Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Man vs. Shuffle
Now that a certain former roommate of Karen’s is hanging around my blog, I thought I would indulge in a bit of memoirist BS.
When Karen and I were first dating, I knew she had had a previous boyfriend, but I didn’t know a thing about him. I didn’t feel particularly comfortable asking, either, because what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me, right?
But there was one guy who kept appearing, both in conversation and in person, so I figured he had to be the guy. Karen’s roomie, Kira, once went so far as to compare me to him. “Ah, a Renaissance man,” she said. “Remind you of anyone, Karen?”
So who was this guy? Turns out Bill was an old classmate of Karen’s and Kira’s, not an old love interest. (I think Karen was a bit shocked when my misunderstanding came to light.) Just as I made a nice life for myself at Berkeley melding the hard sciences with the humanities, Bill had found a way to meld computer science with linguistics. And now he’s some sort of Linux guru.
What does this have to do with the iPod shuffle? Well, Bill and I might both have been Renaissance men, but our skill sets scarcely overlapped. I was, and I remain, nearly computer-illiterate. And while Bill once professed to me with near-religious fervor, “Music is very important to me,” I still can’t bring myself to such an exalted state. Nowadays, I might reply to Bill, “Yeah, there are some songs I like.”
A few weeks ago, I won an iPod shuffle at our local grocery store’s “grand re-opening.” How exciting! I took it home, plugged the ISB cable into the ISB slot, docked my shiny new iPod, and waited for it to do shit. And waited. And waited.
My iTunes files were still there, so what could be the problem? For the life of me, I couldn’t find the button to “sync” my iTunes with my iPod. The iPod didn’t come with a CD, nor did it come with much in the way of instructions, and the online help was a masterful exercise in unhelpfulness.
This morning, I decided to give it another try, and once again, it was a non-starter. Then I slid a few things around on the iPod, plugged things in, unplugged things, and plugged things backed in, undocked the iPod, re-docked the iPod, and all of a sudden the little beast wanted to sync with iTunes.
So I’m wired, kids. Man vs. Shuffle, and Man wins! Fuck technology! Hallelujah, technology! Bill would be chortling if he could see 1/10 the grief this silly thing has given me.
Playing right now: Depeche Mode, “Enjoy the Silence.”
Live-blogging tonight: sometime around 7 to 8 PM PST. See ya soon.
D.
PS: these “ear buds” suck big time. I’m using headphones.
ISB cable? Is that new? I’ve only seen USB cables and slots. 😉
And I’m terrible at acronyms, too.
i dont like shuffles. i like to control my music, or at the very least, SEE what’s playing, because i often will hear a song and go wtf is that? where did that come from? and then i look and go, OH, that’s what. so yeah. i mean i’d take it if it was free, but i’d never get one for myself.
I don’t like it because I’m suspicious of anything so small which has such a huge memory. Sentience can’t be far behind. Then I might find myself listening to Cher, or Queen, or Love Story theme music if the damned thing gets vindictive.
If you don’t like this, what the heck is wrong with you???? 🙂
Bohemian Rhapsody? I would rather have nitric acid poured into my ear canals 😉
OH NO! Doug! Say it ain’t so! You don’t love Bohemian Rhapsody? How can this be??? 😛
Isn’t it neat to think that wee doohicky has a bigger brain than a Commodore 64?! I bought that for Husband for X-mas. They are THE THING to have in the gym, but I must implore you to get better earbuds, the apple ones are notoriously shit! Actually, as an ENT (Focus here on the E), what kind of earbud would you recommend? I have JVC squish and insert ones so they block out external noise, but I’m ordering the Sennheiser sportline ones as they are highly recommended by runners and are sweatproof – nothing worse than sweat sodden earbuds.
I’ll share some of my workout music links if you want – free downloads for heart thumping techno tunes!
Damn, DCR beat me to to it. But my line is good, so I’m going to use the fucker anyway:
plugged the ISB cable into the ISB slot
Well, there’s your problem right there…
Shaina, I have despised that song ever since being forced to listen to a student production of it at a high school assembly. It’s nails on a chalkboard to me.
Lyvvie, I’ll have to find out what the brand is on the ones my wife swears by. They come with different-sized attachments so that you can fit them to your ear canals.
Dean, I already said I’m bad at acronyms. (I must have been thinking about ISBN numbers.) Stop making fun of the handicapped person 😉
Yay! 500,000 viewers. Too bad 98% of these have been searching for camel toe and butt cleavage 😉
I’ve suspected there was something wrong with you, but now you’ve removed all doubt.
’tis a sad, sad day.
We need to do an intervention and get you into musical therapy right away! 🙂
Hanging around? I think of it as the pause that refreshes! Bill – last time I saw him was a chance meeting at a restaurant in Saratoga. Much the same, only more so. How many short, hairy, members of the tribe can one have in one’s life?
I admit to being weirdly Luddite about the whole MP3 player thing, mostly to my techy husband’s amusement. I was a late adopter of the CD (I didn’t switch until my then boyfriend was driven so insane at my backwardness that he gave me a CD player; my 500+ record collection got ‘sold’ in 2002) and now still haven’t ripped, torn, burned, charred, seared, whatever my many, many discs. Who has the time? I’ve considered sending my CDs off to one of those firms that does it for you, but at $1 (or so) a disc, can’t bring myself to do it. So, forced to listen to – gasp! – the radio (http://www.wrgfm.com/). The only real English-language station in the UN’s version of Euro Disney. It’s that or weird Francophone stations. Wonder why Tallinn had much better radio (http://www.u-pop.ee/)? Oh, wait! Estonia v. Switzerland – no contest on the coolness meter…
Sorry for the blathering. It’s been one of those days.
You need to make it to live-blogging one of these evenings. Then I’ll get Karen on the camera, too, and it’ll be like Old Home Week 🙂
Oh, and to answer your question: you can never, ever have too many short, hairy tribals in your life!