An Evening Among Friends

by Klaus N. Frick

February 18, 2003


For this log entry I must first reach back into the mists of time … Back to the year 1995, if I'm not mistaken. At the Perry Rhodan Days held in the town of Sinzig in Rhineland-Palatinate, two PR fans approached me to demonstrate a homemade computer-based Perry Rhodan quiz that had all kinds of play components. I thought it to be very interesting, if not quite as beguiling. Nevertheless, we exchanged addresses and phone numbers.

Barely three months later these two students, who happened to be living and studying in my home town, were working on the initial version of the Perry Rhodan web site. And not long after that, the two gentlemen, Oliver Reiff and Mathias Schnurrer, founded the Trilobit company, which by then was producing not only the Perry Rhodan web site but several others as well. The company is also involved in other fields, but that's not what this log entry is about.

A good working relationship evolved over the years, one that in many respects has taken on the characteristics of friendship. For this reason I happily accepted an invitation to spend an evening with “the Trilobites." Unfortunately Klaus Bollhöfener from Perry Rhodan Marketing couldn't make it, and Miriam Hofheinz, who manages the content of the PR web site for us anyway, attended in his place, together with a few other colleagues from the publishing house. In addition to the founders and company heads, the other members of Trilobit's staff came along as well.

Thus, in the evening of Thursday, February 13, a cheerful group gathered at an Indian restaurant in Karlsruhe, where we enjoyed a tasty dinner, consumed the occasional beer as well as some fun, exotic drinks, and managed to talk about all sorts of things that at most only remotely involved Perry Rhodan.

The high point of the evening, however, was a visit to a bowling alley in Karlruhe's Westtown. Personally I had never indulged in bowling before, and the same was true for most of the others. Nevertheless, any reservations turned out to be complete bunk: it was a whale of a time, thanks to everyone who was there.

Miriam Hofheinz and I formed a small team that played against Oliver Reiff and Mathias Konkol from Trilobit. Anyone who has watched the truly divine movie “The Big Lebowski" can more or less imagine how much fun we had, even though we didn't manage to recreate the great bowling scenes from this very movie. The whole affair lasted till about one in the morning when the place had to close.

Bottom line: I dare anyone to still insist that business meetings aren't fun!