even flow
Lighter, stronger, fitter, happier. It’s been a motherfucker of a week. Let’s talk about me for a change.
As that guy you know who’s a little too into gadgets and stuff, it is probably surprising to you to learn that I have never owned an iPod. Oh, I’ve been an MP3 player guy since the very beginning, having received the Diamond Rio PMP300 I’d ordered from the delivery guy during a meeting in the boardroom at Insite, prompting much jealousy from my colleagues (and now apparently run by a bunch of douchebags, if their website is any indication… but we knew that, yes) so many years ago. Next up was the Creative Nomad IIc, a worthy replacement when my Rio bit the dust, and as a solid-state player it lasted a good while.
Then huge-storage hard drives came along, and I was sold on the Rio Karma, with a whopping 20 gigs of spinning disk space, enough for almost all of my collection. Loved it ’til that spinning disk spun itself out, busted all too soon. The company who had bought the name ‘Rio’ went bankrupt not soon after, and that was the end of that.
Fortunately, the age of MP3 phones was upon us, and so I moved pretty easily into that world, swapping my way through the LG 8100 (OK) and the Motorola V710 (somewhat less OK on the MP3 side, though better as a phone) and then finally the Nokia 6265i (awesome all around). My current handset, the HTC 3050, is one of those seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time devices… e-mail and Windows and all that, but not very good as a phone, buggy, annoying, and with a shitty ‘media player’ that doesn’t allow you to turn the screen off to save battery life while you listen. Windows Mobile is rubbish. Tell your friends.
My 3050 disqualifies itself from use at the Carleton gym, where I’ve recently agreed to sweat in front of other people using equipment that’s not mine. No cellphones and especially no cameras up in there, see. No worries about being caught dripping fluids inadvertently at that place! What a relief!
And of course it’s ridiculous to move your limbs and torso without a soundtrack in accompaniment, which leads me to my latest shopping adventure, which was to acquire a standalone MP3 player or two.
Two because Jennifer needed one as well. She’s on the gym trip too, albeit one of those downtown Y snobs. If we could get over drinking wine all the time we’d be real gym rats!
After careful consideration (which is to say, standing around Future Shop at South Keys waiting for someone to help me and no one ever did – I hate that place and wouldn’t go there if it wasn’t for all the shiny flashy things) I found myself on Valentine’s eve at the Audiotronic shop across the street, helpfully assisted by a young gentleman who was quite pleased to direct me to the iPod counter. It was time to stop with the off-brand, second-best bullshit. Apple does MP3 players right, even if they won’t actually call them MP3 players because of some AAC nonsense.
Early Valentine’s gift delivered, I cracked open my new 8GB iPod Touch with 8GB iPod Touch packaging and 8GB iPod Touch SKU and 8GB iPod Touch price point, only to find my week improving just a little bit – yes, it was a 32GB iPod Touch inside that box, friends. The shiny backplate said 32GB, and the firmware agreed. Ace.
I can only assume this is an Apple screwup, as the store itself sold me the lesser model based on its barcode, which they would have received at the lesser model price. So I won’t feel bad about keeping the better product, $160 price difference notwithstanding.
My Touch and I walked over to Loblaws this afternoon to pick up a few things. I loaded up my ‘favorites’ playlist along the way. It was awesome and I felt kind of lucky, for everything.
The White Stripes, ‘I’m Slowly Turning Into You’