"God Bless The Internet"

"God bless the Internet"

- Finch, American Pie

Rammstein has decided, for whatever reason, that their latest CD, Rosenrot, will not be made available in the United States. It's not that huge a surprise, if one was to listen to the lyrics to their song Amerika, it's pretty clear that they don't like us. :-)

But, that said, their music is still kick-ass, and I wanted it. Amazon UK is my "normal" place for buying stuff from out of the country, and since they had it as a pre-order, I happily ordered it via them. Unfortunately, after the release date they sent me an e-mail that said essentially, "Oh, we don't appear to be able to get any of that German CD in the limited edition, so we've cancelled your order. Sorry, old chap."

But now it's after the release date. The limited edition version (which includes a DVD of concert footage as well) is extremely hard to come by. Lots of places have already sold out.

Come to the rescue a good friend of mine, Ralf, the author of The Book of Postfix: State-of-the-Art Message Transport. He lives in Berlin, and after some chatting over instant messenger, he called some places local to him there, and managed to obtain a copy. His Christmas present to me. In exchange, Santa will bring his small child some Richard Scarry books which are hard to come by on that side of the pond.

Twenty years ago, I'd've been screwed. In today's day and age, it's no longer uncommon to have friends available on a moment's notice an ocean and eight time-zones away.