How not to obtain a copy of Hackers or Firewall in Birmingham at 10pm:

• Consult the Tesco website, find the nearest one on a map.
• Go down the wrong street, end up quite a long way past the Tesco, which, incidentally, is basically right next to your hotel.
• Ask at a service station where the nearest Tesco is.
• Traipse for miles down a dual carriageway.
• Get to a train station you don't recognise, realise that there's no roundabout on this road (the directions including 'turn right at the roundabout'), realise you can just take this road and go back home in defeat.
• Stop at every service station and newsagent along the way.
• Receive advice that the Costcutters (which is next to your hotel, and definitely doesn't sell DVDs) will definitely sell DVDs.
• Go to the convenience store right across the road from your hotel (and very close to the Tesco), get told that the Tesco's right near Five Ways will sell it. Realise that Five Ways was the name of the train station you saw earlier. Kick self.
• Try the offlicence you walked past right as you left the hotel again, realise that they do in fact rent DVDs, but are hidden. Offer boatloads of money for Firewall. Get knocked back. Attempt to sign up. Must be a UK resident (not me), and must be carrying bills with your home address (not mjg59). Further attempts at cutting a deal foiled by the shop attendant's inability to speak anything more than very basic English.
• Go back to your room, wet, tired, and thoroughly defeated.

Just sitting in Vienna airport now on my way back from GUADEC 2006. Got some really good and productive hacking done, pimped the Maemo platform from our stand, ate tapas, drank sangria, and drank beer on the Mediterranean, sifting the sand through my fingers before just jumping in. There was also some kind of conference arrangement going on, which was quite good.

Was also great to meet all the crew, old and new, including some of the fellow Nokia crew I met for the first time either in the bungalows or on the stand.

The advantages of being in Catalunya soon became clear as well (if they weren't already), when the bartender started bringing us free drinks -- shots of some kind of something or other which was utterly incredible -- and taking photos of all of us, either because we were buying lots of drinks, because he liked Jono's beard, or because Bastien and one of the VMWare dudes showed up to cheer loudly for France in the soccer, Bastien with his French shirt on. Took a bunch of pictures when I went to Barcelona which I'll upload at some stage; hijacked Ross's DSLR for a while too, and managed to take about two hundred pictures of the same peoples' heads, half of them out of focus.

The food varied from great to gold-plated, diamond-embezzled, awesome, of course. The only real complaint was the absolutely oppressive heat; not even as bad as Melbourne in summer, but still oh-my-god-I'm-dying-how-long-till-I-get-back-to-Helsinki.

Thanks for a fantastic conference, Quim and team!

Here's another handy hint: if you're lugging a complete computer on a plane, including sizeable tower case, don't bother checking whether it fits in your suitcase until just before you leave. Of course it'll fit.

In unrelated news, my lovely silver case now has a massive broken dent in it.