Two Truths and a Lie

Today I decided that I would drop by Best Buy to look into some of those mini-mp3 players.

ASIDE: Does anyone remember back when those Sony mini-discs were the hip things? I remember that when I first went to college (6+ years ago now), I rode in the truck of this guy who had mini-disc everything: his stereo in his dorm room, a portable one, and a stereo system in his car that would play mini disc.

This was when mp3s were just starting. I remember using audiogalaxy.com to find FTP sites to log into to download music my first semester of law school. Then it Audiogalaxy developed some sort of a device that was great. You could download this client that you would open. Then search online for music at audiogalaxy. Then you would just add that to the queue. It would automatically download the song whenever the host computer logged on.

I digress in my digression. This guy had a portable MD player that was so much cooler than my battery-consuming cd player that lasted 6 hours on two AA batteries. I wanted one of these things. The funny thing is that Sony did the same thing with MD players that they did with Beta. MD is better than mp3 or ACC as far as sound quality. However, it's a proprietary file-format so they screwed themselves over. This is how VHS beat Beta. Thank goodness DVD came around. Thank goodness digital files came around in other forms too.

I digress.

I went to Best Buy looking for one of the shiny new Apple Shuffles. When I got into the parking lot I was quickly reminded that everyone goes shopping if they have MLK's birthday off work.

Irk.

Do I go in or not? If I go in it means that I have to look for a place to park and then fight with the crowds. I decide that if a parking spot opens near the store then I'll park and go in.

One does. I go in. Bingo. There are the music players.

I trample over a couple of kids in my haste to locate the player I want. Then the worker guy comes over in his blue shirt to tell me that I shouldn't buy the Apple Shuffle. Something about how listening to albums is more enjoyable than listening on shuffle. That it doesn't have a screen to help you figure out what album you're listening to. That it is only 512mb instead of a lot more like you can get with other players.

Too bad I don't want all of those features. I want a little player that will shuffle the music for me so that I can enjoy my runs.

The cap will fall off, he tells me.

Too bad...I want it!

Well, we don't have them in stock yet.

What? You argue with me about what music player I need, after I tell you that I want the Shuffle, only to tell me that you don't even have any available?

Want one of the other players I mentioned?

Irk!