secondhands, head of the line, friday nights

There was an article written in some magazine or other a few months back by someone who'd purchased a coworker's old iPod. For those not on the fast train (read: "geek ride") of earthly needs, the iPod and it's progeny are more duplicitous than the feeling a little puppy gives when kids and parents shop for a new companion. I, for one, have had only two iPods; an original 10Gb model and it's better (smarter and more caring) sibling, the 40Gb model. I've managed to restrain myself from the iPod photo, the U2 iPod, the 60Gb (lord only knows I've got the music to fill it), the Mini, and the Shuffle. Actually, I did order a couple Minis for gifts but that doesn't count. Now we have the iPod Nano...but that's not what this is about. We're not talking about new-y stuff, we're talking about secondhands and Netflix movie queues. Back to the start. This guy had purchased his coworker's iPod, taken it home, charged it up, and then taken a gander at the playlists before erasing the hard drive in order to load up his hoi polloi of tunes. As he looked through the list, and listened to some of the stuff on the player, he suddenly had a completely different view of that coworker. The music was quite different from the picture he'd drawn. No adjectival decision was made: hipper, cooler, less interesting, wierd, but something clicked. Unless you really hang around someone in a relaxed atmosphere you have no idea what taste they have in music. Often I wonder what other people listen to all day, all evening, or when they're working out. I can't imagaine it's different than my musical tastes, right? No one really buys the new Jessica Simpson, do they? That's all just a gag that MTV and the checkout tabloids have perpetrated on us. If someone nabbed my iPod they'd really wonder what I was about, examples: the Be Good Tanyas, Caitlin Cary, Futureheads, Gear Daddies, Olympic Hopefuls, Volebeats. All great bands but a bit in the 'who-the-hell-are-they' neighborhood. You'll find Neil Young, Dylan, the Stones and whatnot, but the vast majority is stuff that seems so off the beaten path. What would they think of me? If they listened, they'd think I was genius, that's what! So, now they have my iPod and suddenly they're looking at my Netflix queue. I don't know why they are, but they are...right now, and this is what got me on the subject tonight: the Netflix queue. You might ask what I have at the top, well, I'll tell you: Bottle Rocket (a comedy by Wes Anderson), The Harder They Come (a Jimmy Cliff movie), Lost Boys of Sudan, Death in Gaza, and Born into Brothels...the last three being documentaries. You don't need to know the rest, that 'list nibble' should be enough. Not all my documentary doings are depressing real world vehicles. I've been very happy with Spellbound, Supersize Me, Word Wars, and Deep Blue (respectively; the Nat'l Spelling Bee, eating nothing but McDonald's food for 30 straight days, the U.S. Scrabble Championships, and Kasparov vs. IBM's Deep Blue in chess). See? I'm FUN. FUN! Isn't it a whole new world when you plan a list on what movies you want to see? It's not like opening the paper on a Saturday to see what's showing, or falling into a Blockbuster and mindlessly walking up and down the aisles in search of entertainment. Planning ahead. Between the musical relish populating my iPod and the ability to queue up desires on Netflix, I'm so set. It's like having a list of people you'd like to meet...and in what order. "Yeah, Karen's pretty cool, but have you listened to her iPod?. Yeah, exactly. Put her at number 8 in my queue (CLICK-REORDER)." Strange. So many combinations of music, movies, magazines and things to do on a Friday night amongst the people. I'm going to do some Anatomy study tonight, maybe watch a documentary, and then cue up R.L Burnside on the stereo. Don't tell me you don't want to come hang with me tonight...just don't bring Karen.