I'm Totally Clueless About Acoustic Guitars

I'm visiting a good friend of mine in Seattle this Spring Break. While we're unable to go to the beach to pick up passed-out underage blondes, this city remains pretty interesting and fun despite the cold and the rain and the constant threat of attack from Megaladons. It's good to know that yuppies on the west coast have problems too and that we've finally got some ammo against them when the next "War Between the States" starts.

However, this week is not my friends' spring break, and while she goes to classes, I wander the city and will occasionally pick up her acoustic guitar. The more I play it, the more I realize that I have no idea what separates a good acoustic guitar from something that would be better suited as kindling. I guess I've just become so dedicated to raging distortion and ear-bleeding solos that I forgot about the simple power of a hollow wooden box with a hole in it. Either that or I'm just slightly more clueless about acoustic guitars than I am about electric guitars.

Although "Grandpa's Guitars" have never really been my thing, I've started to appreciate them more as I've become an old man. And while I'm enough of a snob to recognize good brands from awful brands, I still have no idea what makes one acoustic better than another. If you know, please tell me because it's tearing me up inside. I'm losing sleep, and not just because I' doing horribly in almost every class I'm in. I feel that the sooner I can get this awsomecustic/acrapstic issue settled, the sooner I can not suck at school.