Please allow me to vent a little.

I'm sitting here in lovely San Francisco, attending the JavaOne conference. When the topic of me attending this year's conference came up, I said that I really don't want to go to Java One, but that I'd take a trip to San Francisco any time.

My impression of previous JavaOne conferences was rather negative: the conferences were way oversold, resulting in far more asses than seats, the sessions were too basic, and most of the week ends up being one giant Sun Microsystems ad. What is different this year? It isn't so much a Sun ad.

Already (four hours in) I've left two sessions: one because it was full, and another because the presenters' idea of a riveting session was to read their slides, top to bottom. And it isn't like we're reading erotica here. In order to make business integration servers, BPEL and SOA at all interesting, you have to work it. A little.

Jesus.

Also, the people. Good God, the people.

I'm already tired of seeing fat men wearing elastic waist-banded pants. It seems like 10,000 chronically obese, smelly people with poor social skills. Every software developer stereotype is walking around here. I can't wait until day four. I will be performing mercy killings.