My New iPod is too Smart

I underreacted on Christmas. I got some really overwhelmingly awesome gifts, that I didn't even realize should whelm me right over. But here I am, still whelming.

I got two pretty amazing bits of techno-kit this Xmas. This is not to say that I am not going to shop the heck out of my gift cards or listen my CDs flat- but these are things I am reasonably experienced in. My very best brother and sister-in-law gave me a flash new GREEN new iPod. The preserved-in-all-its-digital-glory "You got me an iPod?!" face really only covers the "wow- this can select artists and have its contents updated... unlike the old one." This is of course the most important feature of such a thing, and I am pretty jazzed to have it back. I normally use my iPod to ignore people, so it didn't have a place in the family celebrations. I loaded it up with some stuff from Noel's computer, and then didn't turn it on until we hit 10,000 feet leaving Seattle sometime well after midnight. This was when I discovered that it has an external speaker- yup, I started playing that new Owl City track for the whole plane. My efforts to adjust the volume were stymied by the accelerometer flipping the screen to album view. ???

I told Matt about this (3 rows ahead, and asleep) later when we landed- and he got all pumped and asked if I played the maze game. There are games? That you play without buttons?? OMG, yes, and also there is a pedometer AND it synchs to my iCal!! Now I just have to figure out the interface where I tell it what music I want on it. Currently, I can get it to fill up with random music, or not very much music at all, but I am sure a break through is on the way. Oh, but this iPod has the long awaited feature of being able to shuffle a playlist or album- I knew we had the technology!

The other amazing piece of kit is the Kindle 2 from Mom and Dad. I am letting Matt sort out the many bonus features of this (the iPod having taken up all my new technology amazement). But it is getting a lot of use- I obviously recommend it for plane travel, since you can load up WAY more ebooks than your carry-on would accommodate. We were both confused about how to react to the "please power down electronics" announcements- since it only uses power to 'flip pages,' and will always have something printed in e-Ink, on or off. Fortunately, the very classy case we have can be closed over it, making it seem more 'off' or at least 'not in use' for the comfort and safety of our fellow passengers.

All in all, it was pretty fantastic stuff, the fantastic-ness of which I am only just scraping the surface of.