C00LeS WaReZ UNiON MeMOiRS: cHApTER #0x93

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0x93  -  Helsinki  -  mR.mEgAsTuFf  -  1997-09  -  227 lines
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It was seriously fucking awesome getting to Boozembly. My life had been a complete disaster for a month, so any break from it was a huge plus. I'd also gotten totally fucking sick of Osmo, living next to him constantly, it was driving me insane.

Apparently, he wasn't as fed up with me as I was with him, because he wanted to set up our camp somewhere near the Fair Centre parking lot. But I told him off, straight up, "STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, EVEN THIS WEEKEND!" He promised to pitch his tent somewhere in the Keskuspuisto woods and said I could crash there anytime if I needed a place to sleep, and he even showed me the spot on a map. I "politely" declined the offer, saying we'd managed to pull off parties without constant adult supervision before, dammit.

I was just there for Boozembly, I couldn't care less about the Assembly. And I wasn't the only one! Assembly was already starting to lose credibility because of all their commercial crap and lamer-nannying. Even Abduction had become a total Quake-lame singularity, so the Assembly was probably ten times worse now. I also heard that CLAN ZERO, that Quake-lamer gang from our village, was planning to rig some Quake compo, so LET ASM JUST SHOVE IT DAMMIT! I even saw Mikael and Hencca hanging around somewhere in the Fair Centre yard. Ugh, the stench of lameness radiating from them, luckily they didn't see me! Mikael's gotta be watched though, he apparently lives somewhere in Helsinki or Espoo now.

The first guys I recognized at the basketball court were CYRBION members, who of course started immediately teasing me about how bad our Generator '96 party had been and how lame our group is. So I yelled back at them that I'd fucking suffered enough living in Helsinki, and I poured out all the horror stories about Osmo's forest camps, Raimo, dumpster diving, and all that. They just coldly concluded that it was a fitting punishment for being lame. Seriously, what a bunch of unempathetic jerks!

Then gradually more people started showing up from outside the Helsinki area. Like those two HORiGO party-wrecking motherfuckers. I screamed at them like fuck. And then the MAHTI crew rolled up in their beat-up van from Vuolenkoski. And some Doomrapers, and some seriously arrogant Amiga and C64 sceners, and then some GateNet lamer from ELC, and some of the organizer groups of that Joensuu ritual-murder party like Cobravision and O'Gasp.

At first, I was just messing with everyone, bumming beers and kilju. But gradually, some guys started feeling sympathy for me as I told them about my suffering. Especially Porkkala/MAHTI seemed genuinely moved by my situation, and we talked for a long time. Then we were joined by more MAHTI guys and some older scene veterans like Lazercode/CGK and that Encroachment Atari guy, wasn't his handle Noletz?

Porkkala thought the CYRBiON guys' obsession with compo wins was totally childish, and Lazercode agreed. He said scene kids are often like that when they're younger -- they'd let a lamer die in the snow because of their lameness -- but then when they get a little more experience, they understand what SCENE SOLIDARITY means. Like, even if there are crazy group wars or machine wars going on, a scene dude will save a scene dude. Apparently, there had even been an Amiga guy who had helped out Noletz back in '93, even though Atari and Amiga users are eternal blood enemies. I don't know if I fully grasp the concept, but it felt comforting anyway.

At some point, it started raining like hell, but I don't remember much after that because I was so wasted on the scene solidarity booze. But the next morning, I woke up somewhere in a bush, freezing, congested, and hungover. It was the worst feeling ever.

CGK's grill had gone out, but a few sceners were still sitting around it. Datapimp was still up, and Grimson from Soviet Design had been partying with him all night. And then K75 joined them, who apparently had slept at his place and arrived looking like the super-fresh code god he is. They gave me some jacket and stuff to warm up, and Datapimp even put a new fire in the grill so I could warm up.

We talked for a while about the scene solidarity I'd been thinking about since the night. And then K75 unexpectedly offered me a chance to crash at his place! I guess I had looked so pathetic that I needed some of that solidarity. I was seriously, super-grateful and even asked if I could crash there for a few more days since I didn't have a proper place to go. And he agreed! Yes!!

There wasn't much else to do in the morning, so we headed to K75's place straight away. He lives somewhere in Pasila, about two kilometers from where we were. He gave me a spare key and left me snoozing in his bed. No way, it felt so soft and warm after all that camping! I slept there until sometime in the afternoon and then headed back towards Boozembly.

There were already all sorts of sceners there, even more groups than before. cYbOgAnG was also there, and that useless Dimensions Crew from Joensuu, and a bunch of groups I'd never seen at any parties before. But nobody from CWU was there except me. Apparently, nobody else had the money or the interest to show up, and they were also busy with all sorts of supposedly important stuff like heterosexual relationships and reviving Frontline BBS. Seriously, that board is fucking dead, totally worthless to do anything with it anymore, dammit!

There were supposed to be some compos, but I couldn't care less. A few guys offered to get me in, to detach their own wristbands with vaseline and whatnot, but I was adamant. I'm not fucking interested in any shitty Assembly compos, PERIOD!

Apparently, there was some kind of WINDOWS DEMO COMPO with a whopping ONE ENTRY. And the organizers had apparently forced everyone to applaud it in advance because the group supposedly put so much effort into it, even though it was some ugly 3D flyby with no effects. Seriously, what's going to happen when some Micro$oft moneybag gets to dictate what kind of compos parties should have? I'M NOT GONNA SUPPORT THAT KIND OF CRAP, NOT EVEN WITH MY PRESENCE! THE REAL_SCENE IS INDEPENDENT AND WILL STAY THAT WAY DAMMIT!!!

Then, on Saturday, the security chief, INFRA, showed up on the yard with his flashlight, and suddenly started systematically ripping wristbands off everyone partying there. Apparently, it was still Assembly territory so the alcohol bans applied. Seriously, what a jerk making up rules just to annoy people! I swore I'd NEVER BUY A TICKET FOR A SINGLE ASM EVER, DAMNIT! Some people were saying they might have to move Boozembly to somewhere in the woods so INFRA couldn't even find it with his flashlight.

It was actually pretty fun, even though the conditions were sometimes a fucking disaster, especially afterward. I got really drunk every night thanks to other people's booze, so I didn't have to spend my own. The last night, I crashed at K75's place around five in the morning, and he'd even prepared some sandwiches for me in the kitchen, damn! Scene solidarity forever!

I slept until sometime in the afternoon. K75 had woken up sometime in the morning to check out the Amiga and PC demos and the awards ceremony, but I hadn't even woken up to his clatter. He'd left a note on the kitchen table saying that you could see the compos on cable TV, but they were already over by then, and I still wouldn't have cared. All the demos at Asm are just some over-polished crowd-pleaser crap. Trying to appeal to Quake-lamers with cheesy vector robots and forgetting the real scene values and aesthetics altogether! Seriously, if I wanted to see lame vector robots, I'd just play that fucking Quake!

Well, the party was over. K75 had gotten some blue multimedia mouse as the prize for the second place in the 4K intro compo. I stayed at his place for "a few days", as he had promised. He's a pretty weird guy, but I'm not complaining. He's really into cleaning, which doesn't bother me since I didn't have to participate. Then I realized why he hadn't joined any groups, he just always did everything himself. During the day, he had a coding job, so I got to be pretty much alone, watching his TV and hanging out on IRC with his Pentium PC. He had a super-fast "cable modem," so it felt like I was wasting opportunities when I was just using the IRC, but I didn't really have the energy for anything else.

I didn't feel like going out for days because I was so sick and feverish. K75 took good care of me, making me warm drinks and ordering pizza. Then I sent Ritu and Raimo (and to Osmo through them) my new address and phone number, just in case.

Then one day Ritu called me and said that a letter from Vantaa Vocational School had arrived at my Lietevesi address, saying I'd been accepted into some fucking surface treatment program. Okay, let's head to the student office in Hiekkaharju then. What a place, and what a bunch of trailer park rejects all my schoolmates were! But I tried to be decent for at least the first day and not rant about their moronity.

Then a couple of weeks passed, and K75 started getting annoyed with me, and I with him. We didn't share meals anymore, and we had arguments about everything. Then I thought it would be best for me to get my own studio apartment. Seriously, that was a hard fight, I had to fill out all sorts of forms and make a bunch of calls. I even needed a security deposit before the actual rent, and I definitely didn't have the money for that, but K75 luckily managed to borrow enough for me to get me fuck out of his corners.

It was a nice six-person studio, and I was naturally the sixth resident. My roommates included some seriously stereotypical glue-sniffing gas-sneaker, some pilot jacket-wearing skinhead, some long-haired cannabis junkie, some seriously ugly Somali refugee, and some seriously suspicious Russian or whatever Chernobyl mafia mutant. They told me their names at some point, but I don't remember them, I'd rather just call them by insults. And then I had to try to somehow live with them, damn it. I swore I'd only leave my room UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY!

And I didn't even feel like going to school anymore after a couple of days to see that brainless trash of people. The main thing was that I now had my own studio apartment, student grants, and housing allowance running, so I could be TOTALLY ALONE like for many days straight. I bought a bunch of chips and other food so I wouldn't have to open my door as often.

Then Osmo brought my PC and some other stuff from Raimo's storage shed to my apartment, so I'd have something to do other than spit at the ceiling. And then I was shocked when he SERIOUSLY FUCKING ASKED IF HE COULD MOVE IN TOO! I YELLED BACK TO HIM, LIKE HELL NO, FIND YOUR OWN APARTMENT OF MOVE BACK TO THE FUCKING LIETEVESI! But he said it would be easier if he could live with me for a while, because he had a job now. I yelled at him that MANAGE YOUR OWN BUSINESS DAMMIT!

I raged so hard that my flatmates came to threaten us. Then I went to my room with Osmo and locked the door and the skinhead banged my door with a baseball bat for a while after that. Then I said to Omso that if you FOR REAL think you can stand this then fucking BE MY GUEST, but I can't promise you'll keep alive or anything. But I also gave him the condition that we should find a one- or two-room apartment AS FUCKING SOON AS FUCKING POSSIBLE and get THE FUCK OUT of this place the day we have the keys!

Yes, Osmo had actually managed to learn the C language and gotten the job from that company, KJM-Systems. But he wanted to save his salaries and pay his debt back to Raimo and all that even before considering renting an apartment. I then yelled that IT'S FUCKING OUR TOP PRIORITY to move the hell out of here, and that's where we must spend all our money on, even if we had to starve because of it, dammit!!

I told him to borrow the money from friends or something, or even from a bank, but we weren't fucking going to wait for his third paycheck before getting to move in. Call the Hirvonen family or some of your amateur radio buddies, they probably have a decent amount saved up. He promised to consider it. I told him to consider it as fucking seriously and quickly as possible, or he'd end up back camping in the Keskuspuisto woods, DAMN IT!