Campzone 2009

Word of the day: vriend = friend

Yesterday, Schrobbenmaster and I went to Campzone 2009 near Oirschot for the day. He normally goes for the full 11 days every year, but as I was around, he went for the day on Tuesday, and when another friend of his asked him to go again, I decided to tag along.

It's basically a big field where hundreds of nerds set up big tents with their desktop computers, laptops, fans, sleeping bags, network equipment, cooking equipment, fridges, stoves, wasp killers and sunscreen.

According to Schrobbenmaster, around 5% are girls, and therefore, they do get a lot of attention... which is win-win for both sexes, I think.

On a side note, apparently there's a girl there who got too drunk and spoke too loudly for too long the night before and subsequently lost her voice on the day I was there. And the guys found that a relief.

Many of the people there seem young, from about 15 to 28 years possibly. Quite a few are *ahem* big-sized... in fact, put it this way - one tent had a huge banner saying, "No entry! Except for those with *really* big boobs" - and not only the females there qualified, if ya know what I mean.

On another side note, I notice Dutch guys really aren't that hairy at all, compared to Brit guys. On TV shows and movies, British men are always really hairy (take Austin Powers, for example... he's an exaggerated version, but nevertheless, there must be something to exaggerate about, isn't there?). There was one guy though, in our tent, who had hair all over his shoulders and down half his back and chest. It was just... *ahem* strange.

We arrived in the afternoon at about 1pm when it was steaming hot at the campground. Everyone was wishing for rain, checking the satellite radar every 10 minutes and grumbling that the storm clouds seemed to be heading this way, then at the last minute swerving towards UK. Well, I know some people in UK who wish for the exact opposite!

We sat down in the shade outside the tent (Eenbrauw Ruben's tent had about 20 computers fired up inside, and with everyone's body heat, it had become really humid and stifling) and had a couple of beers before walking around the campground for him to film the goings-on.

Saw lots of topless pale guys, and girls who shouldn't really be wearing bikinis, wearing bikinis.

But, nah, I'm being mean, after a while, you don't really notice that people here are bigger and fleshier than you're used to. And flesh bulging out at all the wrong places just looks normal and you don't even see it anymore.

We came back from our walk round and decided to play a bit of Guitar Hero. I love the drums!


Should I take up the drums?


One of the hundreds of tents there.

Had some lekkere lamb doner with 'sambal' (which tasted a bit more like the chicken rice chilli sauce) after our gaming session, another walk round, socialising - for the dudes anyway... I just stare into space and watch 'Grease' in my head while they all spreken Dutchen amongst themselves.

Went back into the tent in time for some Left 4 Dead co-op playing, where we all run around buildings shooting zombies. Rather fun, but dizzifying after a while of running frantically left to right, up and down.

After watching entries for the Porno Competition - where the teams edit and cut porno films and mix them in with other videos to create a funny film - which was slightly entertaining and quite disturbing, we decided to head back to Rotterdam, and bid our Adieus to friends.

All in all, quite a fun day, and good to see what this sort of event is like. But glad I'm not staying for the whole 11 days.