My Gifts are Gettting Earlier and Earlier

It seems that all my gifts arrive early these days. Actually, the process is: I mention to Tammy that I might like to get something, then she says okay, and then tacks a rider on it: “That’s your $EVENT present.” Where $EVENT is “birthday”, “Christmas”, or in this case “10th Anniversary”. 😉

The present in this case is a shiny white 80 GB iPod Video.

I’ve had an iPod Shuffle 512 MB for over a year now, and used it as an anti-psychosis agent on my bus commute every day. It has been a great success, and I’ve been very happy with it. However, it is limited: it can only play a virtually random set of songs, kinda like listening to the radio without commercials or DJ’s. If you want to have any control over what you listen to, it’s a little difficult.

What spurred the upgrade was the desire to start listening to podcasts on the bus ride. For the uninitiated, podcasts are generally prerecorded talk shows. Due to the modest technical requirements for making a podcast (Apple includes excellent software for doing just that with every Mac they sell), it has taken off as a method of grassroots journalism and publishing. Of course, I knew all of this at some level, but it wasn’t until I found something I was looking for that I realized just how widespread and deep the field is. From Harvard University lecture series to nutjobs recording in their basement, they’re all here on a level playing field. Apple’s iTunes software has a search and directory of podcasts, you can subscribe, automatically download and sync them to your iPod.

Obviously, if you only can listen to random things on a Shuffle, it’s a wee bit difficult to listen to a podcast, or even find one. I did that one morning: I loaded 80 songs and a podcast on my Shuffle, and started listening to music and reading. About halfway to work I decided I wanted to listen to the podcast. So I had to start searching for it among all of the songs. Press next. Listen. That’s not it. Press next. Listen. That’s not it. Press next…” Repeat about 40 times. So now I’ve got the real deal. Right now, I’ve subscribed to three different programming podcasts, CBC’s Quirks and Quarks, and a Russian instructional one. Just for a laugh I ripped a couple of X-Files episodes from my DVDs and put them on there too. Maybe I’ll watch an episode on the way home.

Thank you Tammy. This was a great anniversary gift, seven months early.