Personal

So I guess I’ve made a mess of all my various weblogs. First there was a Movable Type blog in 2001, then a radio blog, then a new radio blog, and then this new Movable Type blog. I’m going to settle on this one, but all my old posts to the other blogs will just have to be lost unless I can muster the enthusiasm for scrounging them up somehow.

Still working on Fabric of Reality, because I am a little lost in the chapter on quantum computing, which was the main topic I bought the book to read about. I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually. I’m just about finished re-listening to my audio-book version of The Fellowship of the Ring, which I enjoyed immensely. I’ve now read the dead-tree book once, and listened to this audio book twice.

Now that I’m finished American Gods, I’m just reading The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch. It’s about physics, quantum computation, DNA, and lots of other topics, sort of unified into a really interesting and idiosyncratic world-view. David Deutsch is a father of quantum computing, so he knows what he’s talking about. I always prefer well-expressed personal viewpoints to bland, objective information.

I just finished reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I enjoyed it, but it was a little slow. Basically it explores the idea (in fictional form) that gods from the various pantheons traveled to America with the settlers and started trying to eke their living here. In this day and age, it’s not easy to be a god, and they’re almost like pathetic people.

Oh my, I haven’t posted for a long time.

Test, test. Blah, blah, blah.

We have proper internet hosting now, via the domain langmead.info. More soon.

Alison and I are all set up in L.A.! We have an apartment on the beach, and two cars. We’re moving June 1. Here are some pictures.

So I have progressed nicely in my quest to hear new music that I like. I bought two CDs! Blur’s greatest hits (or is it “best of?") and Ben Folds Five (Whatever and ever amen). I have enjoyed both, especially the Blur. I will be trying some more of their stuff very soon. I’m a little frustrated that they didn’t get along with Andy Partridge when he was lined up as producer, but then again Andy is supposedly not very easy to get along with, at least when it comes to music.

I need new music. For years I’ve been listening to a core group of bands: XTC, Beatles, Squeeze, Joe Jackson, various solo Beatles, R.E.M., Billy Joel and They Might Be Giants, with smaller amounts of the B-52’s, Indigo Girls, and a little Classical (mostly Mozart, Bach and Beethoven of course). In the last few years, I’ve started to change a little bit. I’ve dipped my toes into new music and I have been really well rewarded.