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Yesterday I went to see what’s probably been the biggest music event of this decade in South Africa so far. The line-up included Fokofpolisiekar, The Rasmus, Seether, Fatboy Slim, Collective Soul and Metallica. It was rocking.

We got there a bit early to avoid traffic, only to stand in a two hour queue for the venue to open, which proved to be unnecassary. That was the only bad part, from there onward, it was phenonemal. Fokofpolisiekar blew us away. They played all my favourite tracks, including “Hemel op die platteland”. Arno Carstens performed OK, although I feel that he could’ve put more of himself into the performance, it was like he wasn’t quite there, but still, it was extremely enjoyable. Before the show, I told my friends that Simple Plan is like a boyband compared to the other bands playing, but I was, and very pleased with it, proved wrong. They were fantastic. Not only were their music good, but they were fantastic performers, entertaining to the last minute they were on stage. Especially that guy that looks like he wants to be Michael Jackson.

The biggest highlight for me was Seether. I’m a huge fan of them, and they’re also one of the biggest internainally recognised South African bands. Every song they played were magical. If I could re-live any 3 minutes of my life again, it would be when they played “69 Tea” yesterday. We had a mosh pit going near the front in the golden circle area, which was lots of fun.

Collective Soul didn’t dissapoint, either. I should really listen more to them. “Why part 2″ has always been a song I enjoyed intensely, but nothing could ever match the live performance they gave us last night. I would give anything to be able to make music like that. I’ll have to stop talking about Collective soul now, otherwise I’ll run out of objectives to describe Metallica.

Metallica was… . And yes, I just said that about the other bands too, but really, they were professional, emotional, and they gave every bit of themselves that they could. And they helped the audience to give every drop back too. I’ve never considered myself a Metallica fan, although I did have my favourite Metallica songs, but after last night, I finally ‘get them’. I know realise that I’ll eventually have to get my hands on all their CD’s, I’ve definately missed out on some good Metallica. What’s also impressive, is how much they enjoyed performing. I mean, they must have performed “Enter Sandman” and “Nothing Else Matters” a thousand times by now, but they still do it like it’s a new song.

By the end of the concert I was finished. My legs, arms, feet.. everything was sore, I also have a few blue marks here and there from hits in the moshpit. We were in the sun most of the day so I ended up a bit dehidrated. Was it worth it? Hell yeah! Whenever I’m close to a live act from any of these artists again, I’ll make sure to attend. Most of the international artists promised to visit again, soon. Simple Plan even said that they’ll encourage other bands to come to South Africa.

On another note, Thursday I also went for my first guitar lesson. I bought a guitar almost a year ago, but last year proved too demanding for things like guitar lessons. This year, however, I’m not letting anything get in the way of the things that’s important to me. Hmmm.. I went from a fun subject to serious mode… end of post

Jane Weideman, who baked the first Ubuntu distro cake, has now also pioneered the first Ubuntu soup:

Achieving this only a single day after Jeff Waugh posted the soup question on the Ubuntu Fridge. Sources have revealed leaked information about a top-secret Ubuntu layered cocktail that is under development. Another Ubuntero, which looked suspiciously under the influence, denied all allegations of an under cover opperation.

Edubuntu was the first Ubuntu distro to have a cake (thanks to Jane Weideman) in October 2005:

Recently, the other Ubuntu distributions followed suite:

Ubuntu cake:

An attempt from the Germans (aka the Cookiegate scandal):

Kubuntu cake:

The Edubuntu cake is the biggest so far, while the Kubuntu cake is at least 40% more blue than the other cakes. The Ubuntu cake happened to be a birthday cake (nice, eh?).

We haven’t seen any reports of a Xubuntu cake yet, although spy reports claim that another cake will emerge within the next 30 days. Stay tuned…

I love being part of the Ubuntu community. It’s so incredibly vibrant, and full of energy. Right at this moment, I’m in a meeting on the #ubuntu-meeting IRC channel, where 329 people have already joined for the discussions about the delay in the next release of Ubuntu.

I think it’s amazing that the Ubuntu Technical Board and Community Counsel takes the time to listen to the community at large. How many other companies, or even other Linux distributions of this size, are doing similar things? I don’t think there’s many. On top of that, things are handled very quickly and professionally. Even sabdfl (Mark Shuttleworth), who could be doing a billion fun things right now, has all the patience with even the odd person who accidentally asks a support question. With other companies, you wouldn’t even get a CEO or CTO in such a meeting.

What’s also amazing, is seeing how many large implementations are being planned that jumps out of the woodwork because of this proposed movement in release. There’s certainly a huge amount of Ubuntu GNU/Linux implementations planned.

I enjoy the amount of real ‘love’ that’s being put into Ubuntu, and I enjoy being part of it. I would like to thank the entire Ubuntu community for creating something that’s such a good thing to be a part of!

BTW- sabdfl also asked for suggestions for animals starting with an “E” (supporting desrt’s claim that dapper+1 is “Edgy”). My vote would be for the Edgy Earthworm

Here’s the log of the IRC meeting:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MeetingLogs/Community_2006-03-14b

Recently, I discovered that Mark Shuttleworth created a Nexenta team on Launchpad. I didn’t immediately think anything about it, then this morning I discovered Nexenta on the Launchpad distributons page. Nexenta is a GNU distribution with the OpenSolaris kernel, currently based on the Debian system. Are they (Nexenta) planning to move over to Ubuntu for a base system? Does this mean we’ll have a Solaris for human beings shortly? Perhaps we’ll just have to wait for an announcement

Either way, I think it’s great that other distributions are adopting Ubuntu, even if it’s not a Linux distribution. It simply means that they have much less to worry about. I would’ve love to see a GNU system (as in, a system with a GNU/Mach kernel) based on Ubuntu as well. I see there’s already a Debian GNU version available. Perhaps just a matter of time?

On another note, I’m also syndicated on Ubuntu Planet now. “Does this planet make my head look big?”

UPDATE:

A few people have let me know that Nexenta has in fact always been based on Ubuntu. I assumed they were based on Debian, since their home page still says their based on Debian, although, you can see the Ubuntu update manager in the very first screenshot of nexenta, http://www.gnusolaris.org/gswiki/ScreenShots?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=tmp.thumbnail.gnusolaris-screenshot.jpg

Last week marked a full two years of working full-time at the Shuttleworth Foundation. It’s certainly been both exciting and eventful. It feels like yesterday I got to my desk and unpacked the first Thinkpad!