A New Toy!

My 32nd birthday was last week, and here I am with the coolest present I've gotten in a long time (since Castle Grayskull?)- yes, I'm talking about the beautiful San Francisco Giants t-shirt from Matt DiPietro. Of course, the t-shirt was nothing compared to the birthday greeting he gave me on his blog.

OK, I guess the iPod that the wife surprised me is a wee bit more exciting than a Giants shirt. I bought a 128 MB IRiver MP3 player while I was in Denver, and it's great for jogging- it's tiny, but doesn't hold much music. I've been talking about getting a large-capacity MP3 player for a long time now, and I think Jen got it for me just to shut me up. It's one of the new (5th generation) iPods, that will play video (although I don't forsee using that feature very often). It's got 30 GB of space, yet it's half the size of a pack of smokes! See below:



I'm going to have a lot of fun with this thing, once I figure out how to use it. My only major complaint so far is that all that came with the thing was a pair of headphones and a data/charging cord that connects to a USB port. If I want to charge it in a wall outlet, I've gotta buy a $30 piece of equipment! Or, if I want to run an audio line out to a stereo, view pictures/video on a television, get a strap to take it running...I'll probably be spending an additional $100+ in accessories. I guess that's just the way it goes, but it still pisses me off a little.

There's also the issue that you need to be running iTunes software on any computer that you want to transfer files from. My PC at home is using Windows 98, so that won't work, and the security settings at work won't allow me to install software on my computer.

So far here's what I have on my iPod:
Bruce Springsteen- Greeting from Asbury Park, NJ
Cloud Cult- Advice from the happy hippopotamus
The Hold Steady- Separation Sunday
Mike Doughty- Haughty Melodic
The New Pornographers- Twin cinema
Nick Lowe- Basher- (The Best of)
Patti Smith- Horses
Shout Out Louds- Howl Howl Gaff Gaff
Spoon- Gimme Fiction
Matt Votel's Punk Mix

and one video- Phish- You Enjoy Myself- 12/31/94. Phish has started offering video downloads of certain live performances for $2/song. I downloaded this just to check out the video feature of the iPod. The picture is really nice and clear, but the screen is tiny. Plus, watching video drains the battery like crazy. I don't think I'm going to be downloading many videos to my iPod.

I've still got to figure out exactly how I'm going to use my iPod- how selective I'm going to be about music that I put on the thing, etc. I'm sure my entire CD collection won't quite fit, but I might focus more on newer music, or CDs that I haven't listened to a lot, along with essential stuff.

Like I said, I probably won't be using the video playback very often, but it's pretty cool to see Trey and Mike do their trampoline thing during YEM right now!