MACWORLD UPDATE: Tio Jaime takes the plunge into iPod Nation

This will all be chronicled photographically this weekend, as I have found over the past six months that not having an internet connection (not even 56k) isn't that bad.

Some brief thoughts on the iPod...
1) Fuck you very much, Federal Express. It's wonderful that I had to do your job on my lunch break and deliver my own iPackage.
2) In the time it took me to charge the Shuffle, I was able to check four different places on Piedmont Avenue to find a total of zero copies of the Merc, have a gyro at the greek place, watch an episode from the Gilmore Girls Season One DVD set, and then go to the Emeryville Apple Store, play with Garageband 2 (and hmm. not as impressed as i expected to be), buy a Belkin TuneCast II FM transmitter for about $40(they had a Griffin RadioShark too! and holy fuck for $70), go to Best Buy right at their posted closing time of 9pm, check out the Belkin TuneCast I for about $30, eventually find some other no-name transmitters, and end up buying the no-name FM transmitter with a dial and lighter adapter for about $20 and a cassette adapter for about $15. All in all, about $75 worth in adapters.
3) Wow, I can now see the whole panty-moistening about the iPod being FireWire. USB sucks. Took me like 45 minutes to load a GB of mp3s (and AACs) onto the Shuffle.
4) Nice job, heralded apple design department. I like how I can only plug my Shuffle in to my TiBook Emily by itself. It forced out my hub, and as such my keyboard and mouse. Thanks, chickenfuckers...
5) And for four hours while it charged until 10:30 last night. No mouse. No full-sized keyboard
6) And nice job there, Apple, for not including instructions on how to actually load the fucking songs onto one's new Shuffle. If I wasn't such a mac-o-phile, I would never have found out how to do it. You're welcome.

Sound kinda sucktastic? That's because it was. My first four hours trying to get this thing to work were somewhat trying.

But then the Autofill from my newly edited Smart Playlist (from Top 25 Most Played to Top 240 Most Played) was complete, and she was cocked, locked, and ready to rock. I plugged in the iPod-white ear buds...

"At the End" by Iio
"Bye Bye Baby" (the SF Giants fight song)

Ooh, OK now I'm in love...

And this morning? Got the no-name FM transmitter to work.
"Yakety Sax" (Benny Hill theme song) in Orinda.
Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line" at the 24/680 interchange in lovely Walnut Creek (yay!).
Ivy song "Djobi, Djoba" across the Benicia Bridge and through the FastTrak lane.

Oh, life is good. =)

Apple to the Core,
Poke00210

PS- If you're reading carefully, you're dying to know what the iPod Shuffle was named... wait for the pics this weekend