Wow, long time no update. Well, things have been insanely busy recently, on all fronts, and I have just been too busy to sit back and write some stuff down. So, here comes another burst of bullet points:

* I have recently moved over to the Ubuntu distro team formally inside Canonical and I am now closer aligned with the team. Before, I was a separate function in the company that happened to work on Ubuntu, but being part of the team formally makes a lot more sense. So far the communication lines have been much clearer and I am loving being part of the team.
* July was an insane month of travel. It went something like this, one after the other with no off days in-between – week build up to LUGRadio Live 2007 and planning, LUGRadio Live 2007, down to London for the distro sprint for a week, back up to Birmingham for GUADEC for a week, off to Oregon for Ubuntu Live and then OSCON for the week. As an example of the craziness, while at OSCON I was having something like 9 meetings a day. Busy days.
* Aq, Adam, Chris and I went out for Chinese and then returned to my gaff for a LUGRadio Sprint. In it we developed new ideas and direction for Season 5, decided on dates for the new season and then brainstormed over 50 ideas. Season 5 is going to shake things up, big time. We also discussed LRL and LRLUSA. We finally got to bed at 5am.
* Next day, up at 7.30am. Ugh. My parents came up and my dad brought some industrial strength gardening stuff to chop down the forest that had grown around the house. It was pretty hardcore – he had an outfit and everything. The pooches wondered what the hell was going on…
* Been jamming quite a bit with Seraphidian. I am now playing drums in the band, and I am really excited about it. I have been harbouring a frustrated drummer instinct for a while, and I am itching to really grow and excel as a death metal drummer and get out there and play gigs as a drummer. We have also changed our direction somewhat, still retaining the Seraphidian chug, but we are now more dynamic, thrashy and energetic. We are all psyched about this new direction, and I am really looking forward to the oodles of drumming. On Sunday I drummed for 6 hours and nearly collapsed. 🙂

I have also been having something of a music binge – expanding my already pretty hefty music collection with new bands and albums. This is the list of bands in my collection so far – if any of you metallers have any other suggestions for the kind of stuff I could like, do scribe it into the comments:

*36 Crazyfists, Aborted, ACDC, Akercocke, Al Azred, All That Remains, Amon Amarth, Anata, Angtoria, Annihilator, Anthrax, A Perfect Murder, Apocalyptica, Arch Enemy, As Blood Runs Black, Astarte, Atheist, Atreyu, At The Gates, Avenged Sevenfold, Becoming The Archetype, Behemoth, Benighted, Between The Buried And Me, Black Label Society, Black Steel, B L A Z E, Blind Guardian, Body Count, Bolt Thrower, Botch, Brainstorm, Bruce Dickinson, Brutal Truth, Buckethead, Cacophony, Cadaver Mutilator, Caliban, Cannibal Corpse, Carcass, Carnal Forge, Cattle Decapitation, Celtic Frost, Children Of Bodom, Chimaira, Communic, Coven, Cradle Of Filth, Crimson Fire, Cryogenic, Cryptopsy, Dark Moor, Dark Tranquillity, Dearly Beheaded, Death, Debauchery, Decapitated, Deeds Of Flesh, Defleshed, Deicide, Demon Hunter, Demonoid, Destruction, Dimmu Borgir, Disincarnate, Dismember, Dragonforce, Drudkh, Dublin Death Patrol, Dying Fetus, Edguy, Enslaved, Enter My Silence, Entombed, Exhumed, Exodus, Face Down, Faith No More, Fear Factory, Gamma Ray, Glenn Tipton, GodSend, Gojira, Gorerotted, Grave, Grave Digger, Grip Inc, Guns N Roses, Halford, Hammerfall, Hate, Hatebreed, Hate Eternal, Hatesphere, Hayseed Dixie, Hearse, Heavens Gate, Hellyeah, Himsa, Iced Earth, Ihsahn, Illdisposed, Ill Nino, Immolation, Immortal, Incubus, In Flames, Insision, Iron Maiden, Job For A Cowboy, Joe Satriani, Jono Bacon, Judas Priest, Kamelot, Kataklysm, Katatonia, Killswitch Engage, King Diamond, Kreator, Krisiun, Labyrinth, Lamb Of God, Lost Soul, LUGRadio, Machine Head, Malevolent Creation, Malignancy, Manowar, Mastermind, MD45, Megadeth, Meshuggah, Metallica, Mnemic, Monstrosity, Morbid Angel, Mortal Sin, Mortician, Mortification, Motley Crue, Motorhead, Mudvayne, Naglfar, Napalm Death, Necrophagist, Nevermore, Nile, Nonpoint, Obituary, Origin, Overkill, Ozzy Osbourne, Pantera, Pestilence, Pissing Razors, Possessed, Primal Fear, Prong, Rhapsody, Running Wild, Sabaton, Sanctification, Sanctuary, Saxon, Seance, Sepultura, Seraphidian, Seventh Avenue, Severe Torture, Shadows Fall, Shatter Messiah, Silent Civilian, Sinner, Skid Row, Slayer, Slipknot, Soilwork, Solstice, Steve Vai, Still Remains, Stiltskin, Stratovarius, Suffocation, System Of A Down, Testament, The Acacia Strain, The Black Dahlia Murder, The Crown, The Defaced, The Forsaken, The Great Kat, The Haunted, Trivium, Ugly Kid Joe, Vai, Vile, Vital Remains, W.A.S.P, White Skull, Witchery, XXX Maniak, Yngwie Johann Malmsteen, Yngwie Malmsteen…*

Right, back to work. 🙂