This last weekend, the largest -- and definitely one of the best -- computer enthusiast parties got underway in Sweden. The event is called DreamHack -- have you heard of it? It is sort of hard to classify - DreamHack is a massive LAN party, a vital demoscene competition, and generally a big, massive party for people who love computers (other than Macs!) 

This is a serious event. A seriously fun event. A 40 gigabyte a second network was setup to support swarms of gamers from all over Europe, and the world.

Picture over 10,000 people gaming together, in a big dark colliseum. Then you got bands, and almost a rave-like atmosphere at times. All the big competitive games -- CS, DOTA, Quake 3 -- being played by top players. All sorts of crazy modified hardware adorns the tables. You got big screens and big lights -- and the best part, of course, is just having many thousands of people surrounding you that probably share many of your same interests. Debauchery and drinking aren't an attraction here -- people are just getting high on technology!

One of the many annual records DreamHack always breaks is for 'The biggest mess of Ethernet cabling.'

No official word yet on the attendance record for this DreamHack, but it looks like a success, judging from the pics of the event. DreamHack was started back in '94, just by a few friends, who rented a small local hall and got some dudes together to get some LAN games going. Now there are two huge events a year: DreamHack Winter, and DreamHack summer.

Below is a collection of media from the event. If you live anywhere near Sweden, maybe sometime you should make it out to this titillating event.

 So let me get this straight: you're Swedish, mutantly hot, and you like PC gaming? Oh my God. Babies?

That dude in the middle with the black shirt -- I think he's really getting into that band, big time. Good times.