Right now I am over in beautiful Prague for FossCamp and the Ubuntu Developer Summit. Running and attending these events is always a real treat - there is always a genuine feeling of free software in action; a real meeting of minds coming together with a common ethos. Part of why I love the FossCamp/UDS trip is that it involves a huge amount of diversity. Here at FossCamp we have people from a tonne of projects, including Ubuntu, Jokosher, Sun, EFL, Terminator, Strigi, Xesam, Ubuntu Brainstorm, Linux User Groups, GNOME, Glom, gtkmm, Campware, KDE, Amarok, KOffice, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Tango, Novell, Red Hat, Inkscape, freedesktop.org, OpenSuSE, OpenChange, Samba, Debian, MOTU, swfdec, gvfs, OpenOffice.org, eBox, LKSCTP, Elisa, HAL, dbus…

Its been a busy time recently and I have been out on my travels over in San Francisco, Boston, Cambridge, Detroit and London. Its been a hugely fun time, and I got to meet some incredible people - thanks to everyone who made me feel exceptionally welcome. I also want to give a quick shout out to the folks at ubuntu-ma, PenguiCon, CommunityOne, Creative Commons, Mako, Matt Lee, Barton, and my friends over in Lexington who are making Ubuntu work on things that live in your pocket.

Oh, and as a slight postscript, I have finally fulfilled one of life’s little ambitions - to not only meet, but a share a photo with the venerable tron guy:

Not only did I have a photo taken with tron guy - he came looking for me to deliver a parcel with a fake beard in it. While it was happening I felt like I was in some kind of acid trip. We then had a serious and detailed conversation about MOTU, while he was stood there in full tron regalia. Just when I thought my world crazy, it got a little crazier…

I was going to finish this entry here, but sod it, here are a few other things living in my brain right now:

• The Severed Fifth machine continues to roll - the server is up, the mailing lists are on their way, the announcement is written, the logo ideas are flowing in, the photo-shoot is in post-processing, and the content is nearly there in terms of initial work. Thanks to that group of amazing people that are making it happen.
• You know, gyms never really had an appeal to me, but I have been a few times recently - I had a really good session in there a while back and figured it would be fun to repeat.
• Wow, it seems this post of mine caused a bit of a stir over what is considered music. Always amazes me when people accuse creativity that does not meet their taste as being unintelligent or just noise. I am not expecting people to like the music I like, but I am expecting people to understand and respect the work that goes into any art-form, irrespective of their taste. Everything is worth listening to, even Cannibal Corpse, lounge style or flute beatboxing.
• Someone should invent an “anti-mint”, something you put in your mouth to take away the taste of mint. Imagine those situations when you wake up in the morning, brush your teeth and then want to drink orange juice. Personally, I want both clean teeth and orange juice and to not sacrifice one or the other. Someone…the anti-mint…lets make it a reality.
• I bought GTA4 and it rocks. It also drove me to be involved in a police chase, but that’s a story for another time.
• While in video game news, I got totally whipped at Guitar Hero III, and while despite fervent denial, I got completely annihilated. Mind you, I spent more time posing and prancing around the living room at my competitors apartment than focusing on the game in hand. Well, that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it.
• Recently jonobacon.org seems to have been picked up in some of these “top blog” listings. You are as surprised as I am, but for my regular readers, thanks for helping to push my little chunk of randomness up in the blog ranks. It really does go to show how many bored people are populating the Internet.
• You know, Cancun is an amazing looking place, would love to get over there sometime.
• Thinking of a new phone - Nokia N95 8GB or a Blackberry? Any thoughts? It should be good for email, have a decent camera, preferably have a GPS and preferably have an alpha-numeric keypad.

I think that’s enough for now.