Article 56297 of comp.sys.amiga.misc:
Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!barrett
From: barrett@gleep.cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: BLAZE-FEST '94: The Death Toll Continues to Climb
Date: 31 Jul 1994 15:04:40 GMT
Organization: BLAZEMONGER INCORPORATED
Lines: 82
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <31gei8$8cj@opine.cs.umass.edu>
Reply-To: barrett@gleep.cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett)
NNTP-Posting-Host: gleep
Keywords: giblets, neurosis, style-guide compliant
Originator: barrett@gleep.cs.umass.edu
Yes, another year past, another BLAZE-FEST blast! This time, the
"World's Most Violent Amiga-Related Social Gathering" [New York Times,
4/1/93] was held in London's famous Leicester Square. Only July 16, we
gathered at the Imperial Pub, just across the street from Merv's
Buffalo-Wrestling Emporium, to swap stories, quaff many megabytes of
forbidden liquids, start rumors ("did you hear that Gould just sold his
mansion to pay off a $1,256,800 telephone bill full of hour-long calls to
'Dial-A-Goat'? Nah, me neither."), and generally raise the standard of
lunacy in London for a few hours.
In attendance at this awesome event were:
Dan "BLAZEMONGER" Barrett
Farrukh "Clever Nickname" Alavi
Eddy "Anybody Need a Plane Ticket" Carroll
Lars "Lost In Ireland" Hecking
Barry "PC's Make Me Puke And Then Eat It" McConnell
Peter "Where The Hell Is My Chair" Mitchell
Markus "MainActor r00lz" Moenig
T. H. "I Don't Need Another Sodding Nickname. Ish" Pineapple
John "I Guess This BLAZEMONGER Thing Sounds OK" Shardlow
Farrukh and Markus were already hitting the pints when I arrived,
standing on top of the bar, arms entwined, singing bawdy English drinking
songs like, "If I Only Had A Picasso Board." The three of us quickly
reserved the pub's most exclusive outdoor table, just within earshot of the
magnificent "clanging bell extravaganza" down the street. Every hour, on the
hour. Eventually, we had to use the nuclear missiles. But I digress. In
case any of you don't know, Markus is the author of MainActor, the famous
freeware program that, using a sophisticated algorithm, converts Amiga
animations into high-quality pictures of Marc Barrett's butt. (Some of
which apparently were posted to the Net last week.)
Not long afterwards, John and THP showed up, and the fun began.
Wearing wrap-around sunglasses, a T-shirt reading "Mega Ultra Death Speed
Metal Is For Wimps", and most of a duck's liver pate on his head, THP
proceeded to distribute free CD-ROM's to the startled guests. He claimed
that they contained "Euro Demos" and "PD software", which sounded great...
but we later discovered that they were actually filled with 16-bit, digitized
sounds of people chewing. Oh, the thrill of it all.
Suddenly, there was a huge commotion at the other end of the
street. Three lone figures, carrying battle axes and complaining loudly
about the poor quality of English beer, sat down at our table. Yes, it was
the contingent from Ireland -- Eddy, Barry, and Lars -- ready to help us
turn Leicester Square upside down. Not long after, Peter arrived in a brand
new sports car with flames painted on the sides. He drove right through the
middle of the square, laughing maniacally and waving a dismembered, stuffed
panda in the air. Finally, everyone was here. It was time for some
serious action!
With all of this concentrated Amiga fanaticism in one place, what
better thing to do than solve all of Commodore's current problems? Within
the space of a few hours, we figured out how to get CBM out of debt, selected
Dave Haynie as the new CEO, released the A6000, and made "Amiga" a household
name throughout the civilized world. And all before tea time. For
efficiency, we took notes using an Apple Newton and then transferred them via
Emplant to our Amigas... but sadly, this was a BIIIG mistake. The Newton's
handwriting analysis algorithms, uh, left a little to be desired. For
example, our fabulous handwritten solution for adding memory protection to
AmigaDOS got translated as, "Vroon anecdote with pithy gleaming wankers,
offset." And with all the pints of bitter that were downed that afternoon,
we could not remember what we had originally written.... Oh well, we'll
just have to do it again next year.
Speaking of which... watch carefully for plans of a BLAZE-FEST in
YOUR area!! You never know when a fateful knock will come at your door,
followed by a gruff salutation: "Like, BLAZEMONGER 'Customer Service' is
here to see you...."
Dan
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| Dan Barrett -- Computer Science Dept, University of MA, Amherst, MA 01003 |
| http://zoo.cs.umass.edu/~barrett/public.html -- barrett@cs.umass.edu |
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Copyright 1994 by Daniel J. Barrett. All rights reserved.
This article may be freely distributed as long as it is distributed in its
entirety. It may not be included in any publication without the written
permission of the author. So nyaaah.
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