Rotterdam: Report

From: kim@lspace.org (Kimberley Verburg)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett
Subject: [F] Rotterdam 1.0 Meet Report
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 20:49:22 GMT
Message-ID: <3652f808.28565359@news.lspace.org>

[double-posted to alt.talk.mended-drum]

		Rotterdam 1.0 - The Halloween Signing

Attendees: Bas Kruit, Eelco Giele, Elmar Bijlsma, Harold Breebaart,
Jeroen Burger, Jeroen Metselaar, Jos Dingjan, Kees van Reeuwijk, Leo
Breebaart, Mahin Ramkisor, Marc Oldenhof, Mark Haanen, Marina Muilwijk,
Martin, Martijn Evers, Michel Lanting, Myranya, Nathalie Kuipers, Peter
van den Boogert, Richard Bos, Rolf Milde (Germ.), Uwe Milde (ditto) and
your humble meet reporter.


A small group of AFPers gathered at the entrance of Donner Boeken on a
grey and wet Saturday morning. A scouting party was despatched to check
on Carpe Jugulum stocks while the others waited for late arrivals.
Someone had evidently done their homework because stacks of books were
in the shop: hardback, paperback, audio, mini-hardback etc.

The first item on Donner's Fantasydag programme was Tolkien music. Now
either you like folk music or you want to be fifty miles away from it.
Most people satisfied themselves with losing themselves among the books.
Particularly eager AFPers subjected themselves to a second round in
order to get a good place for Terry's talk and in the queue.

Terry was introduced as "the man who can write faster than God can
laugh", the packed room applauded and... no Terry. The photographer and
then some embarrassed empty air were applauded before a familiar black
hat managed to work its way through the dense crowd and onto the podium.

The talk was a familiar mix of old and new - even TSBOAFP got a mention.
By the end of it the corner partitioned off for fans had become very
warm and crowded. The mass of fans impeded the location of lost AFPers,
particularly the new ones that the regulars had not met before. A man
wearing a beanie complete with propeller was accosted but turned out to
be an innocent bystander. Richard startled by answering to his e-mail
address.

Michel presented Terry with some of the famous edible lego from Canada.
Peter had the lego signed for Eelco, thereby qualifying it as the
weirdest object signed. Also spotted: a rather cool printout of the
"turtle" spotted by the Hubble telescope.

The signing started at three and was supposed to take an hour (snh,
snh). We left at close to five and Terry was still at his desk,
scrawling away and being funny at people. It was also supposed to be a
joint signing with Bernard Cornwell, W. Maryson and Jan Krediet. These
three were doomed to wander forlornly among the mass of Pratchett fans.

The complete meet made its way through the drizzle to Eetcafe Weimar.
The waitress appeared on the edge of collapse, and that was even before
the standard AFP paraphernalia had made its appearance on the table.
Mahin found himself diplomatically applying de-wibble tactics to her.

First on the table were the toys that Penny Parkin had sent us from
America. Part of the company became swiftly involved in water pistol
geeking. My favourite toy was the keyring with Jaws running up a string
to chew on a hapless swimmer. Second on the table was the scary food,
Teletubby jellybabies and chocolates, in honour of Halloween. The heads
were bitten off with relish.

The Tolkien music and sound quality were discussed. "That humming sound
was the learned professor spinning in his grave." - Nathalie. It was
revealed that possibly the only Ph.D. in India Opera in the world was
sharing a table with us. How Marina evolved from that into a sysadmin is
beyond me.

Later that night, Jos and Leo entertained themselves with binary
juggling balls spelling out Library's IP address. They both claimed to
have a life.

Experiments were carried out on the cloned rats, Dolly and Dolly (also
courtesy of Penny). The ever versatile juggling balls were turned into
linear crystals to convert one high energy rat into two low energy rats
with some appalling sleight of hand. And these people still claimed to
have lives.

QUOTES

None.

No entendres, single, double, shaken or stirred. What do you think this
is? A Dublin meet report?

-- 
Kimberley Verburg     kim@lspace.org
FAQs for AFP/ABP are at http://www.lspace.org/
"You're the closest thing we've got to a woman."
       - Leo Breebaart, Delft 1.5

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