Portable Music Rant
I know that today's Thanksgiving and I'm an ungrateful little prick, but it's times like this that I wished I had a larger capacity iPod. Right now, I only have my 1GB Shuffle and it has all of my contemporary tunes on it. I would love to add a Christmas list to that or have a second Shuffle filled with Christmas music. Alas, I lack the funds for either a second iPod or larger capacity device. I think that an 8GB Nano would do just fine, but I'm also of the opinion that I would quickly fill that up with un-listened-to podcasts, though it would allow me to take some House and Top Gear on the road.
Since I'm griping on the subject, I'll go ahead and say that a couple of years ago I cracked my car speakers listening to Apollo 13. I had the volume cranked all the way so I could hear the trumpet solo at the end of the album and the disc then repeated, which caused some damage. Now whenever I'm driving (unless I have the windows down) if there is a sound in a certain frequency range somewhere towards the bottom, the speakers crackle and vibrate like an empty aluminum can being rattled by sound. I'd love to get the speakers replaced, but that's $200 just for speakers plus installation.
Additionally, I want a car stereo that I can plug an iPod into. For the past couple of years I have used an FM transmitter, and while that does a reasonable enough job, the fact is it's impossible to get a negligible noise-to-signal ratio. Add to this the added bonus that somehow the cord that comes down to 1/8" male has pulled loose where it connect to the transmitter (presumably from holding the weight of the Shuffle these many years) I have to turn the thing upside down in order for the power not to kill on the transmitter and leave me listening to white noise. So to fix all of my car audio problems we're looking at $99 for a radio with either a line in or an iPod jack, $69 for the face plate, $200 for four new speakers and then depending on which method of hook up I go with, I'd have to buy a new iPod. Of course, I could go line in and use what I currently have, but that gets us back to the capacity argument. (Conversely, I could always get a Shuffle to Nano/Classic adapter and get a stereo that hooks up via "iPod" but then we're again back to the capacity argument.)
I can't remember if I've complained about this before or not, but here I am whinging now. In case you're wondering what precipitated this post, it is the combined lack of steady internet access at my folks combined with not being able to listen to Ronnie Milsap's O Holy Night, despite the fact that I much prefer and would follow up Michael Crawford's rendition.