Lately I’ve started listening to Virgin UK radio that broadcasts in London (but I get it over the Internet, of course). I was looking for something new to listen to a few days ago and stumbled over this station — actually ended up listening to the midnight show and really liked the mix of music (how great is it when you find a DJ that seems to play all the music you like??) He been playing some good older music — “Your Latest Trick” by Dire Straits, “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley, an assortment of Beatles stuff, and a lot of new stuff including the new Oasis & Hoobastank & Green Day (GD is among my favorites lately).
This morning I turned it on and suppose I’m getting the Friday drive home show — thus I happen to know exactly where the delays are on the M5. Also, apparently one of the defenders for South Hampton will be out for the match this weekend with an injured ankle. 🙂
I have to say that when I stop to think about it, it’s a really shocking technological & social development for me to be able to click a button and start listening to exactly what they’re listening to in London right now (Boston’s “More than a Feeling”). With our baby coming, it’s fun to think about what life was like 35ish years ago when Kathy & I were born, and what our kid will be doing 35 years from now.
For me, technology lately has really contributed to my quality of life — I listen to a LOT more music than I ever did, I take & view a LOT more pictures of friends & family, I talk & write to my friends & family more than I used to, and I read a ton more about current events & history on the web than I ever could have in just the newspaper.
I think we’ll all look back on this period and view it as a sort of Golden Age — a hyper-connected, very syncretic time — when everyone was figuring out what it means to know instantaneously what other people in the world are doing. Talking with my friend Mike yesterday, he likened it to the year 1968 — a time of tremendous uncertainty & fear in the world (Vietnam, MLK & RFK, Biafra), but also a time of tremendous creativity (Rolling Stones & Beatles doing their best work, the start of the women’s movement, and students taking on Soviet tanks in Czechoslovakia).
It’s so easy to focus on the news of insurrections, fighting, clashes of civilizations — makes you forget sometimes the incredible strides that we’re making in terms of making the world a smaller, more intimate, more connected place. Like I’ve said before, I’m an unbridled optimist on this stuff — I know that there’s a very long way to go and a lot to do, but when you just pause and think about the things taht we’re doing now versus what the world was doing 35 years ago, it seems to me to net out very positively.
John's Blog 
You know, John, it is funny because about the time you posted this blog (before we had gotten back in touch at all) I was working a lot of late nights and had started listening to 8 hour ahead time shifted Virgin Radio quite a bit. Interesting parallels in our disconnected lives.Anyway, thought I should comment on this while I still could as Virgin Radio will be no more on Monday. They are turning into Absolute Radio. Probably still full of good stuff, but it somehow seems to be the end of something.But like you said, there is much to look ahead toward. So come Monday I am going to try to tune in over the net and check out what they are turning into.