After the quite impressive Plagger-talk by Miyagawa (I especially liked the plugin that ejects your CD tray if a new item was posted (illustrated with an half-open tray with a CD with some japanese signs on it (which read 'A new message has arrived' according to lathos' simultan translation in IRC))) I had a short slot to present the results of Thursdays CPANTS hackathon. As there wasn't much hacking, there wasn't much to present, so I did the CPANTS talk again (including internals) - but this time with IRC-streaming enabled; and xgl eye candy. So I proved that the stuff that failed during the IRC talks actually works.
The rest of day was spent mainly chatting with people and preparing yet another presentation. I skipped lunch because the combination of lots of balti food, lots of strange blue stuff to drink and lack of sleep made my stomache not want any food.
The lightning talks where the usual combination of funny (BooK), crazy (Juerd), and boring, with lots of distracting chatter on IRC. I also did a short one (blame BooK) to encourage people to host other people (or to not be afraid to ask *.pm if somebody wants to host them). I do hope that BooK will publish his slides somewhere. If not, somebody should start a perl tabloid so people not attending YAPC get some of the fun :-)
Next up was the auction - well, actually next up where some announcements: YAPC::NA in Houston. And YAPC::Europe in ... Vienna. Yay! I'm looking forward to see all of you next year in Vienna! (But I'm afraid I won't be able to stuff 200 Perl hackers into my appartment (maybe it would work if there were more people like cog...).
Now, the auction. There was to much stuff. And too little fun stuff (like body parts of French Perl hackers, or haircuts...). But well, it raised loads of money, I finally got Perl Best Practices, and don't have to think about my next hairstyle: Orange Mohawk :-)
The evening/night was spent with a nice dinner at some pub-food serving chain (delicous chocolate cake, cheap cider) and with hanging around in the hotel bar, again until way to late.
On Saturday I left my room with Leo still sleeping (he had a later flight), raided the Sainsburyies for English food (crazy-flavoured chips, chocolate cookies, ..) chatted with more people in the hotel lobby, and then left for the train station. I had to change my plans for my journey home, as the train from Birmingham to London Euston takes 2.5 hours on weekends (compared to 1.5 hours during the week). So I took a train to Reading, from where an (expensive (12 Pound)) bus service runs to Heathrow (30 minutes). But I prefere to pay 12 Pounds for a 2-hour journey vs 4 Pounds (subway ticket) for a 4-hour one.
On the train to Reading I met the most friendly ticket inspector I ever met (and most likely will meet). He accepted my ticket reading "Birmingham International -> London" when I was travelling vrom Birmingham New Street -> reading (I asked before boarding the train if the ticket was vaild, and they said it was, but I still excepted problems with the controller..), he knew which gate Austrian Airlines was flying from (Gate 2), and he presented several kids in the waggon with goodie bags (even though this was a 'quiet compartment' and they sure as hell weren't quiet (which I didn't mind, I have two kids on my own..))
The rest of the journey was boring, and back in vienna I didn't manage to meet up with Barbara and the kids at the Attwenger-concert at Volksstimmefest.
BTW, Expect more info on YAPC::2007 soon, but now I have to $work...
