Oh, Sweet Teansy Bliss

That's right! I have an iPod Shuffle, at least I think that's what it was before I lost it in the sofa. I didn't actually pay for it, but quasi-won it at work. To improve our morale, we are subjected to things like chocolate fountains, or ice cream socials in lieu of more pay, I guess. We also have annoying trivia challenges sent out by e-mail. I will not condescend to contribute, unless it's about science, or fiction, or science-fiction. Plus, in the age of google, what the hell good is a trivia contest? It should be a "google this, nerds" contest. Fortunately for me, my co-worker pal, does not have such high standards and won this ipod shuffle for her fine googlery. She already had an iPod so she gave her winnings to me! Props to Ms. Andrews for bring me into the 21st century at last.

Within no time, it was brimful with 1Gb of Bach. 279 "songs" to be exact. Nothing quite like a random shuffling of the Well-Tempered Klavier! It's how Bach really meant it to be heard, but random had not been invented yet, so he was forced to number things. Maybe I should rip the entire WTK played by my three faves; Schiff, Hewitt, and Gould, set it to random, and see if I can pick out who is who?! Such an activity would amuse perhaps only me... ok, not even me.

One thing is obvious, this world of ripping music does not sit well with the classics since the CD manufactures do not even bother to make computer-friendly titles. My bulk load of Baroque has about a dozen tracks named "allegro", and many called things like "P13" - so helpful with my alphabetical sort which ends with about 20 pieces labeled "untitled" followed by a series of squares. I have an entire CD on which most of the "songs" appear as a series of squares. I tried pasting those squares into an e-mail to show someone, and Outlook turned it into Chinese! Maybe it's a pirated copy of Corelli's Viola Concerti? I imagine a huge underground market for Italian Baroque composers. Come to think of it, the CD was strangely cheap for the fantastic quality. Hmmm.

Indeed, technology is an amazing thing. Erika is not yet 3, but I can imagine the day when I will be telling her, "Ya know, in my day, you could actually see the music players. Yes, they were that big. We had to put them in our pockets. And worse than that, they would only hold several hundred dollars worth of music."