Well I’ve managed to book my christmas holiday period off now. My last day at work is Friday 19th December, and I start back at work again on Monday the 5th January. All in all, a nice long holiday. Goodness knows where I’ll be spending it. Christmas almost certainly with my family. New-year with Livejournal:nunfetishist‘s mother Livejournal:gwendraith assuming she’s in the UK this year.

Cut — My time in Oslo
Firstly, can I say: It is fucking expensive in Norway -- The exchange rate is disproportionately high and as such, pints of beer in local bars cost around £4.50 which is scary. However, I had a lovely time, and met loads of great people. I wish I'd had the opportunity to go to the debcamp as well as the conference, but ultimately the conference was good fun too. I got to see Scott again, which is always nice, and I (of course) met up with Livejournal:milchi, Livejournal:cjwatson and various others. I learned a hell of a lot at the conference and helped with closing various bugs. I managed to check (to my satisfaction) a total of about 90 identities, so I have a mammoth key-signing effort to undertake. Fortunately Scott managed to write a neat script, and with a little tweaking for my needs, it should be perfect. I also managed to close two thirds of my remaining open bugs, and I accidentally volunteered to do more work within Debian. I also had a good meeting with the glibc guys, and will have to write that up to try and scrag a bit of cash from work in return for talking about MIPS with people. Back at work now I am left with a slight sense of anticlimax -- after a fantastic weekend geeking it up with fellow Debianites, I am left writing a web-ui to manage the local asset tags.

Well, this’ll be my last post for a while since I’m off to Oslo on Thursday Morning and will be very tired tomorrow (due to it being Livejournal:nunfetishist‘s birthday). If I’m lucky, I’ll get time to post from Debconf3 but I might be too busy. I need to meet up with the glibc guys, etc. And of course, my friend Livejournal:milchi (Our illustrious leader). Oh yes, and the best blond(e) joke in the world ever can be found here

From Livejournal:mstevens via Livejournal:velvetpurrs:
You represent… desire. You sure are motivated. You have a definite knack
for getting what you want. You always put your
own interests before those of others, and you
almost always find youself being satisfied.
Though you have determination, try some
compassion. Putting others first occassionally
can get you even more satisfying relationships.

What feeling do you represent?
brought to you by Quizilla

Cut — My eyes
I have now had a full week of wearing contact lenses, and can I just say that they rock. Being able to see well, without the rim of my glasses getting in the way is just so liberating it's untrue. I've had one morning where it felt like one of my contacts still had a little peroxide on it from the overnight cleaning, but liberal application of buffered saline soon fixed that.

Cut — Oslo
I've been preparing for Oslo (Debian conference) and now have most of what I need ready.

• New suitcase
• Clothes to put in it ;-)
• P6064 to give to someone
• Travel Insurance
• Currency
• Passport
• Hotel room booked
• Vince has air tickets
• There's plenty of trains to get us to Heathrow on time

So my question is: What have I forgotten?

Good morning Livejournalers. I had a lovely weekend, mostly with Livejournal:nunfetishist, Livejournal:mstevens, Livejournal:gerald_duck and partially with Livejournal:kjaneway. On Saturday, some of us went to see The Matrix Reloaded in the London IMAX cinema (which it turns out is a fantastic experience indeed) and then we ate in Pizza Piaza. On Sunday it was slightly more lazy, with Livejournal:kjaneway turning up before Livejournal:nunfetishist and I had gotten out of bed. (Quite embarrassing really). Then we all chatted, had lunch, scanned photos (I’ll upload them at some point) and then when Livejournal:kjaneway left, Livejournal:gerald_duck turned up and brought with him a Meridian 555 power amplifier and a Cyrus pre/source-switch. We discovered how much extra our speakers can do than our current pre/power combo can achieve. Then we had dinner at the Saffron Brasserie (indian curry) and then drove around lots looking at places ARM used to be/is now. Then we chatted into the wee-small-hours. Which was nice. Bleargh—Morning.