Anna Kaufman put it best in The Daily Californian today:
So I’m willing to accept that like all new technology, iPods and their ilk have their benefits and their drawbacks, their soaring musical highs and their crushing anti-social lows. And even if an acclaimed academic study came out proving that my precious [iPod] Jack was causing me to lose friends and alienate people, I’d still have a hard time giving him up. Not now, not after he’s been there for me so many times, like when I got stuck at the airport last weekend and his arsenal of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones was the only thing between me and my dear friend Britney slaughtering “I Love Rock and Roll” over the terminal’s loudspeakers in what can only be called a ritualistic sacrifice to stave off the end of her hopefully fading career.
Yeah, I've only had mine about 24 hours after it's whirlwind tour of the world from Shanghai to Anchorage to Indianapolis to here. I went out for drinks with a client and left it (I almost wrote "him") on my desk charging and I felt that something was missing.
I haven't settled on a name yet. I originally thought of "Mini Me" and then thought that there are probably thousands of iPods out there with that name. So, right now it's named "Leopold" -- you know, from What's Opera Doc?. Ok, so, I'm weird. It's all Daniel's fault. He was always going on about that cartoon.
But, really, why do I feel like I need to give hi-- it a name? Why am I anthropomorphising this little bit of plastic and metal so? It's just a tiny little computer slapped onto a hard drive which can really only do a few things, one of which is play music. It's not like my laptop which could do that and a whole lot more. There's something about the size, the utility, the freedom... No matter where I am I can listen to virtually any random thing I can think of. Kaufman uses the example of being able to hear "Tubular Bells" anywhere. What's scary is that we recently bought that from the iTunes Music Store. I think it's on Leopold now.
Leopold... hmmm... I'm not so sure about that one. Maybe I'll name it Daniel. Wouldn't he just love that...
Posted by andyjw at February 27, 2004 09:35 PM | TrackBack