Memories from old LAN parties
My last LAN party was back when everybody was still lugging around CRT&#x27;s, but despite that being a long time ago, I remember the smell when you&#x27;d been inside for several days, pop outside to wake yourself up in the cold outside or to get some drinks when they&#x27;d ran out near the end of the event, and then walking back in.<p>I mostly organized events, so a lot of my time was spend on configuring networks and just general overhead of running events. Always fun: people who configured the wrong IP address so there&#x27;d be conflicts and you had to get up on stage, get everybody&#x27;s attention, and get everyone to check they IP addresses at the same time. DHCP? Lol. After a few events we switched to peg DHCP, that worked remarkably well, as long as you had a few tech support guys who could help people out setting things up.<p>And also, people bringing extension cords on a roller, not completely unrolling it, plugging in several computers and the wires inside the coil melting as soon as the load was high enough. Smoke coming out, breakers going off, actual flames once.<p>And then there were the incredulous looks from parents or the occasional girlfriend who stopped by to see what was going on. I found some pictures from an event in a shoe box when I was clearing out my parents&#x27; attic a few months ago. I don&#x27;t understand how any of us ever convinced a woman to have kids with us.