I hereby dub the fest that occurred in Lincoln over the past weekend as "The Phest Fest". In keeping with the tradition from The Wallpaper Fest, others may assign it additional names if desired. (Just like multiple pointers can reference the same variable.)

I now sit back at home in The Lair, the room around me in complete disarray. But Argo is up, again functioning as the router for Louisville Compound festnet, my tv is on, the speakers are blaring the pseudo-techno electrotic pop music which escapes genre classification by the one known as Moby, and all is well with the world.

...

Yesterday, immediately after summarizing the fest in a rambling, I went down for sleep just after 1000 CDT (I really ought to fix the rambling display engine to show the timezone in where they were written, shouldn't I? Hmmm...) Slept for a couple hours, then woke without any external stimulation, and lay awake staring at the ceiling for a few minutes until I observed Neelix entering the living room.

I arose and started an epic game of Kohan on a 92x92 map against two random computer opponents. For once, I did extremely well against the computer players on the hard level, barely getting attacked at all until I had a sufficient force to stand my ground against both AI players. I think it was largely due to luck though. The replay after the game revealed both computer players started out on opposite sides of the top of the map, and they immediately began fighting each other as soon as the game began. With both AI players busy trying to defeat each other, I had plenty of time to settle the southern half of the land, gradually working my way up until eventually I made easy mincemeat of both in their weakened state.

Meanwhile, Neelix cooked us all omelettes and pancakes for breakfast. (Anya had cooked all meals prior to that. IMO, both of them deserve awards for excellence in (ph|f)est hosting.) As we ate breakfast, we watched season 1 Farscape episode "Nerve", which Anya hadn't yet seen (and isn't very far behind where I am in progressing through the series). After that, Anya needed to leave for work, so we didn't watch the continuation of the storyline, "The Hidden Memory".

Neelix, Jaeger, and Humblik started into a game of Starcraft, and I took a shower. I continued work on mutilating Jaeger's 4-month-old patch into shape for the collective, but concentration did not come easy, and when it did come, it didn't stay longer than intervals of about 60 seconds. Neelix invited me to join in on the 12 days of Christmas Starcraft scenario, complete with music, amusing vocal effects, and holiday mayhem.

The four of us then played a game against a team of 4 AI players, during which I learned more about "How not to play Starcraft" by doing stuff and then realizing how I could have done it better. (Key lesson this time: Don't put buildings too close together; otherwise Dragoons won't be able to get out of the trap built around them.)

By this time, it was shockingly 1700 CDT. We considered how to spend the few remaining hours before departure, and it quickly became apparent that there was absolutely no way we were going to be able to squeeze in everything that everyone wanted to do.

Potential activities included, among other things, watching more movies (Jaeger and I were psyched for Unbreakable), install Debian on Neelix's soon-to-be router whose ill-fated name would be Chiana, watch Farscape episodes, install the Kohan demo on Chiana (which also entailed setting up X). (The full version multiplayer mode will only work on installations with a separate cd key for each player, but demo allows play with 2 players), play more Starcraft, and I would have liked to get the collective patch ready and into production.

Obviously, not all of the above were realistically possible to do while still getting Jaeger back to Boulder in time to arrive at work on Monday morning wide awake and ready for duty. I attempted to pull a Jedi mind trick on Jaeger, but The Force was not with me. (Even if it had been, it would have made little difference, because Neelix and Anya needed to get back to their lives too, and truly, so did I. But it was worth a shot anyway.)

With much consulting from Jaeger and myself, Neelix went through the Debian install process, and got Chiana into working order. At Jaeger's suggestion, we played Fantasia 2000 in the background on Argo while the install progressed. (Inevitably, Bitscape became engrossed in the music and animation, despite having seen it many times before, and left most of the installation consulting in Jaeger's capable hands.)

Neelix multitasked cooking spaghetti for supper while working on Chiana's setup. He and Jaeger did get X up and working, I tarred up the kohan demo for him to try, and it successfully ran. Neelix and I played a 2 player pseudo-game (It wasn't truly a battle because Neelix had never before played, and Bitscape spent most of his time over at Neelix's console coaching him about how everything works.) Neelix setup a massive defense force featuring outposts full of militia with companies of archers to back them, and Bitscape accumulated the forces of darkness in preparation for the assault.

The staged battle made for quite a show, and Neelix's outpost cluster idea proved effective in fending off multiple rounds of attacks. (Although its economic sustainability in anything but a very large kingdom is yet to be proven.)

After the game, the time was approaching 2200 CDT, so we really did need to get serious about getting going. Jaeger only had to pack up Yukon along with a few basic living necessities, so he was ready quickly. Bitscape had brought a larger volume of stuff, so while Bitscape took Argo down and regrouped his things, Jaeger assisted Neelix in setting up dialup ppp with masquerading on Chiana.

All said and done, we must have left the Lincoln Enclave(?) between 2300 and 2330 CDT. (I wasn't looking at the clock.)

Jaeger and I stopped at Super Saver on the way out of town, where they convenietly sell Bawls Guarana for only 98 cents per bottle. Inconventiently, their stock was nearly depleted, so Jaeger and I divided what was on the shelf between us. 4 bottles each.

I proposed that for road music selection, we employ the record store protocol, as was once explained by a coworker who knows someone in the biz. Take turns choosing albums to listen to, and each person gets one veto. It seemed to work quite equitably, with the soundtrack for the return trip consisting of:

1. Eve 6 -- Horrorscope
2. Aladdin soundtrack
3. Alanis Morissette -- Unplugged
4. Queensryche -- Operation Mindcrime
5. Matchbox 20 -- Mad Season
6. Madonna -- Music
7. A homemade disc full of various artists including, but not limited to: Yanni, Greenday, Poe, Counting Crows, Moody Blues, Cranberries.

No vetos were exercised. Any reasonably adept content vulture who reads either Jaeger's page or mine ought to be able to figure out who picked the odd discs and who chose the even ones. An exercise for the reader.

If Tobias is a speed demon on the freeway during the day, he becomes a road munching fire devil by night. I suspect, but cannot confirm, that a new Lincoln-to-Boulder record was set for "our group" (which I will not define). Toward the end of the journey, the tiredness I feared began to apporach. As we drove from 76 to Boulder, I helped keep myself awake by tounging Marla.

(I'll re-phrase. Since the trip began, I had a sore on the roof of my mouth that would not go away. Initially, I kept tounging it in the hopes the peeled skin would detach and heal. Of course, this doesn't work. Tounging Marla. (Oh, and the image of the HBC (non-ape version) didn't hurt either.)

Dropped Jaeger off at the Boulder Compound at 0530 MDT, and returned to the Louisville Compound to crash.

Slept for hours, setup Argo, and started getting things back to normal, and now here I am. Gonna meet Zan Lynx in a few.

This rambling, which documents the conclusion of the Phest Fest, is officially over.