All this talk about iTunes has me thinking about getting an MP3 player. I hate buying CDs since there is usually a couple of songs I really want and the price! So, I went on eBay and boy o boy I got confused. I was wondering if you or your lovely readers have any opinion on iPod vs. cheaper MP3 players. Is the iPod worth the extra money because of better sound or durability? Anyone who has a different, cheaper MP3 player – any suggestions as to brand thats worked out for you?
Feel free to leave a comment on the subject!
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I am currently reading
Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson, and liking it a lot. I was worried that I wouldn’t enjoy it all that much because the entire reason I bought it is that I saw it in the store, picked it up to look at it, and saw that there was a blurb on the front from Stephen King, who said that it’s the best book not of the month, not of the year, but of the entire decade.
That’s an awful lot for a little book to live up to.
And I’ve found over the years that books that Stephen King really likes, I’ll buy at his recommendation (not that he’s calling me up and saying “Robyn! OMG! You’ve GOTTA read this book, it’s amazing! LOL!” you understand, just that I’ve read his recommendation somewhere and decided to buy the book solely because of that) and read and when I’m done I’ll think “What the hell was he going on about? It wasn’t that great…” But I continue to buy the books he recommends because I’m helpless not to (it’s a sickness, I think. I’m a book hoarder! Just ask
Nance!) even though I’ve come to realize that just because I like – even LOVE – a writer’s work, I’m not necessarily going to like the same books he or she likes.
Jennifer Weiner loved
Mrs. Kimble a few years ago, so I bought it and read it, and was kind of like “Yeah, it was okayyyy, but nothing to rave about.” But I can guarantee that next time she talks about how good a book was, I’ll be adding it to my wish list as fast as I can click over to Amazon.
Anyway – I’m liking
Case Histories, though it took me a while to get into it.
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On my way into Huntsville last week for my thyroid uptake scan (which, as you may recall from yesterday’s entry, will probably lead to having my entire neck removed. MY ENTIRE NECK.), I passed a vet clinic on Governor’s Drive. On the sign outside, it said “Ticks and fleas can spread disease. We do laser surgery.”
And I marveled at the idea that there is now apparently a laser surgery that vets can do that will take care of ticks and fleas. I wondered whether it just kills the ticks and fleas that a pet has on its person, or if it would repel ticks and fleas for a period of time, or how exactly did that work?
They can do the most amazing things these days, can’t they?
And then when I was having my thyroid uptake scan done, it dawned on me that the “Ticks and fleas can spread disease” and the “We do laser surgery” were probably unrelated to one another.
D’oh!
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On the way to… somewhere. At some point. Probably in the past, I’m guessing. I don’t know, I’m fast on my way to elderly and can’t remember when or where or how it was that I was driving down the highway, but I was. Driving down the highway. On my way to somewhere important, I’m sure.
Anyway, in front of me was a big dump truck, and there was a huge sign on the back of the dump part exhorting me to stay a certain distance away from the dump truck because (I assume) when it’s loaded full of crap, something might fall out of the back part and hit my windshield and break it, and shards of glass might fly into my eyes and blind me, and I might spin out of control and fly over the embankment (there’s always an embankment in the most convenient places, isn’t there?), so I might just want to stay back a bit, mmmkay?
So I stayed back far enough that I felt safe that anything flying out the back of the dump truck would just drop in front of me rather than hit my windshield (but after it hit the road in front of me, it’d crush the front of my car when I hit it, causing me to come to a sudden stop, causing my seatbelt to tighten, causing my windpipe to be crushed, causing instantaneous death, but hey. Better to die instantly than to be blind, behind the wheel of a car, headed for an embankment you can’t see but can sense is there, right?). And the dump truck was going straight and I was taking an exit and I took one last wary glance at the dump truck and saw that it had a bumper sticker that said “We are
NOT responsible for broken windshields.”
Oh REALLY? Is that how it works? Because you have the bumper sticker disavowing all responsibility for the broken windshield, you therefore are NOT responsible? So if you sloppily loaded big concrete chunks into your dump truck and drove too fast and hit a bump and a concrete chunk flew out of the back of your dump truck and hit my windshield, thereby breaking it, and I took you to court to get the money to have my windshield fixed (and the brown stain removed from my seat), all your lawyer would have to do is say “Your Honor, I’d like to produce Exhibit A, a picture of the back of the dump truck. As you can see, the bumper sticker CLEARLY states that Bob Driver is NOT responsible for broken windshields!” and the judge would bang his gavel and say “Case dismissed!”?
I had no idea before now that bumper stickers are legal documents. Think of the fun you can have! I think I’ll get me a bumper sticker that says “You are legally required to pull over and hand over your keys, sign over your registration to me, and give me $500 in cash”, then position myself in front of a Porsche.
I’ll let you know how that goes.
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Sugarbutt watches Spot and Tommy finish off the nightly snack.
Such a pretty boy.
“When I thinks about how much I hates you, it makes me make this face. It hurts, how much I hates you. PHYSICALLY PAINFUL.”
All of today’s uploaded pictures are
here.
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Previously
2005: Perhaps I’ll make it my New Year’s Resolution to not fill my house with crap in 2006.
2004: Ever had one of those days when you just can’t remember the name of anything?
2003: No entry.
2002: I keep wanting to use the phrase “Sweet crappin’ Jesus!”, and just haven’t determined the right moment to do so. Maybe in the middle of sex?
2001: Her name is Brady James.
2000: If I knew whodunnit, I’d beat that $300 right out of his ass, the little bastard.
1999: They all tend to sound alike, you see, and hearing basically the same sound over and over ain’t the thrill at 31 that it is at 11.]]>
I’ve decided that the “I hate you” looks that Mr. Boog gives must be related to his gray color. My Andy also gives “I hate you” looks too. He’s gray. Of course, Andy is slightly brain damaged so it could be that also. Maybe Mr. Boog’s brain is really in his tail and a portion is missing. . .
I unfortunately know all about the trauma of having something thrown through your windshield first hand. For the record – the following math does not lend itself to a happy ending:
Ford Focus + I95 South + Blown Tire Tread + 85MPH + Windshield != a confident highway driver.
Lived through it in July – don’t ever want to do that again. Those stickers are frustrating – anything gets kicked up, they don’t realize it happens anyway – so of course they don’t claim responsibility. I follow anything like that, I change lanes and speed to get around it, or avoid it all together. (Back roads are yer friend…mkay?)
Just like at a garage sale, you’ll see signs saying “Not Responsible for Accidents” Yeah, sure, your dog chewed off my leg accidently so you’re not responsible for keeping him on a leash! Um…yeah…sure…ok! I think my lawyer would disagree tho!
I think I’ll get a bumper sticker made that says: “Not responsible for killing anyone who cuts me off in traffic!” 😀
Bah, those bumper stickers are totally one of those things I would try and push if they did break my windshield…. They just irratate me!
Ive tried 2 different brands of MP3 Players before buying my Ipod because 5 bajillion HAVE to be wrong and Ill show them! But I wish Id bought the Ipod sooner and then I would have saved myself a few hundred bucks. It can act as a thumbdrive, harddrive, photo album, note keeper…so many things. And being able to buy just one song super easily makes up for it.
No one’s remembering the iPod question, and I want to know too, so get on it.
We have an iPod nano, a creative zen, and an iRiver. The iPod tops them all, although i really wish i bought at least the 8 gig one. The menus are much easier then the iRiver. The zen is big and bulky. My only complaint is that every once in a while, the iPod refuses to turn off. There is a “soft” reset that you can do to fix this without losing your music, but it happens so infrequently, I always have to look it up.
We too went through about 6 of the cheapter mp3 devices before finally caving and getting an ipod and I have no idea why we waited so long! They are better quality, easy to use and just basically rock. In our family of 4 we have two mini’s, two nano’s and one video ipod.
Our family has several different models of sandisk mp3 players. We are happy with them all.
Sorry, I have no clue about these pod-music thingies you kids are so fond of.
Robyn, shards of windshield glass could also get embedded in your ENTIRE NECK! (That phrase just doesn’t stop being funny to me, for some reason. I promise to let it go one of these days.)
Computer system: $1,000.00
Monitor: $200.00
Internet Connection: $40.00
Reading this line on Bitchypoo “I took you to court to get the money to have my windshield fixed (and the brown stain removed from my seat)”: PRICELESS!
When Mister Boogers thinks about how much he hates us, is he thinking in a voice that sounds like Gollum from Lord of the Rings? Because that’s the voice I hear as I read his thoughts.
Here’s Your Sign!
I had a good laugh over the flea and tick laser surgery!!!!
So, ok they didn’t pay for your windshield, but I bet you could get them to pay to have the stain removed from your seat!
Love the pics. SB is a pretty boy….
I don’t know about those MP3 players but let me tell you something – I love lurve love my iPod!
I can see the pictures!!! Bless you, bless you. Smooch, smooch, snuggle. (excuse me)
Thanks!
The iPod is by far the most versatile. With the iPod, a free program called iTunes, and a computer, you can put all your CDs onto your iPod, as well as buy songs at iTunes. I also trade music with others, so it’s not like you have to spend tons of money buying music to fill it up. iTunes has great features (go to apple.com to learn more) and is for Mac or PC. Most of the other MP3 players are PC-exclusive, and you have to buy subscriptions for music (i.e., the music you download you’re only renting, when you quit paying, your music stops playing). And iPods have tons of accessories, add-ons, so you can use it in a multitude of situations. Check out iPod refurbs to save money, Apple offers them I think, so does smalldog.com.
I agree that the iPod is the best way to go. If your going to bother spending the money, might as well get top quality, right? I have a mini and my sister is getting a Nano from me for Christmas. Two thumbs up for the iPods from me! 😀
Oooh, Meester Boogers still hates us! Must send him snax immediately. 🙂
I love my Ipod video but get a case for it – i didn’t and mine is scratched on the outside. I am very hard on electronics and my video one kicks butt – never had a problem and easy to use. I have the smaller 30GB one and that holds a ton of music and have whole season of The Office on it plus a few videos and I haven’t even used up 1/2 my memory!!
I liked Case Histories muchly. It surprised me!
I have an Archos Gmini 120 mp3 player. They don’t make it anymore, but I’d buy another Archos player in a heartbeat. Mine is 20 gigs, and I can not only use it for music, I can store files on it. I can’t view pictures or video, but their new ones allow for that.
My husband recently won an iPod Nano, and I’m not crazy about it. It’s fine for music, but I use my player for audiobooks almost daily on my commute and in my experience iPods are no good for audiobooks. Unless you’re buying the books directly through iTunes and iTunes knows to tag them correctly. Basically, you can’t bookmark a file, which is no good when you inevitably end up with a 40 minute long mp3.
There is a workaround for that audiobook problem, but I only know a german website explaining it.
I have just seen a test where they threw an
iPod Shuffle and a cheap MP3 player down 15 ft, the cheap one was no longer working, the iPod was still fine.
I would also recommend a case or something similar. Once, I was at a station and a pigeon shat on my poor iPod. Jealous beast.
Maybe you should have a bumper sticker that reads, “I’ve had my entire neck removed so I am not responsible for not having my windpipe crushed by your flying crap.”
Always a silver lining, I say.
Well, you can also use iTunes to download music for ANY mp3 player (unless they’re manufactured by some shoddy company just trying to drain you of money), and not just the iPod. People are acting like “oh my gosh, if you get ANY other mp3 player, how are you going to get music for it??” Download music on iTunes, or if you want to chance it, illegally. And you can transfer CDs to most mp3 players as well.
I want an iPod for Christmas so I was researching online and reading different reviews, and most for non-iPod players were very negative, HOWEVER, the reviews for the SanDisk players that I say claimed stuff like “Finally, someone is knocking the iPod off of its block!” and nothing but rave reviews. It’s what I’m getting instead of the iPod.
I use a Creative MuVo TX FM 1GB MP3 Player Red (under $70 on Amaz0n) that I received for xmas last year, and I’m thrilled to bits with it. It is fairly tiny and since it’s a USB drive I just pop it into the laptop and can load it up or even just play it from there.
It does not use a scrolling menu screen like the ip0d, but since I use it primarily for audiobooks anyway I just assign each book its own folder (very simple to do via your computer). When I load music I also separate the genres into folders or it will just play the songs in alpha/numeric order.
It operates with one AAA battery that lasts a good 12-15 hours. The 1GB stores about 5 unabridged audio books, can’t recall the number of music tracks it would hold. I don’t worry about scratching it, or dropping it, and if it was stolen I wouldn’t be as crushed as with a high dollar unit.
Good luck!
I love my iRiver H10 20 GB MP3 player so much that I just bought one for my boyfriend (for about half of what I paid for mine six months ago!). Amazon has it for $139 right now, in red or blue, and I would recommend it to anyone. It also records sound, so you can have fun with podcasting or whatever if you want. Or don’t!
Yeah, those bumper stickers are like the print on your parking stub that says “not responsible for loss of articles” or whatever. They can say they’re not responsible until they’re blue in the face, but if you can prove that their negligence caused the loss? Their money is YOURS. Same is true of pretty much any waiver of liability – negligence is fair game.
Here are some links about using other mp3 players with iTunes-
This one has info about other players and iTunes on MacOSX…
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93548
and this one has info about other players on iTunes with Windows…
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93377
I may be wrong, but I always thought that other mp3 players don’t work with iTunes when you’re using Windows (and that’s what the article says). My techie husband tells me it’s possible to specially convert files you download on iTunes to put on non-iPod mp3 players, but it seems like a hassle.
We have been through an assortment of other brands here, and I finally got my husband a mini. He LOVED it. The kids have shuffles, which work great, except I like to be able to sort through and get a specific song sometimes, and they don’t do that. I have a nano, and even though I didn’t think I needed it, I did. The other ones work fine once you get the music on them, but I’m not very technical and could never get it figured out. With nano and iTunes, even I can do it without help!
I am kind of anti-Apple/iPod/iTunes, mostly because I think they are in total control of the digital music/mp3 market, and that can only be bad for us the consumers in the long run.
Here’s my take on the matter: if you’ve got the extra money to spend, and you’ve already committed yourself to Apple by getting most of your new music through iTunes (or, if you primarily use a Mac), go ahead and invest in an iPod. But if you, like me, still tend to buy your music as CDs and then convert them into mp3s on your computer, I think you’d be better off getting another brand.
I don’t know about their hard-drive based players (i.e., the ones with really huge storage), but I have really liked my Sandisk/Sansa flash players (I’ve had the m100-series 1GB player, and currently have the c100-series 1GB player). The iPod equivalents to those would be either the Shuffle (which doesn’t have a display, and thus sucks) or the Nano (which usually costs about $50 more than the equal-sized Sansa). Plus, the Sansa players come with a built-in FM receiver, which is pretty cool if you get bored of your playlists.
It’s probably just me, but that lamp behind Sugarbutt looks just like he’s wearing a space-alien’s crown … think Star Wars.
My husband has an iPod – he asked for it for his birthday last spring, and he’s a good guy, so I bought it for him – and he really likes it. I tried it out on a walk a few weeks ago, and guess what I’m getting for Christmas? Way cool.
I think I’m the third Lisa that’s commented on this post! Anyway, I got an iPod Shuffle for Christmas last year, and an iMac a few months before, and I have to say, I absolutely love Apple products. They work so well and they look so nice. I love my little Shuffle so much that we’ve bought both my parents Shuffles for this Christmas. I think there’s a reason why they’ve cornered the market! 🙂
Just a random comment on the dump truck thing. My parents own dump trucks and I have gotten MANY calls from May through August about broken windshields. Most trucks now do carry the warning because a lot of dishonest people go about trying to find a dump truck and saying something flew off of it. Most of the time we do not pay or even turn it into the insurance company because either they were not loaded, or loaded with something that if it had fallen off the truck it would have killed them instantly! It just happens to be in those months. I have been threatened with lawsuits and also had people call back and complain that lawyer won’t take their case. Also I had a lady call in and say we were the only one without the sign on the back of the truck and she was sure our truck was the one who broke her windshield, she didn’t quite know what to say when I advised her we were not loaded and asked her quite frankly if she went around looking for a truck without the sign and got the phone number just to try. I got hung up on there.
I also work for a large insurance company in the claims department and unless you can prove it came from the top of the truck and the truck did not have his load properly secured then the insurance company I work for cannot subrogate against the dump truck. Sorry so long winded!
I have owned two Sandisk players, and loved them both. They also have a built in radio tuner, which is handy. I received an iPod for my birthday, and that is really cool, also, though I’m still getting used to it. The thing I like better about the iPod is that it is flat, unlike the Sandisk, which uses a AAA battery.
I have heard that if you download a bunch of stuff to itunes, there is no way to back it up. So if you lose your hard drive, that music, if not presently on your iPod, is gone. And, you can’t get it back from the iPod to your hard drive.
Can anyone verify the truth in that, or tell me how it is not true?
Thanks!
I have a little yellow and black Rio mp3 player that came with an arm band and I love it to death. It also stores files (I take presentations on it to school, plug it in to school computer and pull it up). It is easy to use, small and round which seems more convenient to me than having an ipod strapped to my arm (but I’ve never bought an ipod), it has FM tuner which I like too when I’m running and want to listen to the radio. I think it came with 128megs of space but I added a 512 card. More than enough for me.
found this place and thought some of these guys could use Bob’s hookup. You might have seen it already though.
http://shadowdane.shackspace.com/cats.htm
My husband and I both have iPods (2nd generation, we’re old-skool), and we love them. He has an iMac and I have a Windows PC, and we can use iTunes and our iPods on either computer. We’ve used them before as portable backup drives, too – storing files and transferring them between computers.
My parents have non-iPod MP3 players, and they like them, too. I just prefer the iPod, from the research I’ve done. They’re more durable, and they can do more. They’re very user-friendly, and you don’t need a subscription to a certain music service to download songs.
It is a bit of hassle. iPods use a different file format than mp3 players. But it’s possible to convert them using iTunes. There are several ways, I think, but this is what I do.
I pick out which songs from iTunes and your iPod I want to transfer, and burn them to a CD (or multiple CDs). Then I go into the iTunes preferences and set it up so that any song copied into iTunes off of a CD will be converted to MP3 format. Then I copy my songs from the song, and voila…MP3s!
(I also do this if I want to download songs from WalMart.com, since Wal*Mart’s music website doesn’t offer files in iPod-compatible format. I just download the songs from WM.com, burn them onto CD, set up my iTunes preferences, and let iTunes do the work of converting the files.)