The power block

- Music
Every now and then I hear a block of music on the radio that restores my faith in radio. Usually I feel pretty good about a car-ride just so long as I can find a halfway decent song to follow up the first halfway decent song and I'm often stuck flipping stations to find the good stuff. Every now and then I get lucky however, and get one station playing a few great songs in a row. Today was one of those days.
We start with 'Oops I did it again' by Britney Spears. Not normally a 'good' song, but the length of time since I last heard it has restored my interest and it was nice to remember Britney as she existed a decade ago. Barely legal, bangin' body, sexy voice, not yet the caricature she would later become. I think she could have just stayed herself and been successful, and I think maybe her behavior was a sign of insecurity. The press made a lot of her success and the comparisons with Christina Aguilera and it seemed to me that she was always chasing the ghost of herself, never really sure what the public wanted but desperate to find it.
Enough of that crap.
Second song was Milli Vanilli's 'Blame it on the Rain'. They're fakes of course, but the song is still fun to listen to. Nostalgia rears up again.
Third song was 'Lets go Crazy' by Prince. The other two songs were great for a warm-up but when you start playing crazy good good jams by Prince you get me to roll the windows down, turn the volume up...
And then they hit me with the grand finale. Naughty by Nature's 'O.P.P.' It's hard to describe how good it feels to blast that tune at the end of a nostalgic set. And ya know there was a time about 10 years ago when it wouldn't have been such a big deal. I may have even changed the station before Britney's song was over. But that was then and this is now. And I loved it.

- History
I finished the 'Atlas of World History' yesterday. Another good feeling. I now know a hell of a lot more than I did before I started. Big surprise eh? I think it's going to do a lot to increase my understanding of world events and it should have positive results in increasing my understanding of economics and politics as well. Everything's related to everything else.