for those about to rock

i am officially hip

over the past few days, i've been unable to go anywhere or do much of anything without the portable digital audio player that elliott and kyle gave me for my birthday.

as a guy who has commuted daily via public transit for the past couple of years, i once marveled at the growing ubiquity of the i-pod and other such devices. prior to the proliferation of apple's cash-cow juggernaut, i could've counted on one hand the number of people i saw on the bus or subway listening to walkmen or portable cd players. then, seemingly spontaneously, my rides to work began to resemble a scene from "invasion of the body snatchers", as i noticed more and more savvy twenty-something consumers sporting the i-pod or some other company's iteration of the product with every passing day. i half expected a wild-eyed don sutherland to furtively approach me one day on the train and whisper warnings of the "i-pod people" and their malicious designs for assimilation.

naturally, i wanted one -- hundreds and hundreds of songs crammed neatly into a nifty little number appealed greatly to my inner audiophile -- but a steep price tag and a lack of knowledge regarding competing devices kept me from making the jump to digital audio. quickly, my product envy festered into a grand, bitter pronouncement on the cultural moment; i was convinced that anyone i encountered with a pair of wires dangling from their ears was secretly screaming "attention, world! i'm hardwired into the mothership of my own cool!"

now that i have one, however, i'm an unashamed convert. as someone who enjoys making music, i have no reservations about surrounding myself with music at all times, even if it means cocooning up in my own self-absorbed pod while in public settings.

posted by jomilkman @ 9:54 AM