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In my life I’ve never really been a person who listens to music much as I go from A to B.
Ok sure I have a radio in my car and I got very excited when I brought a walkman back in 1987, but in general as I’ve gone about my daily business I haven’t ever thought to myself, “Gosh this walk would be so much better if Bic Runga was accompanying it.”
I therefore have resisted the iPod revolution.
Yes, I thought they looked cool enough and seemed like a great idea, but all those hours of transferring CDs just to have a bit of music as I wandered about seemed pointless to me.
But then they started on the accessories!
Suddenly it wasn’t just about wandering about, it was about plugging it into your car on long journeys, it was about taking it on holiday and plugging it into the CD at the bach and suddenly having your entire CD collection with you and it was about downloading my set music onto it as venues seem to be in the process of phasing out CD players. Basically it was about time I got over myself.
The thing is though, I am tight.
OK sure I can spend $300 on that gorgeous dress, that’s perfectly rational, but when it comes to parting with cash for electronics I become my father’s daughter. (That is to say obsessed with getting the best generic product for the cheapest deal, not paunchy and bald with facial hair… well at least not yet.)
You’ll notice I said generic product there because no matter how good an idea the iPod seems to be I decided an MP3 player would suffice just as well.
I therefore headed off to Singapore’s Far East Plaza to do some shopping. (I was actually there to buy a new sparkly sequinned coat like the one I got last year but as that shop had closed down I thought some electronics might be nice.)
I then set about wheeling and dealing with various shifty types who started quoting me $230 for a 2G MP3 Player called EuroCyber only to drop right down to $160 as the final price.
I shopped around a bit and felt like I’d done a good deal. It was a player, a radio, a voice recorder, a photo library, a video player and a diary all rolled into one. iPods don’t do all that I told myself smugly as I opened up my package as excitedly as I had ripped into that walkman back in 1987.
Yes well, on struggling to get the volume control to work, on struggling to open up the USB port and on struggling to navigate through the menu I realised there was a reason iPods were so popular. I have got the hang of it now, and it’s actually not too tricky but user-friendly it isn’t.
Lucky I’m relatively computer literate and know how to download an AMV converter for MPEGS etc…. (sexy huh) because this is what the manual had to say: “Insert the random CD into the computer light to get rid of, find out the AMV in as follows… upgrade the tool gearing proceed.” (sic)
Right… it was like trying to read a boy’s mind. So, as per usual I’m figuring it all out myself.
Penny
Last updated: 28/04/2008
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