On non-american interests

After walking through 2 massive halls (0f 12 total halls at Toy Fair) yesterday, one of model trains and one of remote control planes, boats, helicopters, cars & everything else, I have been thinking about the European demand for this type of product versus our own. Then, I ran into a former colleague today in the aisles of Nuremberg, and he commented that most Europeans have much more free time than we have in the US of A. They work 35 hours a week (as opposed to our 50 or 60) and have long, cold winters to sit inside and build their train sets, cars and planes.

And so, after their long winters, they emerge in the Spring to race their fast cars and fly their huge helicopters (this argument doesn't work for trains, unless we're talking about huge garden trains in Switzerland, but anyhow...). The hobby arts are dying off in the U.S. As a child, I was hugely into model trains, with subscription to Model Railroader magazine and the whole works (of course, I was a little nerd...). But now, you would be hard pressed to get an 11 or 12 year old American boy excited about a train set. And we built many model cars and planes, but now most big box stores are devoid of good car model kits. Maybe it's the toxic glue and paint, or maybe it's a lack of patience, I'm not sure.

Well, that's our observation of the day. Guten nacht from Germany.