iPod

First off, sorry about the terrible post yesterday. I'm not going to delete it as a reminder to me that it is best to not add a blog entry after excessive drinking...though I must say that I impressed myself with my lack of typos. Let this be a lesson to everyone.

Now on to the point of this entry. After months of seeing my friends and brother get and use their portable MP3 players, I finally sucked it up and got myself one on Saturday. On Friday night, my buddy Ellis had mentioned that he just got an iPod so I figured I'd ask him a bunch of questions about it and go look at the Apple store myself. He seemed pretty satisfied with the iPod and a couple of my other friends had them, so that was my starting point.

I've never been in the Apple store before since I have a PC and don't feel like switching, so it was a new experience for me. The iPods were all on one table and I was bombarded with green shirt wearing salespeople wanting to answer my questions, which, in general, freaks me out. I left the store to regroup, and after a trip to Sears to see what the competition had to offer I returned to the Apple store.

Apparently, by leaving I put the scarlett letter on my chest, because now no one wanted to assist me. I walked up to a guy and asked him to answer a few questions for me. He really wasn't very helpful and seemed pissed off that I was asking him such "simple" questions as "What does it use for a battery?"

After he informed me that it was a Lithium Bicarbonate Superhydroxy Catamostrophic Cell, all I could do is give him a blank stare. Finally, after several exchanges I got out of him the important fact that the battery charges itself everytime you plug the iPod into the USB connection on your computer. I really wish he had come out and said that at first.

Then, I wanted to know if the iPod did anything else other than play MP3s. This seemed like a viable question, but apparently it was offensive to this delicate genius. "Like what?" he came back with.

Now, I'm baffled, I thought I was the unknowledgeable customer and the questions should be directed at him, not me. This really threw me for a loop, so all I could come up with was, "like an FM receiver??" He came back with a "no" and said there was an adapter that made that possible, and left it at that.

What he failed to tell me, though I bought the thing anyway, was that it also serves as a temporary hard drive where you can store other information on it. It also has a calendar with day planner, an alarm clock, and some games...including a "Name that Tune" type of game using the songs I put on the iPod. I would think that all of these things fall under the category of "what else the iPod can do." What an ass.

So, as I have already said, I bought the iPod. Actually I got a silver iPod Mini with 4 GB of storage space. I spent most of the day on Saturday organizing the 657 songs I already had on my computer using the iTunes program that comes with the iPod. It's a pretty good program, though I've pretty much gotten used to Musicmatch, so hopefully I'll get to like it.

Overall, I'd say it was a pretty good purchase, and I would recommend the iPod Mini to anyone else out there interested in getting an MP3 player. I wouldn't, however, recommend asking anyone at the Apple store for help...especially this pretentious dork who works at the Montgomery Mall store.

Anyway, I am one step closer to always having theme music with me wherever I go. I am about to go for a bike ride...I feel a "Life is a Highway" background kicking in right now.