You can tell how close a conference is getting by how frequent the talk about "swag" is. CES and Gizmodogate - done. Some other trade show happening this week that nobody everybody is talking about - done. Next up on our radar is Mix08, running between 5th-7th March, and thankfully the first design prototypes for the swag bags are already on show.
The next question is obviously "what's going to be in the bags"? Zune80 maybe? For the answer to that I think we'll have to wait a little while longer.
If you want even more buildup to the conference, you could do worse than checking out the weekly podcast. (Kip appears in episode 6 if you're interested).