There have been a few songs that have kept me in the car after I parked to finish listening. The latest has been Patty Griffin's "Useless Desires." Absolutely great tune. The lyrics are perfect, and the guitar doesn't overpower. They work together to grab you. It's a sad song, though.
Another song that grabs me like that has been Susan Tedeschi's "Don't Think TWice, It's Alright." (Dylan tune) She has a great voice and a few of the notes wwent right to the spine, sending chills up and down my spine.

For some odd reason, I've been on a Grateful Dead kick for the last few days. Today, I even went to Borders to check for a tab book so I could learn Ripple. I didn't find anything, but thankfully, it's a pretty easy song to learn by ear. If not, I'll just gank the chords online.
I remember back to college, when I wanted to take a summer off to follow the Dead around. I never did, but I imagine that it would have been a bunch of fun. However, around that time, Jerry Garcia was a heroin-addicted mess who forgot lyrics and played off key, so who knows what it would have been like.
I did manage to catch Ratdog - Bob Weir's band after the dead- for free at UF. It was pretty cool to see Bob Weir, and if I remember correctly, they played a few Dead "hits." I think they played Truckin...
Notes from a random Tuesday:
1) Listening to The Band's version of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away. The guy died 45 years ago at 22, and the music still is vital. Who knows what he could have done.
2) Heard "Everybody Plays the Fool" recently. It's a bummer how much I relate to that tune. Again, falling for a woman who won't fall for me. Ah well.
3) I've liked working at the bookstore, but I must say it's a bummer to lose contact with people you've worked with. The nature of a bookstore is transition. It's like a stopping off place before you head off somewhere else. So, one should appreciate a friendship day-to-day and then learn to let go.
4) I think i want to play some gee-tar now.

I'm trying to compile a list of perfect pop songs. These are the ones i have so far are, in no particular order, mind you:
1) Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles
2) There She Goes - The La's
3) Sonny Came Home - Shawn Colvin
4) Please Please Me- The Bealtes

This is not anywhere near complete.

Right now, my parents are on a night train from Graz to Geneva. It's a really cool way to travel...one can sleep comfortably, and they serve breakfast. I've been on one of those once, on a trip from Graz to Hamburg. It's efficient, the sheets are fresh, and the breakfast is typically European; fresh breads, jams, etc.
Quite a contrast from another train trip from Geneva to Graz in 1992. First trip alone to Europe...I traveled with a friend who was traveling with her grandfather back to Austria. They had a sleeping compartment, but I got a normal compartment that seats six. Granted, you can pull the chair out for a makeshift bed, but I couldn't get any sleep. It was so damn cold, and I was an idiot Floridian in shorts. My friend and I did spend quite a bit of the evening talking about music, life in America, life in Europe, with a mixture of German, French and English. I had a rather big crush on this girl a few years before this trip...self-fulfilling prophecy, I guess, as our families had always teased us that we would get married.
I think I might have a point to this post, but that point is long gone. Our families have been friends since the 70s, my sister's best friend is this girl's sister.
Anyway, the cool thing about traveling on trains is the brief glimpse of life you can see. A light in the kitchen of a small house; cars stopped at a railroad junction. This gives you a sense of place that you can't really get in an airplane. I could stare out the window of a train for hours.

Alert! Alert! Kerry accused Bush of something, and Bush smirked and said "Uh." Details to follow.

Wed. 21 2004 Odie, Lhaso Apso -- After a week that saw the withdrawal of Spanish and Honduran troops from the increasingly bloody warfield of Iraq, another important part of the Iraq war coalition has decided to follow suit.
Prime Minister Dobie Wan of Lhaso Apso, who took control of this tiny Caribbean Island nestled between Trinidad and Tobago in a bloodless coup in 1999, has decided to pull its one troop out of Iraq.
"While we value being a vital part of the international coalition that toppled that evil dictator Saddam, we can no longer put our military resources at risk in Iraq," Wan said. "Thus, we have decided to bring our soldier home."
There was no immediate reaction from the White House regarding this latest withdrawal, but a high-level source in the administration has said that White House is busy trying to find Prime Minister Wan's phone number.

Random thoughts on a Tuesday.
1. I thought this was rather funny. It's about who can save rock and roll from itself...
2. Now that Spain has decided to pull out its troops, will we have to start calling Spanish rice "Freedom" rice?

I went to a car show on Saturday, along with a million other people and their pets. I actually saw a dude carry a small little designer dog (I call them Gap dogs) around. The dog was about half the size of my cat and looked like a furry marshmallow. I have a hard time calling those things dogs, but whatever. I digress. They had a batch of new ferraris, a few maser's (that quattroporte sedan is way cool), and a few bentleys. However, I didn't get a good look, given the people and the pets. I had a hard time getting into the beemers and benzes for the same reason. Erg! After three hours, I was gunning for the exits...the crowds suck. When i left, I bypassed a safe-bet for lunch for another place close to Penn. Dum, eh?

American Idol reject William Hung apparently had 2.2 million people listen to his album Inspiration through some AOL music listening feature.

The only possible explanation for this is that I have woken up in an alternate universe. I hope it's nice here.

Dude, it's been a year and a half. I'm surprised that this thing is still floating around.
So, what have I been up to? Better yet, what have I not been up to?
1) I have not climbed Mt. Everest. I managed to avoid documentaries of others climbing Mt. Everest, as well.
2) I have not been on a drunken binge in Tijuana, no matter what the rumors say.
3) I was not abducted by aliens or by member of the "military industrial complex."
4) As much as I have wanted to, I did not go back to the Swiss alps to raise a bunch of circus-performing squirrel monkeys.

I got myself a new job as a copy editor here in Princeton. It's nice being back in the 9-5 fold after close to two years full-time as a retail hack in a book store.

However, I'm still a retail hack at a bookstore, every Sunday. It feeds the cat, and its nasty food habit.