NJ Lan Party - Games DO Rock!

Ok, so the NJ Ubuntu LoCo was having their Lan/BBQ party in two separate locations; Cherry Hill and Butler, New Jersey; connected by a server setup in Butler.

Having the opportunity to attend for a few hours, I headed over.

I had no intention of playing any games. Rather, I thought I could pursue some technical stuff while there.

My feeling had always been, computers are for computing and game consoles are for gaming. That's it. Done.

I had played games when I was younger, and was very obsessed. Hours spent with the Nintendo Entertainment System and Mario Bros. Even took my photo with the Endgame screen and sent to Nintendo Power magazine! (Still trying to find the photo to scan as proof)

Well, upon my arrival, Randy, Dave, and Joe were already there, and game playing was the only thing on their minds. What the heck, I'll give it a shot. Urban Terror. It was a BLAST. I sucked.

Then, things started to change. The Quigley clan arrived; Bryan and his two brothers. After a brief setup period, the air in the room thickened. Joe became non-responsive, as all his attention and focus was dedicated solely to his laptop. It was on!! The Quig clan was running, jumping, shooting, and sniping; Joe was murdering me from all angles and distances. I sucked worse. Even Harding, who I had only credited with the powers of bash, sed, and awk was fragging the hell out of me. Shit, I was getting killed by a Teddy Bear.

Then we started to play different games modes. The bomb game. I was on the blue team, find and defuse the bomb. At some point, we switched sides; I was so focused on killing RED people that I didn't realize I WAS A RED PERSON. Dossy I am truly sorry that I shot you, my teammate. Repeatedly. Then came the knife fight. Someone called knife fight for the next number of rounds; by the time I figured out how to choose the knife as my weapon, everybody was back to guns. That was like 6 rounds.

Somewhere in all that Lyz and Matt arrived; but honestly the gaming was going too fiercely at that point to really acknowledge their arrival. Plus time was flying, and I had a limited opportunity to play, as I had to get home to help care for my Maltese recovering from knee surgery. Four hours gone in no time.

On the ride home, I connected to the server from the van so I could spectate. As soon as I arrived home, I re-setup, got on irc and tried to entice others to join. Bstempi joined, Bts was still at work. They switched to Armegatron for a bit, so I had to download that and play that also.

Then I put on the headphones. DOH! I could hear footsteps and gunshots and other things that would help me play the game. It didn't. I still sucked. But now I know that sucking does have a sound associated with it! It sounds like bleeding to death.

FOSS - open source - open mind - have fun - I had a BLAST! Thanks everyone.

August is now FULL of EVENTS

Wow. I am involved with some very active groups. PACS, PA LoCo, and the NJ LoCo.

At PACS we are actively promoting the Software Freedom Day coming up Saturday September 15th. This is an important event for an organization that is at a crossroads. When it was started, in 1976, PACS was the only game in town, and reigned supreme as the place to be if you were into computers in the Philadelphia area. But things that don't change; die. Everything is always in motion and failure to recognize and react is the downfall of many organizations, businesses and relationships.

The PA Ubuntu LoCo is having our BBQ, August 11th, at Norristown Farm Park. This will be nice, to get together with the people that we are normally online with.
What's even better is that we can hang out without having to 'do' an event. My previous meetings with Alex and Lyz were so short. We were in the same place for a long time, but the event(s) took precedence and didn't really allow any time for social interaction. The BBQ will change that, the whole event is about us being social. Cool.
The MALT CVG LTSP Project is finally taking off. Kevin has worked his ass off. Spent months lobbying, trash picking the server and setting it up. I have provided moral support and been a cheerleader. I am happy to see all of his hard work payoff and now the actual project can begin.

And finally, the NJ Ubuntu LoCo is having their BBQ on August 11th also. Due to my commitments in PA I won't be able to attend, but will provide items for their event also. I will miss not being able to attend. I have only met some of the people, other then Joe and Christina, one time, at their Installfest. They were passionate and fascinating. Hell, I've only met Joe and Christina twice, but they feel like family. Joe is a surrogate PA LoCo guy and Christina is a Christian Brothers' Girl with PA roots.

Just wasted an hour and a half trying to promote SFD at the Hatboro Auto Show. Made 900 business card size announcements and planned on handing them out to the crowd. Didn't really work. Actually, didn't work at all. Wish I would have flyered the town before the show and just let the flyers do the work. Didn't have time to do it. Lost an opportunity. Saw some nice cars though!

Gave out 10 announcements to Geek Boy Press, an artist with a shop (gallery) in Hatboro. Anime/Cartoon Type characters.

890 announcements and 60 flyers left to post. Emails to send out to all the local colleges, radio, tv and cable outlets. I will do a little promotion each day until Sept 15th. Slow and steady wins the race.

I do wish some people would help with promotion, get out to Mom and Pop computer stores, post flyers, send some emails. Thanks Randy, keep up the flyering!