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Well I haven't played too many electrics, I have a red squire strat, which is just a very basic low end beginner package, single coils, but it has a descent tone. I have a small Crate amplifier and a G1 effects thingamajigger, I can get a pretty good sound cranking, and I'm sure you could get more if you actually knew what you were doing
  As for acoustics, I like epis and takamines, never was crazy about washburns just haven't ever played one that 'felt right'. Gibsons are nice, and I've played taylors, both awesome

Yeah thats prob;y true, and don't get me wrong I love America, but I think its mainly due to being so over priveleged, we have an uncanny comfort with doing whatever we want, getting whatever we want, and not ever feeling uncomfortable, disatisfied, or feeling like we had to 'settle'. Somebody we know gives us too hard a time, we sue 'em for emotional distress and compensation. A television show says something we don't like, we sue the company for discrimination. Something in the church rubs you the wrong way? Start your own!
Don't like Mac Donald's french fries??? Go to burger king, dairy queen, novroskys, wendys, sonic, etc. etc. Don;t like the way you look?? Get tucked, injected, sliced, sucked, and rebuilt untill you do.... then sue macdonald's for making you fat.
   But what can you do? As an American i try not to fall too far into the stereotype, try not to complain too much, but I guess that what we're really for lol, we get in front of all the starving disease ridden countries, the less than free nations, the war torn and hungry, and we say 'HEY! I DON"T WANT ONIONS ON THIS HAMBURGER RETARD!" or "THIS COUNTRY"S GONE TO HELL, YOU CAN"T EVEN GET GAS FOR YOUR SUPER SHINY BRAND NEW SUV FOR LESS THAN 2.50 A GALLON!!"

awesome

Zurf, I think you're right about the difference between religion and faith.
    I think ultimately War is waged and ordered by leaders seeking economic gain, who would USE religion as a way to convince the common man to fight for him.
  I do believe there are noble causes for war, for instance fighting in defense when someone else invades you. I also believe, while I have nothing against the PEOPLE of England even in that time, that the Revolutionary War was a justifiable war, and that the result was freedom. America may have a lot of problems, and there might even be political leaders at the top, even in America's earliest days, who had bad intentions for our country's directions. But regardless of what a few so called 'important' people may or may not believe or do, our constituiton DOES provide for power 'by the consent of the governed', and ultimately that the will of the American people is what coutns. Maybe the american leader of the early revolutionary war were in it for the wrong reasons, maybe they were only in it for money, maybe the whole freedom thing was something they said to get Americans to band together and fight, but it didn't matter who said it or even why,  the american people believed in it. They fought and died for freedom, because to them thats what America was about. Thats what to the common everyday person America is still about: freedom.

Haha thats funny , with your permission I might use this in a song one day...
  Anyway, while America is home to quite a few letergical churches (methodist,presbytyrian,lutherans,epicopalians, etc. etc.), there are (particularly in the southern states and the 'Bible Belt') many denominations which maintain the tradition of very lively worship services (or thats what thier shooting at anyway). Honestly I'm not sure why this is so common in our country, but Biblically speaking it comes from the belief in a David's Tabernacle kind of worship service (found in the Psalms pretty commonly) "Shout unto the Lord" "Play skillfully on an instrument' "Rejoice" and "Sing unto the Lord with a loud voice"....  as far as musical style goes I think it stems from local music traditions. Depending on the area, Gospel music was traditionally bluegrassy, ballady, even bluesy. When whoever it was who wrote the hymns published the hymnals, local churches played them in thier own style, with the instruments the local people played, or even how they sang (some churches still don't allow instruments).

I have a hard time not being a bit of a scrooge around this time of year, just because I get sick of the typical American over commercialism, 'Oh my God go out and soend and hundreds of dollars right now or you don't love your family.'
  On the other hand, I really do enjoy the actual holiday time, my uncle from houston drives up to the home place where my grandma and cousins live, me and my dad and brother pile up there too, usually our friend tags along, and we stay out by the fire all night just havin' a good time.
  The majority of christmas music is, I think for children, so while it really does wear on my nerves, it makes the litte uns happy so I can live with it. There's really upscale church choir music that goes on around Christmas thats nice though. In fact, its only in the middle of one of those bluesed up christmas specials we do at my church (that gospel boogie woogie's in my papa and its gotta come out lol), somehtin' like 'Amen' which has some verses about baby Jesus, that I actually say 'hey, if we could just make it about the music and goin' to Seedtick I could handle this whole Chirstmas idea'.
  I think music does kind of unite people, there's something about playing music with somebody that puts a special kind of common ground between you, sort of a bonding type thing which doesn't require talking or hugging or crying, its like while everybody's in the middle of the song we all understand each other. Its too bad the effect has to wear off after the music stops (in most cases)

First off let me say that I DO NOT in any way agree with the radical views of the puritans, but were they really any more extreme than the catholic churches slaughtering thousands and thousands of people who refused to convert, burning churches they'd found because it proved they weren't the first church? Any more radical than the church of england burning people at the stake for trying to translate the Bible into English? Than the slaughter of Ana Baptist (which was what spurred THIER flight to Holland and later America)?
  There were a lot of extreme religious acts ocurring at this time in history. None of them were right, but lets dont pick and choose. Some people who came to America came so they could come and be thier own little cult without the government getting in the way, but a very good number did come for true religious freedom, and the chance to make a better life for themselves and thier children out from under a society that told them what class they were, and didn't allow them to better themselves. And a good number did come to escape religious persecution.
  What the puritans did was wrong, but there were people in that first group of immigrants to America who worked and sacrificed for our freedom, and I think thats what we ought to remember on thanksgiving: To be thankful for the freedom so many people worked and fought and died for.

(That being said, I don't have anything against England, or catholics, or anglicans, or anybody else. Nobody can help what thier ancestors did, all we can do is be what we want to be today.)

  Another thing, while I understand that what we did to many of the indians was wrong, i don't like it when people just call it the 'white man'.  This ties into one of my political soapboxes, but I'll try not to stay there too long. When you say 'the white man', you tie in every single white skinned person who's ever lived, and then you blame a lot of individuals for something they couldn't have done because they weren't alive, and probably wouldn't have done if they had been. Political decisions made by a few corrupt leaders shouldn't condemn an entire race of people, or even the soldiers who probly didn't have a whole lot of say in the matter either way.
I'm not justifying anything my ancestors did to these people, I don't think it was right, but I can't help what they did. When somebody says the 'white man' thats like accusing me for something I wouldn't do, and don't even believe in. I do agree that native americans should have some kind of repayment for what was done to them, and they should definitely have equal rights, but the fact of the matter is there is not one single person in America today who was alive during these events. I wasn't alive to kill a native american, and my uncle chuck (who was adopted) who gets a check for having enough cherokee blood wasn't alive to have to fight for his land. So why should I be accused and punished for something I didn't do, and why should he get a check and free dental for sitting on his butt and smoking pot all day???
  I think that any person born in America should have equal rights, , and be allowed to work to better themselves the same as anybody else, regardless of race or religion. I think equality is about everybody beginning thier own life as a citizen with a blank slate, an oppurtunity to work as hard as you like and go as far as you want to go, without having to repay society for the sins of somebody long gone. We have to start looking at people as INDIVIDUALS. As long as we keep validating a mind set of lumping evrybody in one race into a group, then how can we find true racial equality in America? To keep race from being an issue, we have to eliminate race as a factor all together, FOR GAIN OR LOSS, and let everybody make thier own name by thier own actions that they do, not what thier grandpa did, not what thier father did, not what thier ancestors did.
   And now Ive gone on and on for way too long lol Im not mad at anybody I just get on these kicks sometimes, you'll have to excuse me. I'm also not disagreeing with any comments already made, James and Acapo are exactly right, I'm just 'throwing in my two cents' so to speak.

Its the (well the supposed, kind of like christmas the dates are iffy) anniversary of a winter feast the pilgrims shared with the local native american indians, in honor and thanks of thier help in teaching us how to farm, fish, hunt, and gather in the north american continent.
It was declared a national day of thanks giving, when we're supposed to be together with family and give thanks for the blessings we've enjoyed this year. Plus, its another excuse to hog out on turkey and dressin' lol

haha, thats pretty good. Put some chords for it and post it in song format

There seems to be alot of opinions floating around about how to learn the quickest, learn the best, how long, which way, when where and how you should practice. But if you look at anybody who's ever made a name playing guitar, if you look at a lot of good players who haven't, you'll find there wasn't a magic formula, and there wasn't a concious decision to make themselves do this today, and for a certain length of time, they just played. thats the key to playing guitar, you just play. The more you play, the better you get, and you don't have to think about it. Whether you spend your  playing time on scales, or chords, or just jammin' to your favorite tunes, all the lessons in the world aren't gonna manifest anything if you don't just get in there and do it.

I'm getting fried trukey , unfortunately I don't think there will be any left to save.