my obsessive ipod

first off, i’ll not capitalize the “p” in ipod. if steve jobs wants to come after me, let him.

my new ipod is playing favorites.

first off, well, second off, i now have an ipod. i realize that i am the last new yorker to have an ipod, but i’m now the proud owner of an ipod shuffle.

this in itself is not much of an accomplishment. ipod shuffles are the premium du jour for nearly every marketer in america. you get a shuffle for opening an checking account, or free with your fill-up at mobil, or i think with each happy meal at mcdonalds. if you’ve paid for one, you are a fool.

kirk got this shuffle as a prize for answering survey questions. hours worth of surveys (at least it takes him hours, because unlike everyone else who fills out online surveys, he actually reads the questions and thinks about his answers) over the course of years (maybe two years?) but it all paid off. i used to kid him about these surveys, but now i have an ipod so i can’t complain.

he also got a free 25-pound bag of a new cat food to evaluate, and i’m pretty convinced that it killed my precious 18-year old cat jeff. but that’s a blog for another day. perhaps tomorrow.

anyway, i now listen to my ipod every day on the way to work, on the cross-trainer machine at the gym, and on the way home. i stay alert, though, for the evildoers on the subway and all. i’m not totally oblivious. i’m just aware of my surroundings whilst also listening to “money back guarantee” by the five man electrical band.

which brings me to my point. i have tons of crap that was downloaded back when you didn’t get thrown in jail for downloading. all of which, of course, i bought on vinyl or cd or cassette at one point but am too lazy to rip into mp3s, so i just downloaded it instead because, of course, i haven’t heard a new song since the pixies broke up the first time.

and i’ve loaded all of these mp3s into itunes, and my shuffle can pick from them at random, and play them back at random. i have lots of great stuff, all my old favorites from my einstein-a-go-go nightclub dj-ing days. i have ministry. i have faith no more. i have book of love. i have skinny puppy. i have my beloved pixies. i have hundreds and hundreds of great songs.

including my one purchase from itunes, which was the entire sugarland album. i am a kristen hall fanatic, and am so happy that she is finally making buckets of money because she is the most talented performer on the face of the planet, bar none, and no one deserves this success more than she. and i’m pretty sure she’s the brains behind all their music, because you can hear her stamp on every song. just because she’s in the background, don’t kid yourself.

and that’s in the mix for my ipod too.

but what does my ipod play? every freaking time i turn it on? “money back freaking guarantee” by the five freaking man electrical freaking band.

i have read stories by people who swore that their ipods had favorite songs.

and i thought these people were idiots.

i now apologize to them.

they are right. it’s not a settings thing, and it’s not an “i don’t know how to use my ipod” thing. it’s a matter of this ipod fixating on a song, and this is the song.

i have not heard any other song more than once. i hear this song each and every redundant and superfluous time i use the damn thing.

maybe steve jobs can recommend an exorcist for my ipod. he owes me that much. i practically singlehandedly kept apple afloat when i was teaching school, buying and recommending computer equipment.

you can say what you want. but i know apple well enought to know that this “feature” is probably programmed in as a joke, and they aren’t telling anyone. that’s exactly the kind of thing they’d do.

in the meantime, if anyone knows the place to get the anti-earworm hack for an ipod shuffle, i’d be much obliged. i’d thank you kindly.