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April 27, 2008
Whole Different Soundtrack
Last night I traveled across vast distances of time and space from Harlem down to the Lower East Side for Dr. Jeff's birthday party. I saw a lot of friends that I see too rarely, ate Foxy's superdelicious bacon cake, and managed to get my iPod stolen.
It is always frustrating to lose something rather valuable, but even more frustrating to have to adapt to the lack of that technology. As it was 2 in the morning, it was easier to walk 8 avenues to get to the A/C than wait endlessly for the L train to arrive, and I was aurally assaulted by all the strange sounds that I'm normally insulated from by my own personal soundtrack to my life. Headphones and the new Madonna song block a lot of things, plus the right tempo makes me haul butt across the cityscape.
The traffic buzzed past, their tires sucking to the wet pavement, while the crazy man who I normally would have ignored managed to point out the swarms of at least 30 rats milling about the sewer drain at 6th and 14th. Oddly enough, I moved closer to him. The shrill drunken girl conversations, the loud vomiting of the man in the suit against a building around 7th Ave, and the reflexive honking of cabbies morse-coding their way down the street invaded what is normally one of my favorite strolls. I love NYC, but my walk showed me how much I'd built up a defense against the part of it that isn't so pleasant.
The bar was so packed before I left that I was unable to grab any reading material like the Onion to entertain me, and I could no longer play Solitaire on the iPod. The 30 minute wait for a train did nothing to improve my crankiness, making me at least wish I had drank more than two beers over four hours.
So now I guess I'm buying a new iPod, as I know my love affair with my city has certain limits. My 40 gig model was bursting at the seams, but it is honestly pretty rare that I listen to all of my songs. I will buy either a 60 gig iPod Classic, or an 8 gig Nano. Any recommendations from anyone? I really have no idea how I would pick ONLY 8 gigs of music, but I like the small size and solid state construction. Having 60 gigs of music wouldn't exactly help my really prioritize, but it is also an excellent backup of music.
I figure I'll be shopping for something on Monday or Tuesday, so any advice is appreciated. After that, I promise to write about the magical underpants quest.
Posted by G at April 27, 2008 12:05 PM
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Comments
Take something electronic (if you have it) to recycle at Tekserve on Monday and maybe you'll win a free iPod.
http://www.tekserve.com/about/recycling.html
Posted by: barry at April 27, 2008 01:36 PM
No advice, but let us know what you choose! Marc's new car has an iPod jack, so I've been thinking of buying him one. My iPod is a few years old, and that's the last time I shopped for one. So I don't know what the options are now (and the pros and cons of each).
Posted by: Jess at April 27, 2008 04:27 PM
I heard CD players are making a comeback. (will he fall for it?)
Posted by: Doug at April 28, 2008 02:56 AM
I'll hold my tongue and not say anything like "serves you right for picking the wrong party", or anything of the sort.
Oh, wait.
Posted by: Stephen J. Xanthos at April 28, 2008 11:58 AM
I have several iPods both and Nano, but before I bought my iPhone I found that I used the Nano most frequently, mostly because it's just so gosh darn convenient. I just set up some Smart Playlists in iTunes to upload my most frequently listened to music to it. You can also set up a Smart Playlist containing recently purchased music so you can listen to things you just bought. Or you can set up Smart Playlists to choose random stuff from your library.
As you point out, it's pretty rare to listen to more than 8 gigs of music in one sitting, and if you're just looking for backup storage you can probably buy an external hard drive and a nano for what a big iPod costs.
Posted by: Alan at April 28, 2008 02:33 PM
I actually got rid of my 60 gig iPod (gave it to a deserving friend) and bought an 8 gig nano. I actually got a second generation one as a clearance item on the Apple web site. Hey and 8 gig nano for the price of a 3rd generation 4 gig?
Anyway, the nice thing about the nano. No moving parts. Bad thing. It's small and easy to lose track of which pocket it's in.
Over all, I'm really like the nano. Just back up your music files on your external drive at home.
Posted by: Tony at April 28, 2008 04:06 PM
I happily gave up my 2nd Generation 30G iPod for the 4G Nano (1st gen).
While the 4 has some limits, it is tons better than the 30G. I could never ever manage my music in a good way (don't start me on Playlists).
While upping to an 8G would be good, the 4 still works fine. When it dies, I'll see what to do, but I don't know what I'd do w/60G.
Maybe I'll get an iPhone.
Posted by: Blobby at May 3, 2008 06:26 PM