iPod Madness

I'm not much on fads, but I have to say I love my iPod. It was a long road to actually get me to own one. N wanted one and her Dad got it for her for Christmas a couple of years ago. I thought it was a pretty cool little unit, but I had no personal use for one myself. The next Christmas N got me a Shuffle. The shuffle is a small thing that looks like a pack of Wrigley's gum and holds about 100 songs. I didn't use it much at first, but over the past year have used it more and more, but I still had no use for the big kid's iPod.
Then two things happened that changed my mind. Now, I drive about 45 miles each way for work. In the mornings I would listen to Howard Stern, and a local talk radio guy in the afternoon. While not a huge fan of either, they were pretty good when graded on the local radio curve. Rush hour radio in Dallas-Fort Worth sucks. Equal parts talk, music, and commercials. And none done well. But at the end of last month, Stern moved to Sirius satellite radio. I toyed with getting one, but again, I don't like Stern that much. So I tried his replacement (David Lee Roth) and it was predictably awful, so I was looking for some kind of entertainment to keep me sane. Now, when we travel we take N's iPod and hook it into an FM transmitter. That way we can listen to her iPod over the truck's radio. The only issue is that it's very weak and is overpowered in any large metro area. There is, I found, a cure for this. I have to say at this point that if you are with the FCC, any and all modifications were made for experimental and hobby purposes. Basically these transmitters are little radio units that put out a signal to about 3 feet. Ten minutes with a soldering gun extends that to about thirty feet. This solved the issue of not being able to use this little gem in town. And I get to share what I'm hearing with every car within that thirty feet. I'm sure they appreciate that.
So, I went out and got a used iPod, which still has more features and capacity than I will use. I paid about half of what a new one costs and the thing is like new. I spent a week dumping everything in the house that I might listen to into the iPod. I have also had a pleasant surprise, Podcasts. I'm most likely the last person on the planet to discover these, but so be it. I won't even go into the variety available, but in case I'm the next to the last person, and you are actually the last person, here's an idea. I can, for free, download other radio shows, or shows that showcase a certain kind of music, books, comedy, political analysts, etc etc. You get the idea. Either way, I can customize in multiple ways what I hear through the stereo depending on what I feel like right at that moment.
All in all I am very happy with the iPod. It does more than I thought, and the more I use it the more I like it. And if I can ever teach my silhouette to dance, I think that gets me up to speed on the whole iPod culture.