On the Truckenbrodt/Christmas Party and the Whole Hall Situ.

[Anas]

So, here is where we stand:

*  The party will be on Wed 20th.

* It will be a "dual-purpose" party: for the Landeslehrpreis and for
Christmas.

* our "Plan A", if you will,  is to try to get one of the halls on the
ground floor, preferably Hall 2 since it's larger.

* our "Plan B": If we can't get one of the halls on the ground floor we
would have to settle for the 2 smaller separate rooms on the first
floor. This would obviously be less welcome as the crowd would be
split in 2 separate rooms, and the feng shui would be..um.. messed up
(or whatever negative adjective suitable to describe a feng shui). You get the idea.

On that matter, Hubert was trying to get approval to use one of the halls on the ground floor.
I sent him an email today to see if there are any new developments in that quest.
I think we will know by Wednesday at the latest whether we will go with plan A or plan B.


But we still have a couple of questions/issues:

1- Have we decided on a time for the party? I don't remember that we have.

2- Chris offered to bring his PlayStation (PlayStation 2, I presume) to the party, if someone has long AV cables (Audio Video cables), so we can connect it to the projector. This, of course, would only happen if we can get approval for one the halls on the ground floor (Or we would have to score a projector as well. And in that case we won't need long AV cables anymore).

What do you think about that? Would it be a nice addition, or would it be a distraction and just hammer the efforts of people who are trying to get hammered?

3- Anybody got long AV cables?


...

[Kilian]

The east seminar room on the first floor used to have a "built-in" projector - isn't that the case anymore? If yes, plan B could include the playstation as well. There was already the idea to screen "Nightmare before Christmas" without sound, as a sort of decoration, because of its stylish imagery. But Playstation - why not as well?

The time - say from 7 PM on?

[Anas]

Regarding the east seminar room, you might be right. I haven't been in that room since mid-November 2005  when I left back to Damascus. I'll check on Monday. If there is a projector there then we can have the PlayStation no matter which room/hall we end up with. But we'll still need the long AV cables. I hope someone here has them.

Regarding the time, I couldn't remember whether we had decided on a time for the party or not. Since it appears that we haden't, I just sent a follow-up email to Hubert asking him for his preference with regards to time.

[Kilian]

AV cable - something like this?

[Anas]

No, actually, more like this.

http://tinyurl.com/yzz42d

Anyway, I was over at Chris's place, we measured the cable he has. The good news is that the cable seems long enough that we may either need a regular length AV cable, or none at all. Chris will try to measure it on Monday.

[aleks]

I should have such cables at home. If not, I'm quite good with the soldering iron and could make one up.

Furthermore, there is a beamer for the first floor hat is used as needed as the rooms don't have built in beamers (afaik, might be wrong). We should ask Hubert about that. (Or Wolfgang or Christl).

We could also just be projecting visuals or the like.

Ramon, can You bring Your HiFi over again? Would be very nice of You

Eating, Drinking? Or are visuals enough?

Regards, aleks

PS: if it's Chris, the PlayStation is old

[Anas]

Ok, I received an e-mail from professor Hubert Truckenbrodt today. Here are the new developments and ideas:

1- The Whole Hall Situation: Hubert talked to the relevant people and they don't mind the party taking place at Hall 0.02. So, pending filling out a form and a formal approval, we can say the party will be at Hall 0.02.

2- A Matter of Time: Hubert made a very good point reagarding the time for the party. Namely, if the party is going to be potluck (i.e. that people will be bringing food that can be characterized as a proper dinner, or a constituent of a proper dinner), then it would be fine to set the time for 7 O'clock. Otherwise, we would have to set a later hour so people can have dinner and then come to the party.

I told him that I don't remember anyone suggesting or offering to cook/prepare things and bring them over,  so I would be surprised if there were any solid forms of nourishment beyond the chips-cookies-peanuts trinity.

Still, I guess if there are enough people willing (and able, please!) to prepare proper food and bring it over, then we could make the party potluck and set the time for 7 O'clock. So, are there?

Keep in mind the issue of quantity: Unless there are enough people to prepare enough food for 25-30 people, then this idea won't be of much use.. and we would have to set a later hour for the party.

3- Location, Location, Location: Hubert also suggested using his place for the party. His place would have enough space but it's in Pfrondorf (Bus commute from the SFS: 10 min before 8 O'clock, 20 min after 8 O'clock). I said that I will pass the idea to the group for their input (which is what I'm doing now). But I listed, in my reply, a couple of issues that will arise from such a change of venue:

A- We would have to print out and distribute directions to the place, with some people -inevitably- getting lost and/or confused.

B- For the students who live in WHO or in Studo (who are the majority of the student body), there is no direct bus connection to Pfrondorf. So it will mean 2 bus connections with a commute time of at least 30 minutes, and some people might be discouraged from coming because of that.

C- We would have to abandon our ideas for using the projector.

On the other hand, it might be an interesting change of scenery since we had our last party (the Oct 26th one, if I remember the date correctly) at the SFS.

What do you think?

[Kilian]

Because of a very important seminar meeting (one of only two real-life meetings in the semester, it's an online seminar), I can't be there before 9 PM. So the question whether I'm willing and able to bring something for dinner doesn't come up, luckily. (edit: not true anymore, I'll be there early)

I suggest I'll announce the date (to as many e-mail-addresses as I can gather), ask people what they'll bring, and when we know what kind of food to expect, we fix the time (3 days beforehand or so).

WHAT form is needed for room 0.02, and WHO has to fill it in? H. Truckenbrodt?

I should have such cables at home. If not, I'm quite good with the soldering iron and could make one up.

That's SO Aleks

[Anas]

Hi Alex and Kilian,

First to Alex: Thanks for your offer of cables, we might not need the extension at all. Chris will measure it (it being the distance from the projector to the table) on Monday. But if it turned out that we need an extension cable then we will also need "gender changer" (I am using Chris's nomenclature here, I am not sure how mainstream that is). I assume you know what that is and you can conjure it up as well?

P.S. The PlayStation is PlayStation 2 and he has an impressive collection of games. But the console is NTSC, does that make a difference with the projector?

To Kilian: The form required for the room will be filled out by Hubert himself. It will need formal approval, but as I understood, that should not an issue as he has an informal approval. We could always go with planB if, God forbid, the form is denied approval for some reason.

[Anna]

I will probably be gone by 6:30pm on Wednesday but that is not yet certain.
What I can say now is that I can cook/bake something Christmasy

[aleks]

I should have such cables at home. If not, I'm quite good with the soldering iron and could make one up.

That's SO Aleks

What's the matter?



Whatever, we could always improvise a good solution to any problem...
I don't like the idea of having the party in Hubert's place. It's too remote and I'm always bound to the last train for example.

About a gender changer: well, there a two types of cables. Males and Females. The terminology is quite depictive, so I won't bother to explain it here. Google gives a good list of gender changers.
Don't look at the prices, I can buy one for 3,50 €. Or again use the soldering iron . Or, we could borrow one from Wolfgang, I bought one for him recently as some stupid person screwed things up with the cable in room 0.01.

The NTSC issue could become problematic if the beamer does not understand NTSC. But it should be supported if the beamer is sufficiently new. We could check that in the next few days.

Regards, aleks

[DrNI]

I should have such cables at home. If not, I'm quite good with the soldering iron and could make one up.

That's SO Aleks

Am I Aleks? Using mostly self-soldered cables... (Audio, though) ... well you can't solder Toslink/Adat cables :-P

btw, this RSS feed sucks. It marks all messages of the discussion as new once there is a single reply.

   N.

[DrNI]

2- Chris offered to bring his PlayStation (PlayStation 2, I presume) to the party, if someone has long AV cables (Audio Video cables), so we can connect it to the projector. This, of course, would only happen if we can get approval for one the halls on the ground floor (Or we would have to score a projector as well. And in that case we won't need long AV cables anymore). ...

Well am not any planning comittee... but I'm just wondering if the purpose of a party is
a) play Playstation games and have the others watch that
b) listen to loud music and dance
c) listen to not so loud music, small and big talk
d) get tremendously wasted
or
e) eat for free
My personal fav is:
begin with c) and e), approach d) and leave somewhen in the middle of b) (I don't like dancing. Or, rather... I like people dancing when I'm on stage, haha.)

Just my 5¢
   N.

[aleks]

Using mostly self-soldered cables... (Audio, though)

Thank god I'm not the only one.

Well, I've never tried to solder a VGA cable but this should not be too hard (But I think we're talking about cinch, which is not too hard to come up with) . As for Toslink cables and the like: well, we don't need them...

Regarding the course of the party: well, let's just be prepared for whatever the people want to do and have a great time.

Regards, aleks

[Kilian]

Using mostly self-soldered cables... (Audio, though)

Thank god I'm not the only one.

No, this was a very respectful amusement of mine. I was reminded of when you suggested to put together an own physical server for the Fachschaft web site...

Regarding the course of the party: well, let's just be prepared for whatever the people want to do and have a great time.

I agree so much! The room is big enough, so I'm pretty sure it will be possible for everyone to have the kind of party that suits them.