One big difference in the layout of the new Polytropos HQ is that the computer desk is in the bedroom. It used to be in the main room, which made playing music easy — the computer speakers were decent enough for the job, and the computer is where all the music was, anyway. Ever since moving I’ve known that some sort of solution would be needed to play the music from the computer on the stereo in the living room, since the alternative — taking physical CDs out of the big CD binder and putting them into the CD/DVD player — wasn’t going to happen all that often, in practice.

I realized yesterday, when we had some people over and I was wanting to put on some dinner music, that in the two months since we’d moved I had just sort of stopped listening to music very much. And that was appalling. So after a flurry of online research to confirm what I already suspected, I went out and got an Airport Express. It’s plugged into the outlet near the stereo; standard RCA cables connect it to the receiver. Took 5 minutes to get it talking to the wireless network. As I write this, I’m sitting at the laptop on the couch, accessing the shared music library on the desktop in the bedroom, and playing the music through the stereo speakers. The new[1] Franz Ferdinand album sounds very fine, as have the new[1] Belle & Sebastian and Neko Case. I declare myself quite chipper, indeed.

fn1. I realize it’s probably not new any more, but I’m always a few months behind on music these days, and it’s new to _me_ dang it!