Hi! I'm Paul.

Yes. Yes they are.

I'm crap at packaging. My mind has never really grokked all the packaging things. Also, I make packages, and then they quickly get out of date as I continue to work on the upstream part, and so then there's this big hill to get over when I actually need to package it again.

Enter source package recipes. It's what Aaron Bentley and I have been working on for the past 6 months. Basically, take two bzr branches, put them together using a recipe, and make a source package (and eventually a binary package) out of them.

My first recipe got built into a binary package two days ago, but I just noticed it.

Now I want to package everything.

I plug my new gadgets in. They work out of the box.

I want to install and play with a new piece of software. I don't have to search the net for that software.

I want to write new code. I'm up and running pretty quickly.

I want to buy new music and put it on my music player. I can certainly do that.

I want to contribute back to my OS. Kind people help me do that.

I just wanted to take a minute and say thank you to everyone that works on Ubuntu, from helping new users to writing code to testing code and filing bugs. You make me forget about my OS enough to get my work done. Thank you.

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to just walk around in Prague and take pictures and take in the scenery.  It was great.  What I found even better was that the albums I had chosen to listen to while wandering around seemed to fit exactly with the places and people I was observing.  Thus, here's the list I have made of the top 5 albums to wander around in Prague to.

1. The Format - Dog Problems - The day was sunny, and people were happy, and as I stood in the square that only a week before had been the scene of a large public viewing of the 2010 World Cup, I was amazed that people were walking to the beat in my earphones.  People were kissing each other in time with the songs.  I must mention that the Snails EP might have also gotten mixed in here somehow, because I remember hearing that acoustic version of Tune Out.
2. fun. - Aim and Ignite - This rode the coattails of the Format, but it brought a bigger happiness to my overall feeling as I walked toward the castle in Prague.  It put a spring in my step, and as I stopped to take pictures over the river, it just seemed to fit.
3. Keane - Perfect Symmetry - I never actually made it to the castle.  A combination of Keane's new album and the amazing architecture on the way had me stopping to take pictures and thinking about art and writing songs and getting lost and hoping I wouldn't find my way back home.  This album actually repeated twice, and much of at least one run was consumed while I sat in a small garden and watched people walk through.
4. The Postal Service - Give Up - The fact that this album was on my phone was probably fated specifically for my walk home.  I stopped on the way home to eat some sort of meat hanging on a stick (I thought it was a pork knuckle, but after actually having a pork knuckle, I have no idea what it was; probably horse).  I watched the exodus of a wedding leave a gorgeous church building and head out to wherever the party was going to start.  As I listened to "I have to speculate that God Himself would make us into corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces," I couldn't but think "that's surreal."
5. Lydia - Illuminate - The next day, I got out and walked around a bit more.  The rain slowed me down and kept me from wandering too far.  Lydia's music gave me this haunted feeling as I walked around Wenceslas Square in the rain.  This album actually played through twice as well, since I walked around the museum at the same time, looking at statues that were older than my country.

Alright, a close runner up here is Boys Night Out's "Trainwreck."  I was feeling a bit ill on the first day, but it seemed to have a good balance of energy for me.  I was actually reading in the litlle garden previously mentioned as I listened to this album.  It's usually a bit emo for me, but is also a really strong album.

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