Outline 2013!

21.49hrs - Thursday.

Day 1

I'm still groping around for a new and novel way of presenting this report to a blase 'seen it all before' world. I really should have thought a bit more about this in the preceding days than I did. Even in the car coming over, inspiration failed to strike, apart from inventing a new version of the childhood classic 'I spy' game.

So this is the official debut of "Rhyming I-spy", and needs two objects spotted quickly in sequence to work. In the case of a motorway journey, "I spy - a dead fox and a cardboard box!"

Or, "I spy - a mobile phone and a tyre blown."

I did briefly consider a haiku party report, but that wouldn't work for a lot of reasons. Especially the bit where I start sounding like Yoda.

First night drinky,

Vomity regrets later Headpain in morning...

The beer overcoat that I'm trying on for size right now isn't helping either.

The next few days are going to be very interesting. There is no real internet here. We were somewhat spoiled at Revision 2013. Some people are going to have to be creative, and not sit on the web as if they are bumbling around at home on their factory settings, waiting to be 'inspired' by the latest Daily Heil manufactured outrage over the favourite moral panic of the week. Maybe some progress on the nebulous entity known as 'Mag 2013' may take place over this weekend?

Outline 2013 seems to be rather busy, even at this first night state. There seems to be a pent-up demand for an Outline in its usual late Spring slot, from the forced relocation to Autumn last year. We had a struggle to find spare table space, locating at the end of the front row next to the ever friendly Earx.

We have spotted incidental Atarians scattered around, including George 'GGN' Nakos, Tinker, PeP, and the Nature Brothers, who have some SuperVidels with them! They asked if I had brought my Falcon with them, namely my original CT60 which has now gone to live with Doug Little. I hadn't and the replacement machine has a rather large CTPCI shaped obstacle in the way of installing the SuperVidel. So if I take one of their Supervidels away, this is one I may have to refer back to Dal when a quiet moment comes later in the year.

We're hopefully going to see Grazey and Cal at some point, and Beetle with his super enhanced CT60 system too.

Outline have come up with the neat and novel 'food ticket'. For 20 EUR, you can order three evening meals, one of which is a pizza run and another is a repeat of the fantastic curry experience tomorrow night. For Saturday, the Hapkar is due to return and rather foolishly promised an 'all you can eat' deal! Let's see how that one works out for them then! We arrived shortly before the main pizza run, but we have been added to a late run. Right now, some solid food to counteract the alcohol is a really good idea, zzZZZTt!

22.18hrs.

A long journey ensues, Drivers hands tremble,

Beer awaits!

The journey over.

Probably one of the easiest and most trouble free of any we've attempted in recent years.

Stavs, Gasman, and the mighty bird-poo coated Skoda of ultimate doom arrive shortly before their expected time at 13.00hrs earlier today. After a brief pause to replenish nicotine and caffeine levels, the UK visiting party swoops away from Cambridge leaving a wistfully recalled smudge of civilisation in the rear view mirror. The single ominous 'accident on the M25' is swept off out of our way, with the help of some really large brushes wielded by sweaty and unenthusiastic emergency services personnel. The bridge across the mighty Thames hoves into view at around an hour or after we set off. The rest of the journey proceeds without hitch or delay. (We do get to keep our Chunnel ticket hanger confined inside the car this time, thanks for asking!)

The only amusing diversion for going over is with the quality of satellite navigation on offer. Felice's sane, sensible and purpose built offering is kept in his big pack in the boot of the car. It appears that my new Android phone can navigate really well, but needs an online data connection to work,. Not a great idea where data roaming charges bite with a vengeance outside of the septic isle.

We're left with Stav's almost but not quite competent version on his Nokia touchscreen, which manages to be GPS aware and provide a map of where we are. The problem is that is seems to prefer to give directions to somewhere other than where we are going. A female voice constantly implores us to turn off at the next junction, regardless of the fact that it isn't helping us to get to Outline. As the journey wears on, various intonations of pleading and anger, sometimes both of them together, can be detected in the requests to 'turn left'. Fortunately, as we're all veterans of this particular trip, several times over, it can be navigated by hand, and signposts. Which was pretty much how it went down. Stavs finally managed to find the mute button for the aggrieved female voice near the end of the journey.

We arrive in fine style and generally intact. All our possessions, including my very preciouss! half bottle of mother Jameson's finest sipping whisky from the Emerald Isle are still in one piece. Lots of people including such demoscene royalty as Nosfe and Sir GarbageTruck greet our arrival. It seems they are mainly keen to give Gasman a third degree interrogation about the new Demozoo web portal thingy he's involved with setting up.

22.58hrs.

The late pizza run has managed to finally catch up with us. The quality, as for the last party, can be most charitably described as 'indifferent', In hunger and drink enhanced conditions, these go down with a grateful crash regardless. Hopes are high for a much better gustatory experience for the following evenings, especially for a repeat of the kick-ass curry for tomorrow evening,

Friday!

00.34hrs.

That's neat, that's neat That's neat, that's neat I really love your tiger feet.

Oki, what the hell time is it?

I've been to watch the early stages of curry preparation in the Outline kitchen, and can confidently predict that this food WILL ROCK!

I've also been on the wagen for a while with some Revision leftover coffee pads, so my sentences are making sense right now. However, at this moment my ambitions to 'not to have to drive home tonight' are being helped with a glass of Olde Mother Jameson's finest whisky flavoured elixir.

I've had a quick chat with the Nature Bros. It does look like that they've brought completed units of SuperVidel with them, for those people who ordered and who are attending Outline. Which is excellent!

00.46hrs.

Shssh! Keep it quiet, there seems to be an interwebs working right now! Ah well, that's Felice's good intentions for quietly productive article writing lost in a haze of frantic web browsing!

In the meantime, we have a compo entry of our own. This one is a cheap and cheerful 'thing' based on movie footage I took at the Revision 2013 party, but It'll give a quick laugh for those people who attended that party.

01.48hrs.

Compo entry is now uploaded. Chrome seems to have a problem with the URL http//:party.net, so I've gone back to Firefox for a bit. (Note to more sober self, this might be helpful to remember when voting later on!)

02.10hrs.

Is still only really 01.10 hrs for us UK people... Nice to get the accidental lateness hardness boost just from moving the clock an hour forward!

I think I'm going to turn in shortly, maybe a last stab at imperfect Haiku for tonight?

A long day,

Even more tomorrow Or today?

Gasman does not consider this is proper Haiku, with a set number of syllables and so on. However, he is prepared to allow these a degree of poetic licence.

Which leads to the inevitable question. "Excuse me sir, do you have a valid licence for that poetry?"

09.28hrs.

Uneasy repose,

Background rumbles darkness,

A new day arrives.

Sleeping room, with its strange but familiar beds, and fight or flight responses heightened in a weird fashion by alcohol.

As slightly drunk and very tired sceners enter the sleeping room, strange transient noises abound. Door opening and closing, a jingle of dropped keys, a clatter of a knocked over chair. At which point my brain jumps up screaming "What was that?! WHAT WAS THAT!!" to the rest of my body.

Things do quieten down in all areas, and the snoring background chorus is quite gentle and relaxing this time around. So I think some sort of sleep got in there in the end? Anyway, after slamming down a couple of hot beverages down me, I think I'm reconnected with the world?

Outside is very fresh, the Dutch weather determined to lend a hand to any booze casualties from last night

Anyway, today should have some time for article development for Mag 2013, I've at least one firm idea. Felice says he has some ideas as well.

But first, as we have an interwebs connection, time for a little laming online.

We have a network connection?!

10.21hrs.

Breakfast of champions,

Demosceners too,

Eat in teeth of gale.

That about sums that one up. I think the weather today is going to be interesting as in 'times'. I have replenished my fat levels and the party is slowly coming back to life.

Time to do some actual stuff... Back later.

13.16hrs.

Gasman codes keenly,

Taking a bucket,

Fitting it in teaspoon.

Well we have been productive. Gasman is indeed pondering his options with his 128 Bytetro for the Spectrum. For my part, the article I said I would write has been written, We have made a trip to the very busy C-1000 supermarket. Our request for blank audio tapes of that length being met with blank looks by the staff there.

Stavs has emerged after an unspecified attack of lurgy and long sleeping, he appears to be happy and well again, In other news, Grazey and Cal have arrived on the premises. They appear to be offering a boot sector intro and a PeeCee game to the stern gods of compo entry.

We have had a swap around of power cables to enable the super better stronger faster electricity supply to be switched in. Right now, we are being deejayed to by Numtek.

Let's have another look at that article to-do list...

16.19hrs.

Beep-dur-beep, This Haiku is broken! Poop-duh-poop!

A short pause to press reset on the brain and then a proper saying of 'hi!' to Grazey and Cal. These two were interrupted in their journey by an unmarked police car, who apparently objected to their photographic recording of Rotterdam's infrastructure. Once they had established that the fantastic duo weren't getting ready for a terrorist campaign based around boot sector coding with a gritty northern flavour, then they let them carry on.

Felice has been trying to lure them to the next edition of Sillyventure, with movie footage of the burlesque show from 2012. The resulting salivating threatened to leak onto GGN's exposed Falcon motherboard, with drastic consequences!

We're not sure what is going to turn up for the Atari part of the competitions. Defjam's name has been mentioned again. If this is the delayed Revision demo, then I'll be very happy indeed. Otherwise, there will probably be a slew of smaller entries. I spotted Tinker working on some ST graphics in CrackArt. Meanwhile Beetle has reinstalled his Mint system on his newly SuperVidel boosted CT60 Falcon..

Just about every Atari system in that corner, starting with the Nature Brothers systems, seems to be opened up and nesting in a wild tangle of cables.

16.35hrs.

Announcement from the organisers!

The sleeping rooms are to be reclassified with immediate effect. The old categories of 'snoring', 'non-snoring' and the recently added 'hardcore snoring' are deemed to be insufficient to meet all the diverse sleeping needs of the partygoers.

The changes are listed below:

The main non-snoring room is redesignated as the "Shouting all night at people who are snoring in the non-snoring room'.

The other non-snoring room has been renamed "Snoring room for people with issues constantly denying the fact that they snore."

In addition to normal and hardcore snoring, a further category, 'dubstep snoring' will be opened.

A fish-friendly sleeping room will be filled with water, for those demosceners who prefer gills to lungs. The heating system has been deactivated, so there will not be a repeat of last year's tragic mass electrocution.

For those people who recklessly requested their curry at vindaloo strength, one of the sleeping rooms has been converted into a massive toilet. At the end of the party, the survivors will be pulled to safety, whilst the desiccated corpses of the dead and all the waste matter will be quietly flushed away.

Finally, there will be a 'Lord of the Rings room' for those people who like epic quests. This sounds a lot like a normal snoring room, on account of the sleeping dragon who normally lives in there.

End of announcement.

18.06hrs.

CiH transfers files,

Taking a bucket,

Looks aghast at teaspoon!

I've spent the preceding time with Beetle. He has his CT60 running with a replacement CF Card drive. This appears to be his emergency drive, as his original hard drive with all his files has died. When I brought my USB transfer card, this was stuffed out pretty well up to its 512 meg capacity. Beetle's emergency CF card only has 128 Megs, of which around half of that is already used!

Still, I managed to squeeze on a couple of movies and all of the animated GIF files that I brought with me. But not the Falcon converted Lubeck 24x7x365 movie. That alone takes around 140 MB!

Beetle has apparently lost all the stuff he collected over a long time, including the source and work in progress for the Planet Hively conversion and all the movie files he converted beforehand.

In other news, I've now received my SuperVidel! (After how many years of waiting?!)

As my Falcon was firmly at home, this could not be fitted, of course, but at least I've got it. This will also need some careful forethought and a grown-up to help as there is a whole lot of other stuff inside my CT60 Falcon and one possible circuit board modification required.

Right now, there is a very loud newschool music competition taking place.

19.02hrs.

Chicken simmers slowly,

Curry is delayed,

Hunger triumphs!

I've had a nice chat with Grazey and GGN, Grazey is a 'maybe' for Sillyventure. George 'consoled' me with Atari Jaguar matters and there may be some interesting developments in the realm of Reboot in the not too distant future. Hopefully I'll be a Jaguar owner when I get back home as Ebay coughed up an offer I found hard to refuse, so Reboot's activities are something to keep a close eye on.

As helpfully pointed out by the fake haiku, there seems to be a small technical hitch with the curry, as the lickin' chicken seems to be cooking more slowly than the kitchen staff intended. A delay which is being covered by cheesy biscuits.

Right now, we're safely covered with a thick warm blanket of oldschool music compo and 505 is thrashing a cowering helpless Atari POKEY chip for cheap and nasty laughs!

Felice here for a short while ... an infamous interlude ...

Outline 2013 seriously rocks as always. At the moment, Franky is playing some real cheesy hits, but it's a lovely atmosphere. Grazey & Cal have been considering whether to visit Sillyventure 2013 later this year, hopefully the video of the 2 ladies dancing has convinced them :)

We've had the music compos a little earlier, some great tunes there too. Graphics compos are coming up and as I write, the first of the curry waves are scheduled to happen. The three of us here are in the second wave as we got blue tickets, hopefully Stavs also got the same kind.

Over and out ... a little tiddley but no problem - the bed is not too far away ;)

Back to CiH ...... (who shouldn't at this point have started on the whisky, but we never know)

21.33hrs.

Blocks teeter,

Stavs prods gingerly,

All crashes down!

We've had a nice gap, occupied by waiting for curry, demoscene (non) competitive Jenga, eating curry and drinking some more of the deadly 'Krawal' mixture afterwards.

Jenga was instigated by Stavs, who kept ending up on a losing streak, when the structure has all the resilience of a 1960's built residential tower block in East London and just needs that tiny final push to bring it all crashing down.

The curry, somewhat delayed, was well worth the eating and even managed to improve on last year's attempt.

The crazy kid Knoeki, who was behind the 'KrawalMeister 2000' lego drinks dispenser last year, was back again, this time without this high tech aid and relying on playground tactics learnt as a group of eleven year olds with a stolen bottle of vodka when they first learned how to get drunk.

Take one sachet of concentrated fizzy powder, pour vodka in, mix thoroughly and drink in one gulp. Observe the reactions of your fellow participants, especially Stav's lips, when they try to leave his face.

One last thing, we've had a wave of graphics compo's. Like Outline competitions in general. These tend to be small scale and easily managed.

Anyway, I'm off outside for a bit to see how the external branch of the party is managing.

23.13hrs.

Hookah pipe smoulders,

Fire bursts into life, Power goes off inside!

We're looking at the end of Friday, and the promise of the final full day tomorrow. Competitions, deluxe junk food via the Hapkar, more random drunkenness and lots of other cool stuff will take part.

In the meantime, there is the usual firm decision between finishing off with the party inside or the one outside. A fire is blazing outside. Meanwhile, the last live act of the evening was cold-shouldered for a time by the electricity supply. Currently I'm back to typing in the dark and the screen is very very bright right now.

So I might go out again, see if there is any promise of midnight bacon?

Otherwise see you all tomorrow.

Saturday!

09.25hrs.

Gawp at web,

Laming points expired,

Get some work done!

To update from last night, There was indeed a copious supply of the bacon of the night. Mr mOd was variously in rude health and fully in charge of the mighty frying pan. The end result, eaten hot and fresh from the pan was pronounced 'delicious'!

The author of this realtime felt a bit shopworn after the exciting preceding 36 hours or so and opted for bedtime sometime around 01.30hrs. Sleep did follow, so the niggling eye socket based headache has gone. I've also managed a sneaky early shower and opted not to wear Felice's 'youth trainee viking beard' look.

The coffee cup shaped reset button has been pressed, I'm here, and its lovely and quiet right now. Let;s see what thrills today will bring?

10.56hrs.

Rain rain go away, Don't come back, Another Day.

There is more life in the hall, some unwelcome precipitation outside of the hall, and breakfast has arrived.

Felice is up and doing an amazingly good job of concealing any drink related damage, oh no, not the Daily Heil website mate, NONONONONO!

Your laming around on the web points have expired. Now get some work done!

12.23hrs.

Zeppelins vs Pre-Dreadnoughts,

Who would win?

Everyone the loser!

The party has woken up properly. The rain is setting in for the rest of the day unfortunately. I've had a quick chat with a not at all wet and dismal Simon Sunnyboy via Facebook for a quick party so far style briefing.

The lovely sunny Netherlands!

Coffee (gulp!) - NOW it's time to do something else!

13.37hrs.

Another one done,

Another one,

Bites the dust.

Holy crapski! From a Mag 2013 point of view, this is turning into a moderately productive weekend. A party report gathering words (here) and a couple of articles written from scratch, and another one finished off. Felice has apparently done something, I'm interested to find out what that is.

Right now, music is playing from Space Operator.

15.56hrs.

Atari cheesecake,

Shimmers invitingly,

Is eaten quickly!

The mid afternoon laming around period has been occupied with time spent outside, watching barbecued banana wrapped in bacon (initially mistyped as 'baon'? Err right!) Topy expressed surprise we had not heard of it. We stated that this was a crime against the laws of food nature. Topy insisted that the holy food of bacon could make anything taste better. Stavs, against his better judgement, tried some and pronounced it delicious.

I had an encounter with a more conventionally decorated 'Atari cheesecake', which tasted extremely home made and edible.

Apart from that, not a lot else to tell.

17.43hrs.

Hapkar frijtes,

Shimmer invitingly,

Are eaten quickly!

I've had the pleasure of the Hapkar's greasy tasty embrace. This is a popular attraction, judging by the queue around the block. I managed to get in there early, and I'm currently burping contentedly at the keyboard.

In other news? Not a lot, there's a lot of music and not much conversation, unless you tag on to the outside party. This has its own hazards in the form of some concentrated rain showers. I also thudded into a lack of alertness wall sometime around 15.00hrs, so took a quiet hour out from the party in the currently non-noisy sleeping room.

18.17hrs.

News at last,

Stories and rumours,

of Atari entries!

Felice has been in conversation with GGN, who seems to have done a much better job of keeping his ear to the ground re. Atari entries, than I have.

The following may or may not appear, or may appear in a slightly or drastically different form to that described in the text to follow:

A remote entry from Checkpoint. This may be a Jaguar code. (After Party note:- CORRECT!)

A remote entry from Dead Hackers (!) (Correct, a small invitro with DHS and Excellence in Art.)

Boot sector from Cal and Grazey. (The infamous cheaty incomplete breakout game!)

An entry from Earx!! (Just updated from Felice as the sixth Atari entry.) (Nope, may have been confused with Earx running the surprise MadWizards production on his CT60.)

A small remote entry from Paradize, which I did know about beforehand. (Correct.)

"Something from Wildfire"?! (Err, no..)

At least one of these, or possibly something else was described as a big surprise. (Almost certainly the MadWizards demo.)

Well my curiosity is well and truly piqued now. As long as there isn't anything from Bits! (Afterparty note:- Ah, oh dear!)

In further food news, I fancy another browse of the Hapkar once the queue dies down. There has also been mention of a decent quantity of spare curry from last night, which would do rather nicely for later on!

19.02hrs.

Competitions will commence,

Animations are animated,

but not our conversation.

Beetle appeared for a brief breath of fresh air. He's fixed a niggling missing mouse cursor issue with the Planet Hively port to Atari Mint, it also runs a bit quicker than before too. One to hopefully pick up later, after the compos.

I've also been to the kitchen and there IS a canister of curry left! Good job I left room after the Hapkar then!

19.28hrs.

Anims and games,

Swept past quickly. Blinked and missed.

We've been treated to a grand total of three animations, including the almighty 'Wee Knights' tribute to the toilets at Revision, something wince-inducing featuring needles from Nosfe, and a sort of pretend demo invite for TRSAC party. This could be anyone's competition.

There were a couple of games, a quick and cheap Star Wars scroll-text view shooter, and a lovely little game with an Amiga beach ball bouncing around with some lovely motion physics.

Still we've been forewarned of two hours of demo competitions, starting at around 20.30hrs.

I've also grabbed a copy of the reworked Planet Hively music disk Atari Mint executable from Beetle and his friend, who apparently did the actual fixing. It does run more quickly (on a 90 MHz machine) and there is a mouse cursor at last, so it is properly useable. The issue was with the SDL code or framework containing nothing for a mouse cursor, so it had to be added in by hand. Changing to a .GTP file and entering resolution parameters (r followed by the pixels you want, 320 x 200 is recommended.) You can try higher screen modes but things slow down a lot for 640 x 400.

19.57hrs.

Darkness enters swiftly,

Strikes grievously,

Power gone off again..

I hope this isn't going to happen a lot tonight. Since I removed the knackered battery from the laptop without replacing it, every party that I've been to since has managed to rub in my lack of secondary power with an outage to remind my of my short term cheapskate thinking.

At least this time, we haven't had the multi-hour misadventure with outage-driven darkness that richly textured and coloured the competitions at Sillyventure 2012.

I'll bookend this log entry with another dodgy haiku.

Uncertainty glowers down,

Precarious is emperor,

Back-up every sentence!

21.16hrs.

Compos are started,

Many entries shown,

Some awhile to arrive,

We've had the first smallish wave of competitions, Some small and perfectly formed 128 bytros, even the 32 and 64 byte entries were pretty decent. Of course we get to see Gasman's party coded effort. Four minutes of pre calculating are packed into one minute's turbo cheating! But the end result is very pretty!

Of the realtime wild competition. A couple of things for the Jaguar turned up. A space filling high resolution slideshow from Reboot, and the first of the previously speculated on entries, Checkpoint released a Jag invitro for Sillyventure 2013! This brutally hammers the classic Sanity rotating zoom and distort concept into the 21st century! We are giddy with the motion and excitement conveyed in this intro!

There is a short break, and the combined Atari ST competition is down to start shortly. Earx gloomily suggests this will be populated by boot sector entries.

We'll see...

22.43hrs.

Prizegiving ceremony,

Takes place at 11.30. Not?

Most of the competitions have finished. There is an intriguing final part, which is still in the balance as to whether it will run or not, as the organisers have had an attack of thumbs, left feet and flustering around.

OH WAIT A MINUTE!

They found the right finger to pull out, finally. Back soon.

(Gap in text to be entranced in..)

THANK YOU BRITELIGHT!! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU MAD WIZARDS!!

They've only gone and bleedin' well ported the Revision 2012 Amiga demo winner to the CT60 Falcy!

We have a new BEST DEMO for the CT60 now!!

The rest of the competition was as I originally expected, There was a BITS entry, a nice little first time debut effort from someone new, a quick life sign from Paradize and a cunning little boot sector from Tinker, Grazey and various people. We had a Sommerhack invitro by DHS and Excellence in Art, which was mostly by Excellence in Art and taking it easy. Still the text seems to suggest there is something interesting coming from them at the forthcoming Sommerhack party?

The PeeCee demos and intros were a nice mix. The really good kickass stuff coming in their intro's towards the end with the Astral Flux 'Universe in 64k; to be the overwhelming winner. If there is any justice in this world.

But a single production at the end boosted the party from a releases perspective, the mighty 'Kioea' demo from MadWizards! I AM NOW OFFICIALLY ECSTATIC!

We've got a Gasman concert and a bladder to empty next. (Not in the same room together though!) Back laters!

SUNDAY

12.24hrs.

Prize giving ceremony,

Definitely is not,

At 11.30!

Gasman has risen to the final live act podium like the trouper that he is. I've got movie capture evidence of Okkie's Vincent Price voiceover at the end of Gasman's cover of 'Thriller'. Surely this is a party tradition for Outline in the 'Jarig' vein?

I've also encountered another helping of awesome curry and we're winding down to an all new 12.30 prize-giving ceremony!

I've remembered I've got an interest. But it'll sink out of sight, I'm sure.

01.12hrs.

Just a five minute joke, Done and forgotten,

It wins a prize!

It didn't!

I thought I'd got away with it when it seemed the organisers had forgotten to give the results. But someone found the missing piece of paper and we didn't get away with it after all. I was surprised to get a second place, as Nosfe had clearly put more work into his piece and only got third place. (After-party note:- There was only one point in it!)

The all new 12.30 prize giving ceremony winds up without any problems and the formal winding up of the party is done.

We are booked in for 2014, so there's an early piece of great news.

Okay, we'll start towards the ending ourselves in a bit.

The final act..

So long farewell,

Auf Wiedersehen,

Adieu..

Grazey already left the building!

We're heading for the exits in more ways than one now.

The last night mood is buzzing excitedly, as it always does. The prize giving ceremony takes place in its new later time slot. I am surprised to be second placed in a competition of three and even more so to receive a prize. A tumbling pile of Fanta cans greet the alarmed prize winners as they go up on stage. I am no exception. Apart from one or two drunk gratefully that night, the rest go to replenish Felice's stocks? ( I also picked up a spiffy calendar themed around the Nintendo game and watch series, but that seemed to disappear after I went to bed, hmm?)

Rain tries and fails to extinguish the fires outside and the party spirit.

As stated earlier, the contract for T'Jewel as the venue for Outline 2014 had already been signed. This announcement got the loudest (muted on account of the rest of the campsite sleeping) cheer of the evening.

Our driver, Stavs, does the sensible thing and goes to bed relatively early, especially as he's volunteered himself for a delivery mission of other demosceners to the local bus station before we head off home. It turns out in the morning that he did a very silly thing before the sensible thing as he went to bed with a stomach laden down with Salmiakki. This preyed heavily on his bodily state for much of the following day.

Sleep follows in satisfactory amounts and I'm roused and ready at not too unreasonable a time. As some of the hardware next to me and the mains extensions have been already unplugged, I'm not really looking to follow up on the report and get busy with packing and breakfast, more or less in that order. The party outside is very fresh and windswept, with occasional showers. The other members of the travelling party reappear before too long, most surprisingly, Stavs at a reasonable hour, but he's not feeling so great.

The usual long procession of tearing down of the party and wistful farewells follows over the next couple of hours. With one new arrival, Richard Karsmakers, who is involved in yet another nefarious food exchange and smuggling episode with Felice. He is pleased to catch up with some of the other Dutch sceners still in the area. Talk turns to the expected STNICCC of 2015, the 25th anniversary of the original 1990 party! This is going ahead. A tentative venue has been suggested, depending on Rick K's good standing with his current workplace.

After a satisfactory time spent, he has to leave. Eventually, Stavs finishes his delivery missions and returns for the commencement of the very long journey home. The car is reloaded, not quite as efficiently as for the journey in, but we manage.

And we're off.

Occasional downpours aside, the return trip is carried out awesomely quickly, without any hint of delay. Indeed, we're almost too clever for our limited powers of comprehension, when the Eurotunnel manages to book us on to the next leaving train. Even customs is a breeze, a doodle, and a walk in a park heavily populated by uniformed officialdom. We don't get to spend any time in the Calais super shopping experience, or sample the joys of French burgers. In fact we've barely stopped the car in the carriage and the train is moving.

As the train rushes into the enclosing darkness of the tunnel, an uneasy recollection of last year's breakdown disaster regurgitates like a salmiakki flashback. This time though, the journey is flawless and we arrive with an ample amount of earliness in hand.

A refreshment break in Kent aside, there are no delays at the UK end either. So it is late afternoon that my adventure ends at the Felicing residence back in Cambridge, minor detail of the final hour to get home aside.

Very final final thoughts! Have there been any new 'lessons to learn'?

Firstly and most importantly, Outline has been rejuvenated by a welcome return to its normal Ascension Sunday weekend time slot. It has been said that the reduced autumn party last October was fine as a one-off, but could not be repeated as the organisers would struggle financially.

There was a big attendance, as lots of people missed it last year. It can be said that Outline 2013 was at the top of its capacity. There was an extra row of tables, this was needed. Even then, the space per participant was best described as very cozy. I don't mind this, a well-attended party is better for all sorts of reasons than a sparsely populated one.

There were some but not so many Atarians. On the other hand, other scene people filled the gap. Many of these usually detained by rival events on the same weekend being able to make this year. The nearest thing to accessible scene royalty, Nosfe and Truck were in town. Furthermore, it was very nice to get to know Knoeki, the dude behind a lot of the brony imagery and strange Krawal rituals, properly this year. It was cool to remeet the Swedes, PeP included. There was a welcome return of Beetle and his high end hardware after a considerable gap. He conjured up a new better version of Planet Hively in-party. A big cheer was heard for the arrival of GGN, Cal and Grazey. There was a returning trend for more Atarian Dutchies such as Earx, Tinker and The Match this time.

We've not quite forgotten our excellent hosts, the organisers, especially Havoc, and the catering team of Honkey, Nuey, mOd and Silverlance.

Outline has been an essential fixture, a part of the Atari scene and general demoscene landscape for such a long time. The fact that it is the10th anniversary was surprising. It appears a plea for more Atarian interest did not attract too much of a rallying around effect, with some interesting exceptions.

The climate curse of the early Easter this year has a long reach, as the weather experienced in early May was on the poor side with frequent rain showers. Of course, the party spirit compensates for this,

The facilities at T'Jewel are intensely familiar and fit for purpose. There were some nice extras such as a visitors fridge. The food, apart from the sub-par pizza was excellent. The 20 EUR food ticket to cover the evening meals was an excellent innovation. The curry was an improvement even on last time.

The competitions were typical for the party, tending to the lighter in weight. There is a difficulty following on from the epic Revision party at Easter, as this is now the first major party after that. The intros were better in showing than the demos released here. The Atari stuff received was very much in the 'life sign' category, two of the entries were selling the attractions of other parties, which gives hope for something special coming from both Sommerhack and Sillyventure 2013.

Where we did get a massive boost at the end was with the release of the epic high end Amiga demo 'Kioea' from Mad Wizards, ported to the CT60 series, which probably made the party for me and other CT6x owners, but not everyone else.

And I finally got my SuperVidel!

After how many years? I remember it being talked out at Error in Line 3 in 2003, back when we were awaiting our CT60's!

The best news, of course, is that there will be an Outline 2014.

CiH - Mag 2013 - May 2013.

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