I moved into a new place out west at the end of tram 10. I seldom take the tram anywhere, but perhaps if you read this you use the tram a lot. At any rate, at the second to last stop on line 10 is a quaint traffic circle with all of life's necessities, one of which is my local grocery store venue.

On my way to this venue, the details of which are unimportant, I pass this store called 'Hippo' - curiously right across the street from a similarly named 'world music record label'. Anyway, I have all these records, all my Stereolab even, on these records for which I have no player. I don't know why I don't just download the stuff...the ritual act of putting on and then flipping a record, I'm a sucker for it.

Anyway, Hippo is one of those ecclectic vintage/second-hand places run by a well greyed German hippie lady who is not afraid to pull out one of the many chairs theoretically for sale in the store in order to chat you up about the powers and purifying qualities of 'Chinese Earth', or cell phones.

She insists every time we apply a magnet to our brain it boils just a little bit. I suggested to her the up-side, the flash mob applications and whatnot. That is not to paint her as a Neo-Luddite or something. She surfs the Internet to add to her knowledge of purifying powers and the 'Bush did it' 9/11 conspiracy, which she takes for granted.

I suggested to her she look up Art Bell online, which is an AM frequency broadcast on late at nights in some places of the US -ond probably online too. The lizard people, and so on. Art Bell actually went into hiding sometime back because of the lizard people aliens. I am not sure if he is out now or not. She insists the international dominant class is breeding aliens under the surface of the planet to be released one day to dominate us.

All this was started because I saw they had free standing, briefcase sized record players with built in speakers, and I asked her if they worked. With a little work we found out they could work, as in they might.

Take your time to look around. There is all sorts of stuff, some of which may be both cool and fit in your luggage on the way home. It is precisely one of those awesome places you hope to find, but can really only find if you know where it is. Well, here it is. And...you can pet the cat, and when customers come in you then get to feel special, because you are petting the cat and obviously 'at home' in the surroundings. I actually do this at school too. There is a black stray that now likes my lap.

It's the ol' cat trick to up one's symbolic and social capital -little trick I picked up from Lenin.

If you are hungry after the talk and browse -it is a big place to browse- there are a number of cafes right around including a pizza bar that looks promising; which will be my next week's tale as I issue an edition of my Amsterdam Pizza Tour - because it's not easy to find good pizza in a country that considers banana and sunny-side egg an acceptable topping in combination.

Don't ask me for the name of the stop or the plaza. Second to last stop, tramline 10. It's awesome. END OF STORY.