People do various things while commuting on the subways of our fair city. Some sleep. Others read. I would, but I don’t like looking at things and so instead I listen to my iPod. My commute is relatively short and, depending upon how many weeks I have to wait for the G train, there isn’t really enough time to read, anyway.
This past May, I bought an iPod Classic. It’s advertised as holding 160 GB worth of music and videos and photos, but in reality holds around 148 GB. Maybe a little false advertising, but fine. It’s still better than the Nano I used to have, which held 4 GB. Once I discovered the joys of podcasts, it could hold five songs if I wanted to be able to listen to WTF with Marc Maron, WNYC’s the Brian Lehrer Show or any other number of worthwhile programs. This reinforced a huge problem in our technologically advanced age that goes undiscussed. We’re supposed to have gadgets and services that make our lives more comfortable, but in reality simply create new and different kinds of stress.
Need to call your credit card company? Have fun waiting on hold for forty-five minutes. Is your cable out? Time Warner can send a service repairman to your apartment sometime around Valentine’s Day 2012. Is your computer crashing a lot? Well, you didn’t spend the extra $300 on the extended warranty, so go fuck yourself.
One would assume there’d be no downside to having 160 GB worth of music at your fingertips. I have about 58 GB of music in my collection, which means I won’t have to hear the same song twice until I’m ninety and my relatives have shoved me into a nursing home in another state so they never have to see me. But the iPod Classic is the only iPod not made using a flash motor. It has a mechnical motor, and you can hear it whir and click as it decides whether or not it wants to play Howard Jones’ Things Can Only Get Better. And there’s the problem. Most of the time it doesn’t. The damned thing is only six months old, and I usually have to reset it twice per day on average. How is that convenient? Or fun? How can I be like one of those hip, dancing people with an Afro in the iPod commercials when I have to reset the thing every time I want to hear a song?
We were told technology would set us free, but I’d gladly settle for a bit of good old fashioned totalitarianism if it would mean I could listen to side 01 of Foreigner’s Greatest Hits without having to reset my iPod twelve times during it. The mass starvation of millions of innocent civilians, decades-long sentences in labor camps and executing one’s political enemies are nothing compared to a snappy three-minute pop song.
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In this week’s installment of the podcast, you get to meet Gillian Bazzont, the winner of our Win a Date with Goldy contest. You can listen here and at SelfAbsorbed.me, and subscribe in iTunes.
Happy listening, comrades!
This past May, I bought an iPod Classic. It’s advertised as holding 160 GB worth of music and videos and photos, but in reality holds around 148 GB. Maybe a little false advertising, but fine. It’s still better than the Nano I used to have, which held 4 GB. Once I discovered the joys of podcasts, it could hold five songs if I wanted to be able to listen to WTF with Marc Maron, WNYC’s the Brian Lehrer Show or any other number of worthwhile programs. This reinforced a huge problem in our technologically advanced age that goes undiscussed. We’re supposed to have gadgets and services that make our lives more comfortable, but in reality simply create new and different kinds of stress.
Need to call your credit card company? Have fun waiting on hold for forty-five minutes. Is your cable out? Time Warner can send a service repairman to your apartment sometime around Valentine’s Day 2012. Is your computer crashing a lot? Well, you didn’t spend the extra $300 on the extended warranty, so go fuck yourself.
One would assume there’d be no downside to having 160 GB worth of music at your fingertips. I have about 58 GB of music in my collection, which means I won’t have to hear the same song twice until I’m ninety and my relatives have shoved me into a nursing home in another state so they never have to see me. But the iPod Classic is the only iPod not made using a flash motor. It has a mechnical motor, and you can hear it whir and click as it decides whether or not it wants to play Howard Jones’ Things Can Only Get Better. And there’s the problem. Most of the time it doesn’t. The damned thing is only six months old, and I usually have to reset it twice per day on average. How is that convenient? Or fun? How can I be like one of those hip, dancing people with an Afro in the iPod commercials when I have to reset the thing every time I want to hear a song?
We were told technology would set us free, but I’d gladly settle for a bit of good old fashioned totalitarianism if it would mean I could listen to side 01 of Foreigner’s Greatest Hits without having to reset my iPod twelve times during it. The mass starvation of millions of innocent civilians, decades-long sentences in labor camps and executing one’s political enemies are nothing compared to a snappy three-minute pop song.
***********
In this week’s installment of the podcast, you get to meet Gillian Bazzont, the winner of our Win a Date with Goldy contest. You can listen here and at SelfAbsorbed.me, and subscribe in iTunes.
Happy listening, comrades!
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