b1a0tGravity 3 ReporttDarkhawkthps2f2c11 Gravity 3, Somewhere in Poland f1c12 by Darkhawk/Iris c13Another partyreport by me, just in time to be fresh and crisp. This time, two weeks after the BSE party, we were five crazy danes, Adonis/Indy (but he joined Absurd down there), Notman/IRIS, Flower/IRIS, Ransom/IRIS and me, Darkhawk/IRIS. You know, Poland is pretty far away from Denmark, and the partyplace, which was located close to a town called Turawa, next to a big lake, was even farther. From where I live, there's aprox. 1200 km's down there, so it would be a long way, travelling by 2 cars, as we planned. c12However, after finishing our 64k intro for the competition down there, we started the trip at about three o'clock in the night, three hours delayed, because of Notman (as is usual). Anyway, Flower and I travelled together with Ransom, who did the driving in his Opel Record from before the Romans destroyed Carthage, heh. The trip down there went fairly uneventful and slow, until around Berlin, when we lost contact to the other car. Well, we waited a long time for them, because we thought they must be behind us, but we concluded they had gotten on ahead, bought a map, and tried to find our way down to Turawa alone. That went fairly well too, we didn't encounter many problems before entering Opole, a somewhat big city some km's before Turawa. We got through eventually though, and went on to Turawa. There I had to ask some young looking people about where the partyplace was. Hehe, I said I couldn't understand polish and so on, but they happily kept talking polish at a rapid pace, not seeming to care, heh. By a lot of guessing and exchange of hand signs, we managed to decode their message though, and we eventually found the party place at around 15.30. Twelve hours for getting down there, especially on the crappy roads they have in eastern Germany and Poland wasn't that bad, we thought. c13Well, it was the first time any of us had been to a polish party, even I, partyfreak incarnate, hadn't been to any polish party, so we were a bit surprised at the surroundings at first. c12The buildings seemed a bit strange for a party, and the mainhall was small, with hardly more than 10-20 computers present, although there were already 200 people there when we arrived. We were a bit surprised at not seeing Adonis and Notman there, we drove about 80 km all the way in Poland, because of the roads, so they must really have been far behind us. Anyway, when we were setting up the computers of Ransom and Flower, we met Digger/IRIS from our polish division, and a lot of other, friendly guys, and I got into talk with them ten minutes after we had arrived. They were DRUNK, and I was not, so I had to do something to get even with them. Ofcourse I started boozing then and there. Polish parties are like that, a lot of booze, and few computers (also due to the fact that there are a lot of thieves at those parties). Just outside the mainhall, there was a place with benches and tables where one could sit and relax/chat/booze, and there was a bar outside too, that served 2 brands of beer. This was great. c11So, I was busy socializing and boozing beer and vodka, and 1 hour later, Adonis and Notman arrived. They had jointly brought an A4060, monitor, amplifier and huge speakers, so that machine quickly became the main one at Gravity, since we were able to play louder than anyone else, and to show demos on a fast computer. Boy, did they want to see "Relic" and "Nadia" a lot of times. c12Notman missed the modulecompo deadline, because he arrived 40 minutes too late, the deadline was already the first day at 16.00. That was really a bit too early I'd say, but ok... We had also rented two sleeping rooms (which had three beds each), for a very small price, and they were just perfect for having small boozeparties inside, working quietly on the computer, and ok, also for sleeping, although they weren't used much for that. The first day, there were no compo's I saw, apart from some fun ones, and we basically spent the day chatting, smoking, sniffing and drinking ofcourse. Polish Sceners are really friendly, they shared a lot of their, ehrmm... Stuff with us, and they were great talking to. People say all parties are like that in Poland. Mainly boozing, chatting, and watching the compo's, not many bring computers. This is just the kind of party I like, I don't bring my computer to parties either, I prefer chatting with people. c13It was ofcourse pretty hardcore with all that stuff, so I went to bed around 23.00 already, totally spent, heh. At 6.00 I discovered puke on my hands and clothes, I don't know where that came from, hehe. Also, they had some security guards with the usual policesticks walking around, looking really menacing, with cut hair and black clothes. That day, I walked up to them, touching their staffs and telling them what nice big sticks they had. Yes, I was stoned, but they only smiled, so I guess even that rough looking people can be friendly enough, heh. And by stick, I meant their external weapon, not what you're thinking... c12The next day, after cleaning myself up in the really disgusting toilet, which featured puke on the floor, bloody tampons in the toilets and shit lying on top of the toilet seat, we went to Opole, and browsed a bit there, found the local McD, etc. After arriving back on the party, I began drinking again (ofcourse), while Ransom struggled to finish his 3D picture in time for the deadline. Well, the toilets were a bit cleaner by then (a bit), and as the other day, a lot of DJ's were playing in a hall separate from the rest. Not many danced in there at any time though. Too bad, they almost played non-stop. I think they had five different DJ's or so. As before, most of us spent the time chatting with people and boozing. The beer was a bit cheaper this day. We came to suspect that was because they had put water in it. It certainly looked thinner and thinner all the time, and I got around 20 liter beer during 14 hours, without really getting drunk, so I think that there was water in it. This is really the most negative thing I have to say about this party! c13Anyway, it was time for the compos. I didn't see the 4k intro compo, too busy drinking, and the module competition sounded boring, AND the organizers had mixed multichannel and 4channel mods. This is really not a smart thing to do, there was enough mods for two competitions too, but anyway, I guess the Amiga mods won hands down, heh. In the GFX compo, our poor graphician Bandy stood absolutely no chance of winning, it was simply the best GFX competition I've seen in a long time. If this was due to the pictures being scanned, I don't know, but they had an overall amazing quaility really. In the 3D compo, Ransom's picture wasn't shown, although it was better than most of what they showed, so we guess there must've been an error somewhere, Ransom was pretty bitter about that, heh. Anyway, we had all our hopes set on the intro compo, where we participated, but hmm, on the bigscreen, there was a lot of good intros being shown. About 11 intros all in all, and many of really good quality. That the resolution in a lot of them is something like 8x8, you couldn't see on the bigscreen, so it looked absolutely amazing, and we knew our intro wouldn't be amongst the best three. Well, we weren't bitter, noooo, not at all, we were drunk! c12So after the intro compo, we really looked forward to the democompetition, but that one was kind of a letdown, only 3 demos there, although one was another PPC demo from Venus Art. Too bad they're the only scenegroup actively supporting the PPC at the moment. c11The bigscreen was ok, btw., we could see most, although the last effect in our intro looked ehrr, not that good up there, and you couldn't see the low resolutions, which were used in many of the intros. The speakers were ok too, and best of all, they played really loud, not like other puny organizers who're too afraid to turn up the volume! That's the way to go, those people know how to make a party! c12After the compo's, we got back to our room, certain we had no chance in any of the compo's (which we hadn't either, hehe), and then we really started to booze some serious stuff, like aftershave and deo's, hehe. This was fun! We got a party started in our room with about 10-12 people, while the rest of the party must have been sleeping. Adonis ordered beer for everyone in there, and we sure got a lot of beers. This was real cozy, we got to talk a lot to a great deal of polish sceners, and as I said, they're great and friendly people, and those I talked to I had no problems understanding, although they for sure were drunk (I won't come out with names, hehe). Our little inhouse party ended at around seven or so, when Ransom, Flower and I drove home, to get home a bit early. c13Well, it took us 18 hours to get home! Ransom constantly took the wrong turns while we were sleeping (great being able to slag off people), one time we ended in Hamburg, and we must've used like two hours on getting out again, haha. Well, that was NOT that fun, heh. c12During those days of partying, I got asked the same questions again and again by the many polish people, especially two questions: "How do you like this party?", and "How do you like Poland?". Well, they seem to be very interested in hearing what we, the only foreigners at the party thought about both things, and with regards to the party, they only got positive response I think. But the roads in Poland sucked big time. c13But, if you like what I've been writing about here, if you like senseless drinking, smoking, sniffing (I might be exaggerating a bit here, but not that much), talking with friendly sceners, and watching great compo's, you really should visit Gravity next year. We'll be there for sure, and next time, we'll try to be more competitive, hehe. This party had a great atmosphere, unlike everything else I've been to, including other parties where boozing was allowed. I guess it must have been the 300 sceners present. Only sceners, that is, no small shitty kids playing Quake and y'know. It didn't disturb me at all that there were almost no computers, but if you're a guy who likes seeing all the computers at TP e.g., you might become a bit scared about having to drink and actually talk to people, without being able to have a network between you and the others, hehe. Personally, this is really the kind of parties I prefer, and after having visited over 25 non-polish parties since 1990, I must say that I had the greatest time at Gravity 3, so this was not the last time you saw me, or other IRIS'ers at a polish party! You should go there too.