I have a blog now.

So. I have a blog now. I have to say I'm a little dubious that I'll be a religious and consistent poster, my life thus far is strewn with journals and diaries begun and quickly orphaned after a few days or weeks of zeal. On the other hand I do spend a fair amount of time in front of a computer and tend to procrastinate by reading blogs, so maybe there's hope. Plus, I do love to write and it will be nice to have a place to collect what I do write and make it accessible to anyone who might be vaguely interested in what I have to say.

You may be wondering about the name: Goats Reading Books. The name actually came from Laura Jean and it was her idea to use an alternate phrase that shares the acronym for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), which is what I spend a fair amount of my time studying. Also goats are somehow inherently funny. Example given, this article from our friends at The Onion; not only is the picture of the goat really cute but the article pretty much killed me when I read it. I suppose GRBlog would have been a good choice too, but it's already been taken and put to excellent use.

What sealed the deal was a Google search on the keywords "goats reading books", the second hit from which was an amazon.com listing for "My Pet Goat". Unintentional, but pretty awesome.

I tend to think a lot about science, culture, politics, activism, movies, music, friends and a fair bit of silly stuff thrown in, so I'm sure all that will come rushing out in my future posts. Stay tuned...