in their minature personal hovercraft. A baby should NOT have sixty-seven year old granddad eyebrows like this one did!

We also spotted the lovely Ms Nicole San Juan at the party, who was tragically too late to sell me an official Alt Party T-shirt. Even though she was perfectly in character. That made two other thoughts, sorry.

Saturday 08.07hrs

Morning!

We've slept a therapeutic sleep. Dr Felice is still gently rustling in his corner of the room. So what thrills will today's session at the Alt Hospital bring?

11.03hrs

In the Alt Hospital Mortuary!

Back at the party place and it's very quiet. Pahartik is around, having avoided sleeping as usual. The laptop bios is still sulking. In other minor news we have stocked up on medical supplies such as elaborate cough medicine from the special pharmaceutical shop!

12.45hrs

The Machines that go Ping!

I started to get my geek on with an Apple Mac enthusiast who has an extensive collection of early models of Mac. At the moment we got to the first PowerPC machine, a human distraction arrived. This was Henna, a famed sauna participant from the last Alt Party and now as ex-partner to the Canadian Marty.

We did not dwell on that and summoned up a pleasant location for a mid morning refreshment session. Patient consent forms for tea, coffee and other refreshments followed. After a totally calm and pleasant interlude, we regrettably parted, agreeing that two years was far too long to leave fresh communications.

Back at the party and the wards are still very quiet although there are a few more bodies littering the mortuary.

14.30hrs

The longest SMS text in the world resumes...

The activity levels at the Alt Hospital are still very low. A few more people are turning up and there may be something organised happening?

Non-realtime:- It may have been some of our times of arrival, but in the early stages of Alt Hospital, there was a very low level of activity. It may not have been helped by a large chunk of the visitors choosing to patronise the bar. Where this was co-located with the cable factory before, at this new venue, it was some cold and windy distance across the car park. So once people went away, they tended to stay that way.

16.30hrs

A bit of time has passed. There have been some useful activities on my part with a couple of articles being worked on. This report is being sidelined as Dr Felice has been away from his work station for the previous hour or so, which lets me get at his still working Macbook.

There is also a sudden influx of new people and table space is getting scarce. Ah the good doctor has returned. He's been carrying out a difficult procedure no doubt!

I guess we're going to be at the things happening state soon. The music has got louder and more up-tempo suddenly.

17.11hrs

Sleet, dammit! (No, not sleep, that was not a misstype.)

There's an interruption to the cold and clear conditions outside. Myriad wet and snowy particles throw themselves to the floor. Inside I'm warming up with another version of 'riot control in a pastille' this time with a fruit flavoured twist. Will I never learn?

The devil's sweets, from Hell's confectionary!

Non-realtime bit:- I managed to package up and bring some of these confectionary monsters home with me. Surprisingly, border control and customs did not have anything to say about this. Even more surprisingly, several people at work, after being duly warned volunteered to try these out. The expression on their faces when they found out exactly "How hot?" was a pleasure to behold! Not that I'm sadistic or anything like that!

19.14hrs

Sick laptop hospital..

We met up with Marty Q-Funk Racine for dinner after looking for a restaurant in the Helsinki red light street which is populated by restaurants and establishments of dubious massage practices respectively. Their motto possibly being "A kebab and a shag."

We settled on an intensely local place which offers Russian food which Marty has had gustatory prior experience of. The meal was definitely up to scratch as the garlicky aftertaste fondly recalls itself. When we got back to the party, my space is occupied by Wiztom in the middle of keyhole surgery with a soldering iron and glue gun on my sick laptop.

He replaced the dead bios battery with something which should hopefully work.

20.02hrs

Nope. Flatlined...

BEEEEEEEEP!

Laptop is not fixed. It will not be fixed without further expensive exploratory surgery. That or replaced by a newer model and recycled for spares. We're in the local pub with some local people to commiserate. Talk has reached us of at least one demo made for an interesting platform, in this case the 8-bit MSX platform of 1st Alt Party lasting fame.

Felice, with a working laptop.

We're finished before midnight dammit!

Non-realtime bit:- With the presence of Viznut at the party, it was speculated by an excited Dr Felice, that there might be another earth-shattering oldschool platform entry from him. Unfortunately, that was not to be. The world is left wondering if there will be more wild and outrageous Commodore Vic 20 exploits to come.

Sunday.

01.05hrs

Back in the reasonably priced luxury of the Cumulus hotel. Our short journey back was enlivened by some extras left on the floor of the bus by a passenger who had enjoyed their night out rather too much!

We grimly held our noses and gratefully fled into the fresh embrace of the night as soon as our stop appeared.

Tomorrow should be a relaxing day with little to deal with apart from a prize giving ceremony and an after party.

Looking back at this. I have the basis of a reasonable realtime article which I can flesh out later.

I'm not quite convinced that onscreen touch typing can replace a mechanical keyboard. at least not with such a small screen area.

At least it's not back to hand towels!

Non-realtime:- The location of our off-site accommodation, the Cumulus hotel, was a good catch by Felice. It is reasonably priced, especially for central Helsinki. The transport links are top notch, with a major bus juction including to and from the airport and a subway station mere metres from our accommodation. We managed the purchase of multi-day travel cards without any traumas and managed to travel back and forth twixt the hotel and party, without having to resort to walking back in the cold night air at any time. That hotel is one to recommend really for any visit to Helsinki.

Sorry this bit went all marketing focused and corporate, but the hotel was one of the major success stories for this weekend.

11.13hrs

Back at the party and as expected there are very few people here.

Pahartik has emerged from another exciting night of no sleep with a box of the latest merchandising craze from 2010, the angry birds biscuits. Actually, he says he has managed three or four hours, which counts as a proper night's refreshing sleep under old style Alt Party conditions.

In some respects the Alt Hospital organisation is lax. We have only just got our ID badges. For some reason they did not have my speciality of proctologist so I had to select on the basis of patient outcome, namely death!

13.39hrs

Prize giving ceremony.

Notable highlights include the MSX intro winning the 64k and Tope's demo winning the main demo compo.

We have previously re-met with Maija Diamondie Haavisto who is in Helsinki courtesy of her publisher, just before the accolades.

Next thing will be to find out what the plan is for later.

14.25hrs

We're now at the cafe across from the party. They have an amazingly keen buffet brunch. The fun that is being had making up new and previously unknown to medical science sandwiches from the trays of ingredients on offer.

There is an official After-Party is later on at the sauna near here. Due to the extreme portability of this format some realtime utterances may be possible. Depending on the alcohol damage of course. I'm looking closely at you, Dr Felice!

16.48hrs

At the sauna. Lacking the luxury of some previous locations, in fact it's a bombed out shell of a building with bombed out shells of demo sceners. I guess that a post party fatigue wall is being hit pretty hard right now?

20.27hrs

SaunasaunaSaunasauna!!

22.04hrs

SaunasaunaSaunasauna sausages!

In the absence of a grill, the otherwise overheating and redundant electric sauna is being used as a sausage cooker.

In other news, most of our booze has been drunk, with other people helping, so Felice will have to end the evening sober!

Non_realtime wee extract:- We discovered two new things about Finnish Sauna parties that evening. Firstly, the aforementioned cookery session. This utilised a redundant and overheating electric sauna on the premises. (We were using the superior gas powered one.) Take barbeque style sausages, wrap *very carefully* in foil and place on the coals for twenty minutes until thoroughly cooked. Eat whilst hot.

Care in preparation is needed, as hot fat leaves a long lasting impression on sauna heaters if allowed to escape there.

The second discovery was 'What happens if someone flings beer onto the heating element of a sauna?' It was only a small quantity and the answer is a delicious toasty aroma coming from the wheat in the beer, which makes you feel hungry!

In fact, certain people such as Henna were hungry but did not fancy the sauna sausages. We gallantly escorted her into the centre of Helsinki to locate an all night McDonalds using a lot of buses, one of which took us back to the hotel, which was nice. Affectionate farewells were expressed and we parted on our separate ways.

Monday

00.59hrs

A splendid evening with sauna cooked sausages was had. We had the pleasurable company of the lovely Henna and even managed a trip to the city centre for a junk food fix for her. The sauna sausages not appealing due to their 'kind of awesome but rather dodgy' nature. Which perfectly sums up the demo scene in general.

Felice behaved very gallantly this evening and we resolved to see each other again a bit sooner than two years later.

Anyway it's time to bring the longest SMS text in the world to a close. Further and more detailed thoughts will follow once I have access to a proper keyboard and screen.

See you later.

End of Realtime. It's all unreal from here!

The final acts on Monday were routine, painless and easily accomplished. There was a slow and leisurely trip home, with a lot of time spent in an agreeable fashion at the airport. Lots of chocolate was purchased for the enjooyment of people back home. The flight was timely and comfortable. We arrived back at Gatwick into an uncharacteristically warm evening.

The sometimes hope knackering road journey was completely delay free. We arrived around 21.00hrs at the residence of Felice. When he rang the doorbell, a raucous witch-like cackling from inside the house ensued. Fearing an early Halloween invasion, we found his spouse and Nicky laughing furiously. They had prepared an amazingly keen chilli to finish the evening with.

Finally I set off for home an hour or so after that, pleasantly stuffed, in the company of countless long distance HGVs winding their lonely way down the A14.

Alt Hospital 2013 - The cutting edge of medical research, or better left in the rejected tissue samples bucket?

The major impression that I got from this time around, was how familiar and picking up from where things had left off in 2011 it all felt.

The 2011 Soviet party was a winding-up of the current round of Alt Parties at the Cable Factory, whilst successful, were felt to be getting stale and repetitive in some respects. We were told to expect new and unexpected directions. Different types of events, large and small in diverse locations.

In the event, a new organising team was set up, assisted quietly by many older team members in the background. What we got from this first time team was a reboot of the old style of Alt Party. If there were any new ideas, these were being kept back for a future event? It would be nice to see something new and different happening for the next time.

The venue was a good continuation from the Cable Factory theme, with a large ex-industrial space being used for eventing, but more intimate and not as overwhelming as the Cable Factory was.

This is fair enough for a new team getting into this for the first time. In some respects, it was nice to pick up on familiar elements and definitely great to catch up with a lot of people we hadn't seen for a couple of years. Pahartik seems to hide away and emerge only when a new Alt Party is announced. It was cool to run into Q-Funk again, without being involved in any drama's. Wiztom was helpful above and beyond the call of duty with my reluctant laptop. The big men such as Setok and Nosfe were prominent in and outside of the party.

We managed to catch up on more international visitors this time. Topy was there, as was Sir GarbageTruck. Diamondie counts as an honourary Dutch person now.

Our favourite catching up with an old friend has to be Henna, who met up with us at the party, and also made a huge contribution of her bright and lively personality to the afterparty. We resolved not to leave it so long to get back in touch for the next time!

So, Alt Hospital, it didn't need to go on to life support in the end!

CiH for Mag! - Oct 2013.

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