Opaque Lucidity

Shuffling Along

So I bought an iPod Shuffle. Actually, it’s cool as hell. I was going to buy some other brand of flash-based player, but the Shuffle appealed to me for several reasons. First, it’s cheap. We are going on vacation in about a week and I don’t have the money to buy a Nano (you can’t buy one locally and by the time you pay for shipping and tax, it’s twice the price of a Shuffle).

Second, it’s all I need. I listen to podcasts and the Shuffle easily holds everything I need to put on it. And since an old podcast is sort of like yesterday’s newspaper, I remove them daily anyway, so space is not a problem. On top of all the podcasts I subscribe to, I can pack over 100 songs on it for those moments when I tire of hearing people talk. You may wonder what it’s like to not have an LCD display; to be honest, I don’t miss it. I set the Shuffle to play everything in order and since I listen to every podcast I download, it’s no problem. Most of the time, it’s out of sight anyway in my pocket.

Third, I have about 100 songs I’ve purchased in iTunes and I want to be able to take them with me. Legally, that required buying an iPod. I knew this when I bought my first iPod and I’m OK with it. Your mileage may vary.

Finally, it’s an Apple product. That means it does what it’s supposed to do very well and looks good doing it. I took the Shuffle out of the box and was loading podcasts on it three minutes later. It doesn’t get much better than that.