Happy Birthday to you…. Happy Birthday to you… Happy BIIIIIrthday dear Fender Stratocaster…
Yes.. the strat is turning 50 years young, and I’m listening to the BBC Worldservice special on the magical guitar. Though you won’t catch me playing one, my appreciation of them is great. And I’ll tell you something I learned today – When Hendrix played the Starred Spangled Banner, he was doing it as a protest to the Vietnam War, simulating the sounds of machine guns, sirens and people screaming. I had no idea! I mean.. I used to listen to the song and just figured he liked distortion. Did everybody else know this? I guess I’m too young. Is there any other distortion with a message? Lemme re-listen to every Rage album real quick.
BlondeButBright is near Helsinki…. HELSINKI. So lucky. She’s blogging about Finnish culture and coathooks in toilet stalls. Sounds like a little piece of heaven up there.
The debates… I need not talk about them because you can go to every other blog for that. But I will say this much: 3 debates?! That’s it? One of the most influential countries in the world and allegedly a very tight race… and all you get are three debates? Pathetic. I think from September until elections they should debate at least once if not twice a week. And unlike the upcoming debates, they should actually be able to ask each other questions and… *gasp* move from the podium.
But there’s another election about to take place that warrants talking about – The Elections Down Under. Yes it’s Howard and the Coalition versus Latham and Labour. Sounds more like a battle of the bands, really. But the situation, from my comfy Amsterdam seat, appears to very similar to that of the UK and – dare I say it – the US. Meaning an incumbent leader who plays on the whole terrorism fear and doesn’t have much of an opposition running against him. Of course, I guess I’d vote for Mark Latham… but mostly because I like his first name and I don’t dig John Howard. But certainly this is not a qualified Aussi opinion, for that I recommend Antony’s Counterspin – an Australian election blog. But the real fun is at John Howard’s mock-blog… where he says things like:
“So I finally called the election today. Man, Democracy is such a hassle, it’d be so much easier if I could just be PM for ever and ever.”
Today’s Music: The Eagles – Hotel California (He plays a Fender!)
But I was interested, as an admirer of DC, in the idea of the 
That being said, climb aboard won’t you, because it’s time once again to talk trains. Now I heart trains, they rank just below bicycles on the “transport that best represents me” list. I love looking at trains, riding in them, and picturing future trains. So needless to say I’ve been reading every little article in today’s FT special on the 
This reminds me of that explanation I’m always giving to people who ask me “Where do I find blogs?” The response goes something like this: “There are quite a few ways to find blogs, the most obvious is just to do a google search for certain topics or blogs, but a very common one is the BLOGROLL. Think if it as a bookshelf in someone’s house. When you go to visit someone, especially if it’s a friend or someone who’s taste or style you admire, you might look at the bookshelf to see what they are reading, and then proceed to seek those books yourself. A blogroll – or list of blogs – is similar. You like someone’s writing, so you think.. “hmmm.. let me look at what he/she/it reads. And so you may become a reader of those blogs as well, and it just snowballs from there. Trust me… I rolled one of those big cartoon snowballs this weekend and read all kinds of crap. Mostly entertaining crap, mind you.
On to something else that’s eating at my brain: “We will make shoes of their skins,” this was something like the quote from Mussolini 
In my quest to explore the wild-wild west of the blogosphere.. I came across 