Nothing too much new. Just in case any of you were wondering just how much of a geek I am, I thought I'd let you know. The other night, I dropped into bed at about 11:00 or 11:30 or so, intent on doing nothing but falling asleep as quickly and soundly as possible. As I lay there, I started thinking about programming languages, and how easy or difficult it would be to get my computer to understand a new programming language. I still regret not being forced to write a compiler at Georgia Tech, so every now and then I read a bit about it, but so far it just hadn't started to click. Well, unfortunately, it started to click at about 11:30. Truly, I wanted to go to sleep, my brain just wouldn't let me. (This happens with other things too, not just programming.)

The really sad thing is, this kind of occurrence makes me happy, since it convinces me that my mind is gradually recovering from my previous, numbing job. For a while there, I could actually feel myself getting stupider. Having eaten a fair amount of beef while in Britain, I couldn't help wondering whether the first sign of your brain turning into a sponge is that you start getting less and less sharp?

In the keeping-your-brain sharp vein, I highly recommend the book Seeds of Change, by Henry Hobhouse. It's the story of five plants — quinine, sugar, tea, cotton and potatoes — and how they affected history. The more I read, the more narrow and one-sided I realize my history classes have been.

That's it for now. I have to bake some brownies for the coffee house at church tonight, and prepare for playing music at church tomorrow. My method of figuring out which songs to play is half trust, half work, and so far it seems to come out more or less okay. I think brownies take less of both.