Why I decided it was time to purchase an iPod

Years ago I said I would never buy one.

Yesterday, after lunch with my mom and sister, I stopped into Best Buy and picked up a black, 80GB, iPod classic.

Of course, I was hit for various plans I could join - can't blame the guy, I guess - but left with just the iPod and Stranger than Fiction (Blu-ray), since I figured it was worth the $30 to make it my second Blu-ray disc.

It's pretty obvious, I hope, that I'm trying to suggest this movie to others. Go rent it, eh?

Naturally, I forgot to use the Rewards Zone coupons I had brought with ...

I put 537 songs onto it last night; that's 38 albums (three of which were actually just Una Slim albums, but they still count), which was a little less than 2.5 GB. Since I figured it was a special day, I also picked up both of Alizee's albums (I was amazed that they're now available - it's been a while since I checked, but at least as of The Departed coming out in theatres, she wasn't available) and Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral.

But, it wasn't all fun and music last night (especially when the computer kept hitting 100% CPU utilization). I also checked into an existing DTD for albums, with very little luck. One university site showed promise, but all it really did was reinforce that album should be the main parent.

I'd been holding out from purchasing one, but now that I have it, I don't really know why. At work I had the benefit of a CD player/radio, but I noticed yesterday that I was really hitting the wall for what CDs I was listening to. When I was listening to one thing, I'd want to listen to another, or I'd at least think of something that I hadn't heard for a while.

It's also been acting up, the player/headphone jack, and for whatever reason, the radio station I like to listen to at work, Charlie, seems to be having some broadcast issues (like the Lake was a few months ago).

It's probably a conspiracy to get people to buy into HD radio. Where the * did that come from? All of the sudden they're broadcasting ads for a technology that I've at least never heard of (and I keep up with tech fairly well, for things I'm interested in, such as radio).

Now I've just got to import the 200+ other albums I have and really determine how best to show my collection, in XML (from an old MS Access db).