Thursday, August 12, 2010

Myriads and Myriads of Songs

A number of weeks ago, as my wife and I waited at the car dealership for the paperwork to go through on her new car, I remembered that she had received an iPod nano earlier in the year as a 40th birthday present. She'd intended to use it when working out, but the car accident had made her trips to the gym become much less frequent.

Having nothing else to do (it was too hot out to walk), I dug into her purse and took a look at the tracks that had been downloaded by her brother-in-law. I chuckled as I saw that Lady Gaga's "Love Game", one of my favorites, was on there. I listened to it and then moved on to Kanye West's "Stronger". More than 1500 songs were on the device, mostly pop music that ranged from the 50's to present day.

A few days later, as I walked in a park while waiting for her to get through with a doctor's appointment, I found some great 80's gems on it: Simple Minds' "Alive and Kicking", Dwight Twilley's "Girls", and Mick Jagger's "Just Another Night", a song that was rolling through my head as I worked yesterday.

I started to see the value of utilizing such a contraption on a day-to-day basis. One thing I didn't like were the white put-em-in-your-ear buds. They didn't have the dynamic sound I was used to getting with my cover-the-entire-ear-itself phones. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my bigger headphones fit in the iPod's headphone port.

The last hurdle to truly enjoying it was adding some of my favorite tunes (I have more than 500 CD's). As I've noted a number of times in the past, I've never downloaded a song. This is no longer the case. I went to iTunes recently and, over the past few weeks, have put dozens of tracks from my personal collection onto the nano.

It's remarkable to me all the places in which I can use it. I listen to it when going out to play with the dog, when eating out on my own, at the movie theatre waiting for the show to start, doing grocery shopping, browsing for books at the library, taking a walk on my lunch break, posting to this site, and so on.

The only potential downside is the Nano's color:



But Lord knows it wouldn't be the first time that someone thought I was a Batty Boy.

6 comments:

ExtraO said...

Cute!! I have a nano too (mine is white), but I only use it when working out, or on long car rides, or sometimes when cleaning. Teenagers pop those things in their ears ALL THE TIME though.

Timothy Smith said...

My daughter bought me a nano and I did not see much value in it but agree with your experience. Mine is only a 2GB but I can keep enough stuff on it for what I use it for. I downloaded a free program that rips my CDs and goes out on the internet to download the song titles etc. I don't use ITunes, my brother got me a program that makes the nano work like a small hard drive moving songs back and forth.

Dave said...

I wouldn't be without mine although it is a little safer in the colour department (black) and my car even has an ipod connector.

I am not the biggest fan of Apple but even I have to confess that it should go down as one of the greatest inventions of the century :)

Rocketstar said...

Welcome to 2010 Thomas! ;o)

I am now feeling the same way about my smart phone, I use the music player on it a lot and the next phone I want a much better speaker.

Chris Ledgerwood said...

Sounds cool, but I don't even own a cell phone. So what would I know!!

Nikki Neurotic said...

Thanks for reminding me that I REALLY need to buy a new iPod. Mine died a few weeks ago and I'm realizing just how dependent on it.