For my 25th birthday, my parents decided that as a gift, they would give me an iPod. I’ve wanted one of the little chrome and white things for a while, but I hadn’t fully grasped the control the little thing would have over my life or how obsessive I would get over it.
20 GB of music (roughly 4,000 songs) is a lot of music. Way too much music, it may be said. 4,000 songs are hours of music. I will probably never get to enjoy hours of music for fear that If I listen to one album more than once, it will be a waste of money. If I listen to each track, in about 15 days, I will have listened to everything.
Fun times.
I’m slightly ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), which roughly translates as having too many choices is my downfall. I’m also slightly OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) with a splash of TMD (Technology Meddling Disorder). The mix creates a superhuman with the attention span of Ruth Gordon and the technical prowess of my grandfather.
(Side Note: My grandfather wears two digital watches on both wrists because he watches two television programs daily. He, therefore, needs two alarms to alert him when his shows are on television.)
When is too much music just too much?
On my computer, I have 7588 songs (21 days, 1 hour, 11 minutes of music). I became compulsive with my friend Justin, another technical Meddler, to assemble the ultimate collection. Most of the albums I own and have encoded into my computer. I’m not a Napster user because of my OCD which makes me encode all my music at a certain bit rate (160 kbs) and with the same encoder (iTunes AAC 1.1 or higher). I am so obsessed that I hear imperfections in other people’s music that I’m not sure are there or not. I have actually gotten MP3s from friends and then bought the album to create my own MP3s. I actually buy more CDs now than I used to, so I guess I’m what the record companies love, a psychotic listener.
Not that I’m not extremely happy about owning the little bastard. I’m growing to love my little iPod and the freedom it brings. I hope I have enough time to listen to 4,000 songs and not get fired because of it.
Happy Holidays from Apple & Will Ferrell
-Not related at all to the above entry, we at Fun Time Tree House, Inc. would like to send congratulations to A Day Late and a Dollar Short on their wedding anniversary and for publishing some of the soppiest e-mails I have ever had the privilege to read. Funnily enough, I have the exact same e-mails from college. Funny how falling in love works.