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Ned

I am here for Dating, Serious Relationships, Friends and Networking

About Me

Various tales and complaints at Ned Raggett Ponders It All . Various shameless photos -- well, not really shameless at all -- are at my Flickr site , while details of travel plans and dreams and more besides are to be seen over at 43 Places , though it's a touch out of date. Then there's the Facebook profile and the last.fm location and...

My Interests

Oh, where to begin. Food, that's always good. Musings on life. Sarcasm. Squelchy emotion sometimes hidden by the sarcasm (and sometimes not). Long conversations about this, that and the other. Avoiding commercials. The list goes on...

I'd like to meet:

Do you have a brain and a sense of humor and are friendly but don't suffer fools gladly? If so, good, very good indeed. (That said -- and I feel goofy having to add this but it's come to this point -- please don't send me a friend request unless you actually drop me a line and introduce yourself first. I always do that for others and it's good etiquette.)

Music:



At one point I thought this -- http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~tewing/ned/nedmain.html -- but that was in 1999 and only covered one decade, after all. If I still had to name an all-time favorite band, though, My Bloody Valentine. And after that, oh I dunno, there's the Walkabouts, the Chameleons, Prince, Depeche Mode, Orbital, Tool, the Cocteau Twins, Derrick May, Dizzee Rascal, Disco Inferno, Timbaland, the Veldt, P J Harvey, Ghost, Windy, Carl, Slowdive, (early) Michael Jackson, seventies Hall and Oates, Motorhead, Coil, Daft Punk, Laurie Anderson, the Fall, the Church, Swans, the Mountain Goats, Bauhaus, David Bowie, the Cure, the Pixies, Marc Almond, Crevice, Crispy Ambulance, Joy Division, the Smiths, the Pet Shop Boys, Galaxie 500, Suede, Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cheap Trick, Charalambides, Acid Mothers Temple, Rocket From the Crypt, the Boredoms, Chrome, James Brown, Big, Rich, Parliament/Funkadelic, most early Sugar Hill records, similarly most early Tommy Boy records, most everything on Trax now that I think about it, Kompakt really has done a very nice job over these last years, Chris Knox, the International Telepaths, the Verlaines, Tugboat, the Avalanches, Jennifer Gentle, Circle, Roy Montgomery, the Gordons, Bless, No-Man, Porcupine Tree, Love, Rockets, Peter Murphy, Cranes, the Melvins, Mr. Bungle, Johnny Cash, the Buzzcocks, Wire, the Damned, Drive Like Jehu, Pinback, Odelia, the Adolescents, the Squirrels, early Christian Death, the Cult, Metallica up to a point but I suppose they're a great parody of themselves these days, all those Trojan 3 disc collections, Julian Cope, most everything Time-Lag puts out, related to that Six Organs of Admittance, Massive Attack, Portishead, all those Speed Limit comps that Moonshine put out back in the early nineties, same with those XL comps at around the same time, all the various Nuggets, Pebbles compilations, Spacemen 3, at least a good chunk of the Flaming Lips, New Order, there's no real order to this you realize I'm just going on here, the Dead Milkmen, Arvo Part, the Aphex Twin, Autechre, Smashing Pumpkins who really should be at the top of this list or near to it but again I'm just rambling, Radiohead should be up there too, Muslimgauze, Misery Loves Co. had something there especially that Cure cover, Carcass, Napalm Death, Dead Can Dance, Pulp, Roxy Music, the Undertones, Howard Shore, In the Nursery, Electrelane, Mogwai, the Rapture, Aterciopelados, Soda Stereo especially that one great shoegaze record they did, oh yeah of course Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Lush, Ride, all them, Kinski, the Frogs, the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Lollies, the Kissing Time, I haven't gone on too much have I?,...summer 2007 update: Newest band discovery: VNV Nation , who were also my most recent concert. Next one coming up: Six Organs of Admittance . Best reissues recently snagged: the Patron Saints. State of mind in thinking about popular music: reinspired.

Movies:

The list matches the music one in lengths so I will spare you. 2007 started with a bang with Pan's Labyrinth ; please check my blog here for more thoughts.

Television:

There are DVD sets for that sorta thing these days. Or file-sharing or the like. For many Lost is apparently the business and I will not rule it out of hand. But at heart there's my beloved Mystery Science Theatre 3000 ...

Books:

Multiply the music and movie list lengths for something proper. I work in a library and I've got about fifty books piled up on the floor next to my desk that I really want to get around to reading soon. Most recently completed was Dan Simmons's quite great combination of history, theology and horror, The Terror , and right now I'm hip deep in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials

Heroes:

Don't have any. It's friends whose worth and advice have become evident to me that I admire -- and that very much includes my family.

My Blog

Nanowrimo 2007 is underway

And I'll be posting links to the chapters here, but the better way to follow along is through my main blog. First off, here's the key background information:NaNoWriMo itselfDecisions, decisions -- es...
Posted by Ned on Fri, 02 Nov 2007 08:24:00 PST

Quick blog reminder

Namely that wordpress is where I'm updating everything of late, not here. Still, even if you're not interested in following along over there (and I don't blame you, it's your call!) if you get a chan...
Posted by Ned on Wed, 03 Oct 2007 10:13:00 PST

Just some quick updates -- including the USA Today thing

Photos from Carmel trip can be found here:Carmel August 2007Cars in Carmel, August 2007Plus, yes, I ended up in the Pop Candy column of USA Today, with a posting of my piece from Marooned -- go nuts!T...
Posted by Ned on Thu, 23 Aug 2007 05:35:00 PST

So I’ve finally started a separate blog

And here's where you can find it if you are so inclined: Ned Raggett Ponders It All Longer pieces will probably go there rather than here from now on, but the occasional blogpost will be made here, ...
Posted by Ned on Mon, 06 Aug 2007 03:57:00 PST

The author and his text

Again, not THE author by any means, just one of them. And the book can be ordered here.  Meanwhile, the very great Alex in NYC had a really nice comment to make on my essay here, not to mention a...
Posted by Ned on Mon, 23 Jul 2007 02:44:00 PST

A song of the year, and its importance -- part 1

I consider this a rough draft more than anything else, but hopefully it will be of interest.It has been a while I have had a particular song to hold on to, if that's the best way to describe it. An an...
Posted by Ned on Fri, 06 Jul 2007 01:22:00 PST

The third ILX comp and me

Repeating my bulletin I sent out just now:ILX, the webboard I spend rather a fair amount of time on, has just put out its third free compilation collection of various musicianly types.  Now, I'm ...
Posted by Ned on Fri, 22 Jun 2007 07:54:00 PST

And Bottling Smoke was a blast and a half -- here's some photos for proof

I'll be writing up something formal for Plan B magazine but in terms of general thoughts -- fantastic, wonderful, great friendly people, excellent sets, I could go on. Everyone's a treasure, from the...
Posted by Ned on Mon, 28 May 2007 09:19:00 PST

Off to the Bottling Smoke fest!

Should be good fun -- if you're in the LA area and are interested, swing by! It's mostly free aside from the Saturday night section:http://www.myspace.com/bottledsmokefestival2007Hope everyone has a ...
Posted by Ned on Fri, 25 May 2007 07:19:00 PST

The joys of a local spring hike

Friend Stripey had been suggesting a hike in the Limestone Canyon and Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park area for a while, so we took the opportunity yesterday.  And it was quite a treat -- my Flickr ...
Posted by Ned on Thu, 10 May 2007 08:40:00 PST