Steinbeck, the iPod

If you want to know the truth, I love my iPod.

Finally, after weeks of waiting, it arrived last Wednesday – one day after my grandfather passed away and two days before I really needed it for our weekend vacation. I had spent the two weeks prior re-importing all of our music onto the computer (at a higher bit-rate for better sound quality) and was nearly finished when it arrived.

I now know why Scott Hudson said it would change my life – it has, in a way. Kerrie and I have over 500 CDs, a collection that we’ve added to through over 50 years of combined music appreciation. Admittedly, most of the CDs are from earlier times (since we don’t do much music purchasing anymore after discovering satellite radio) but there’s a great selection of music to choose from and it’s incredibly handy having it all in one place.

I’ve named my iPod Steinbeck (any frequent reader of this blog should know why) and it now serves a few functions:

1. Car Audio System – Now that I’ve gotten Steinbeck filled with all of our music, Kerrie has begun taking the Sirius radio to work with her. The rules go like this: whoever drives our Jetta gets to listen to Sirius (since that’s where the car kit resides) and whoever drives the Contour gets the iPod. The bad thing is that I don’t have the proper car kit for the iPod, so the Contour driver is still screwed.

2. Home Music Collection – Our CDs and our stereo are not in the same place. Additionally, our CD player only holds 12 CDs at once, so super-duper-party-mix is not possible. Now, I can shuffle the entire collection and be surprised by what I hear. I’ve rediscovered the old stuff, and I’ve discovered a lot of stuff that was burned for me but I never listened to.

3. Portable Exercise Motivator – Not only is the iPod incredibly easy to carry and full of great music, but I’m hoping that it will help convince my body that it needs more exercise. I never did much in the way of physical activity because I hate doing it without music. My old mini-disc player was worthless in this respect because it took forever to record new discs, and I was tired of the discs I had recorded when I purchased the thing back in 2000. Of course, don’t hold your breath for this one… I’m still finding ways to postpone my exercising.

See? What a great idea, this iPod.

Never let anyone tell you that an iPod is a waste of money.

Currently, I have 4080 songs on the iPod – my entire collection (not every single song, but all of the good ones) plus a few that I’ve borrowed from my mom. My next mission is to fill in the holes by borrowing stuff from friends and family until I can’t fit anymore music on it. Then I’ve got to worry about selective deletion.

I never would have bothered listening to Led Zeppelin or some of Kerrie’s female folkies, but I don’t mind now. The shuffle, which will bring me Ween, followed by some old emo number, followed by Charlie Parker and then possibly Bjork or Neil Diamond, is the ultimate radio station. It’s everything I’ve ever had even a slight interest in, and it truly has changed my life.

I love you, iPod. I really do.

Here is my song list – it takes a while to load, and it’s in order by album name.