Joining the iPod club

Hooha! I got an iPod for my birthday! I was hinting, but it was still a surprise. It's a green 3rd generation 8 Gig iPod Nano. The third gen nanos have video, too!

I've already gotten into iTunes and pulled in all my ripped CDs. I also subscribed to a bunch of podcasts (some favorites that I was simply pulling off YouTube, some I had downloaded directly from their host websites).

My sister got me an iTunes gift card, too, so I was able to buy some songs I found out about from Pandora (there's only one MC Chris song on iTunes!! Lame!) I also pulled in two Mitch Hedberg Comedy Central tv specials. I've yet to get my own videos on there - that's something I'd like to do, and I'll updates here as I figure that out.

But, overall, I'm totally digging my iPod. I'm finding iTunes and syncing up my iPod to be an easier process then I thought it would be, and I have no complaints about the click-wheel or using the iPod interface (two things I've heard other people complain about). I am definitely seeing how one could get lured into the "listen to my iPod everywhere all the time" thing - it's awesome having so much music so easily available in such high quality in such a small package. I can't believe I actually worked out in the garden last summer with a Sony DiscMan clipped onto my belt...

I love Pandora.com!

My wife turned me on to this great online radio station / music website, Pandora.com . You tell it what music you like, and it then picks songs for you, playing them back to back without interruption. You help it learn what music you like by giving songs a thumbs up or thumbs down (or nothing to be neutral). I've been using it for a few weeks and it's fairly refined, almost always playing music that I really like (across multiple genres even!).

It'll play bouncy fun music like They Might Be Giants, then go to some nice J-pop, then to something like Primus or Soul Coughing or even Prodigy... but always something good! The feedback system is simple and fun and you can query it to find out "why" it is playing certain songs.