Random Truth

Fish finders

2006-04-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

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Looking for fish? Here's a great resource for Fish finders.

Commercial Folding Tables

2006-04-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

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Commercial Folding Tables are extremely useful, and I recommend them to everyone.

Mother's Day Flowers

2006-04-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

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Mother's Day is coming up, and nothing says I love you like mothers day flowers.

Buy Flowers

2006-04-04T13:58:00.000-07:00

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Everyone should buy flowers, they really make things nice!

Vioxx Lawsuits

2006-04-03T16:34:00.000-07:00

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Vioxx Lawsuits are becoming more and more popular these days.

Crash is no Magnolia

2005-05-16T20:41:00.000-07:00

I saw "Crash" over the weekend, which is an ensemble film about the intersection of several peoples' lives resulting from a car accident. While the movie did have several good performances and definitely conveyed a sense of racial tension and drama, I found it to be lacking in overall affect and believability.

This essay is aimed at people who have already seen the film; I will not spend time rehashing the plot and the particulars of what went on. I was definitely interested and involved in the movie while watching it. It could in no way be considered boring, as there is tension and drama from the opening scene. But there was almost too much drama, as every character had several dramatic things going on in their lives at all times.

I found several elements of the various stories to be predictable. Among these were the fact that the movie director's wife would be the one trapped in the overturned car, the fact that the boy car thief was the brother of the police detective, and the fact that the boy thief would pull the St. Christopher statue out of his pocket while being shot. The reason these were all predictable was because as the movie moved along, every scene seemed to play out to the extreme, and every element of every story tied a little too neatly together.

Something that didn't seem right to me (because I live in L.A.) was the frequency of the overlapping of the different characters' lives. I guess it's not much of a movie without it, but you would think that L.A. is the size of only a few square blocks the way everyone keeps running into each other. The reason this works in Magnolia is because in that movie, the action takes place in the relatively small area of North Hollywood, specifically on or near Magnolia Blvd. In Crash it's supposed to be all over L.A., and they have things like the same cops that worked the night before on the day shift the next day meeting up with the same people. Just didn't feel right.

Speaking of Magnolia, it's one of my favorite films. Despite its 3 hour running time, I have seen it at least 10 times. This film was without question made in a similar fashion, right down to the snow falling from the sky (instead of frogs) at the end of the film (which actually caused me to laugh out loud). The reason Magnolia worked for me and Crash did not was the fact that in Magnolia, the characters' lives were subtly connected mainly through Earl Partridge, who produced the TV game show. Also, the drama was more as a result of their relationships, not as a result of being shot or discriminated against or in a car accident. The people in magnolia were for the most part just trying to make it with the hand they were dealt. In Crash they seemed to feel it was necessary to have everyone's lives very literally connected, which seemed a little forced.

One final criticism, which I mentioned previously is that every scene seemed to have to have a brutal, violent, or extreme ending. Remember the movie Grand Canyon, where it is a string of violent and disturbing happenings to the characters? This takes that idea to another level, and again caused me to laugh out loud when Sandra Bullock's character fell down the stairs. It just seemed that everyone had to have brutal, violent, or unnecessarily bad things happen to them in this movie, to the point where you just start to expect it.

Widgets Are Pointless: Except Capture

2005-05-04T21:10:00.000-07:00

I have installed Tiger 10.4 on my iBook G4, and am pleased with the upgrade overall. However, I am not a big fan of Dashboard or the current crop of available widgets available for it. I was never a Konfabulator user, and I just don't see the point: most are internet enabled, and if I need the weather or a phone book, I will simply open a new tab in my browser and get it that way.

That being said, I came across one today that to me shows what all widgets should do. Each should be a small, useful program that would be easier to pull up and use on the Dashboard than to do some other way. Enter "Capture" by Vanilla Soap Design.

Capture is a screen capture widget that allows you to take a screenshot of your computer and save it to any file format you like (jpeg, tiff, etc.). You can choose to take a selection or your entire desktop, you can photograph the dashboard or not, you can save to just about any available file format, and all of these features are easily customizable from the Dashboard interface.

This really is what these widget programs should be about: simplification of a complicated task. I will continue to use this one, and would like to see more developers put out widgets that are similarly useful.

Last Laker Home Game Very Clipper-Like

2005-04-17T20:05:00.000-07:00

I am a huge NBA fan, so when given good seats for free to today's Laker game versus Dallas at Staples, I decided to go for two reasons: 1- This was the last Laker home game of the season, so this would be my last chance to see live NBA ball in person for over 6 months, and 2- Dallas is my current favorite team. Having been to literally hundreds of Clipper and Laker games in person, the atmosphere struck me as...well, as if I was at a Clipper game.

The fans that were there seemed resigned to the fact that the Lakers were not very good, but that they would cheer for them anyway. Also, there were plenty of people there cheering for Dallas also, which is a classic sign you're at a Clipper game: people cheering evenly for the visiting team. Not to say people were rooting for Dallas, but they were very nice fans today that would happily cheer a good play. Can you picture a Laker game in the last five years when the crowd didn't boo any decent visiting team? Me neither.

I left at halftime, as I had gotten my fill of Dallas whooping up on a below average Laker squad. But I did catch the 4th quarter at home, and noticed another Clipper fan trait being acted out by Laker fan today. This is the fact that after the game was well in hand (dallas up by 15 wih 5 1/2 minutes left), finally the Lakers started to play as if their lives depended on it. Had they done this all day, they might have had a chance. Even though everyone knew the Lakers wouldn't win, they cheered wildly when bullshit players like Sasha V. hit 3 pointers to cut into the insurmountable lead.

Keep cheering for bad players and a team that plays no defense, Laker fans. Maybe one day you can have a team as good as the Clippers, who at least play their ass off every game and win the majority of their games played at home.

The Hand That Feeds: For Free

2005-04-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

I have never been much of a Nine Inch Nails fan. I have always been into heavy music, and I like the idea of dance music wih angry melodic vocals. I just think White Zombie did a better job of it.

That aside, Trent Reznor can definitely be considered sort of a musical pioneer. His latest effort to push the envelope is releasing his new single, "The Hand That Feeds," in a complete GarageBand format for free download.

The amazing thing about this is that he is releasing for free all 17 of his professinal, studio quality tracks that make up this song to anyone who wants them. He is encouraging his fans (or haters) to tinker around with the song and "see what happens." At a time when the RIAA and other groups are doing their best to limit what can be done even with music that you purchase, here is an artist openly giving away his song with only one restriction: that you cannot use any of the tracks for commercial gain (i.e., profit).

I still don't think the song is that great, but thanks to Trent maybe I can turn it into something i find more pallatable. This to me is very cool.

Where are you buying Tiger? Mac OS 10.4

2005-04-12T21:11:00.000-07:00

Chances are if you are a Mac user, you are eagerly awaiting the release of Tiger, Apple's 10.4 version of their killer operating system. With so many options on how to acquire the install disks, the question is, where will you buy your version? Leave a comment on this blog with your answer and your reasoning, and the best/most interesting answer will win a free copy of Tiger! Enter as many times as you like, winner will be determined on April 29th, the official release date.

There are a few options for the Mac user on how to go about getting your copy of tiger. If you are the anti-social, frugal type, then Amazon.com makes the most sense. You can pre-order now, and Amazon is currently offering a $35 mail-in rebate, making this the least expensive option for the majority of users. No social contact required, just a few clicks on the Powerbook and Tiger will arrive at your doorstep. You may not receive it on the actual release date, but an almost 25% discount after rebate may be worth it.

On the other hand, if you are a more social geek, you may prefer showing up at your local Apple retail store with the rest of your kind on April 29th, and wait in line until 6pm for the software to go on sale. Then you can install it on your laptop outside the store and discuss the wonder of the Welcome screen with your fellow upgraders. Of course, this will cause you to wait in line for a while, and pay the full retail price of $129.

The final option I will touch on is buying directly from the Apple online store. This will set you back the full $129 also, but Apple is promising pre-orderers a Quicktime video stream of a mini-seminar detailing all of the cool things you can do with 10.4. Apple also promises delivery (with free shipping) on April 29th, which is pretty cool. One other note on this is that if you are an "educational" customer, you can purchase Tiger directly from Apple for only $69.

I personally am going with the Apple online store option, just to check out the free Quicktime seminar and to have it delivered on the 29th. But what about you? Most interesting answer wins a free copy, so let's hear it!

Gmail as a "Hard Drive" For Mac OSX

2005-04-03T18:22:00.000-07:00

One of the blog sites that I read regularly is Engadget, which basically discusses anything that would be considered, well, a gadget. It also covers some "how to" topics, and one that they did recently was called "HOW-TO: Use your Gmail account as a personal file server." The problem was that this topic covered a shell script for Windows users. I however am a Mac user and wanted a similarly easy way to use this program. So, after hunting around through various posts and sites, I found something that seems to work well, and I thought I would post it so fellow Mac users would not have to hunt around for it as I did.

The link to download it is here.

This is an AppleScript that allows you to drag and drop files onto it, and the files will end up as attachments to messages sent to your Gmail account. It even comes with an icon (pictured above) so you can have it look like a drive instead of a script on your desktop. What it actually does is opens Mail, and sends the file you just dropped as an attachment to the Gmail account you specify. When it's finished it quits the mail program and that's that.

One more thing to add. I recommend changing the script so that it doesn't quit the Mail program immediately after sending the message. The reason for this is that if you are sending a larger file (anything over 1MB), it takes time for Mail to upload the attachment before it sends. So, if you leave the script as is and Mail quits immediately, the message will sit in your Out box because it did not have time to upload it before the program quit.

Pretty cool use for a free Gmail account which is now giving each user over 2GB (and counting) of storage.

U.S. Congress Where It Doesn't Belong

2005-03-20T10:21:00.000-08:00

This past week, the United States Congress has chosen to involve itself in two issues that would seem to be outside of its normal scope of operation. The first is the issue of steroid use in professional baseball, the second is the Terri Schiavo euthanasia debate. Neither of these issues, though each having its own merits which need to be addressed, should be decided by the United States government.

Let's first discuss the steroid issue. Yes, steroid use in major league baseball has obviously been a problem over the past 10 years. Yes, the powers that be in major league baseball have failed to adequately police the drug use in its sport, until this season. However, do we really need the government to interview former players and ask them about their use of steroids? What did they hope to accomplish by having these hearings? There are no doubt countless issues which congress should be spending its time on that are of much greater importance. If you watched any of the hearings, you would have seen that this was simplly a way for little known members of the government to get some television time in the spotlight. The way these hearings were set up, there was absolutely nothing else that could have been accomplished.

The other issue this week is the debate over who has the right to determine the fate of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who suffered brain damage and is currently only kept alive via a feeding tube. Her husband, being her legal guardian, has maintained that his wife had told him that she never wanted to be kept alive by machines. The parents have challenged the husband's decision in state court and have lost at every level of appeal, so, being very religious, turned to the conservative Republican lawmakers for assistance. I am not here to debate whether this woman should or should not be kept alive. The problem here is that this is the first time that congress has intervened in an individual case like this, even going so far as to enact emergency legislation that requires the President to fly to Washington today just to sign it. Additionally, this legislation will apply only to the Schiavo case, allowing only her parents to seek appeal in Federal court after they have exhausted all of their options in state court!

What is to stop congress from continually enacting legislation that will apply only to a single individual or group? By doing this, what they are saying is that the laws which are in place for everyone may be overruled for an individual (or corporation) whenever congress sees fit. This sets an extremely dangerous precedent.

The government is (not so) slowly becoming more intrusive into our daily lives. From the Patriot Act to the FCC's control of the televison and radio airwaves, our government is attempting to involve itself in micro issues, when there are plenty of macro ones that are infinitely more important. Both of these cases definitely require attention and have issues that need to be resolved. Congress, however, should not be the ones resolving them.

This Will Make iPod Shuffle Irrelevant

2005-03-15T20:37:00.000-08:00

I have been a big fan of the iPod Shuffle, as well as the full blown iPod. That being said, we are always looking for a way to consolidate our gadgets into one multi-pupose device. Enter the Sony Ericsson W800 Walkman Phone.

This phone comes with many of the features that your favorite cellphone would have, including Bluetooth capability, multi-network access, and a 2.0 megapixel camera. What makes this yet-to-be-released phone special is the fact that it doubles as an MP3 player, with a minimum of 512 MB of capacity for storing MP3's. There is no doubt that the memory will be on Sony's proprietary Memory Stick format, but the fact that it's expandable to 1GB and promises to include cd ripping software makes this THE gadget to get in 2005. Sony's entire goal with this device is to make it "easy" to get your music into your phone so that you can take it with you. Because of this, they will not make the user jump through hoops by making you convert your MP3's to ATRAC files, Sony's proprietary format.

Upon reading over the specs of this phone, I came to this conclusion: Once I have this phone, I will no longer need my iPod Shuffle. The Shuffle is a VERY cool device (see previous posts) which is an exceptional MP3 player, and allows easy filling of songs using iTunes software. Although iTunes will not be compatible with this phone, the fact that I will be able to basically carry two devices in one (phone and MP3 player) will make the Shuffle obsolete for me. I can carry my essential 120-240 songs with me on my cell phone. If I need more than that, I have my 2G iPod which has a 10GB drive, and many more songs for extended listening.

Since most of us need our cell phone on us at all times, a phone which adequately doubles as an MP3 player seems to be a natural. Of course, this is all based on my reading of the specs and gauging how this will play out. I will post a full review once I am able to obtain one of these seemingly excellent items. Until then, I love my iPod Shuffle, and will continue to wear it around my neck until I can get my hands on this phone.

Amber Alerts: Don't waste my time!

2005-03-05T10:07:00.000-08:00

Amber Alerts are supposed to be a useful way to distribute information on criminal activity/vehicles to a large area in a short amount of time. The theory here is that if someone commits a crime, the authorities can broadcast the person's car description and license plate all over the state, via the message boards on the freeways. What is surprising is that no one has studied the reality of these alerts, which is the fact that all they accomplish is increased traffic and apathy among those who read them.

There are two main problems I have with these notifications. The first is that when these signs are lit up with any message at all, everyone feels the need to slow their vehicle to a crawl to read them. Once people read them, they do not stop what they're doing to write down a license plate number and join in some statewide manhunt. They merely resume their normal speed and get on with their lives. Whether the message is something immediately relevant, like the next freeway interchange is closed, or something immediately irrelevant, like look out for this license plate, is not the issue. Either way it is creating a traffic slowdown and a minimum extra delay of 15-30 minutes, depending on the time of day and what part of town you're in, for no reason. The LAST thing anyone needs in L.A. is an additional source of increased traffic.

The second problem I have with these alerts is that the majority of them seem to involve some sort of "child abduction," followed by a car description and license plate number. Last time I checked, we do not live in Thailand where kidnappings of children for sale on some black market is a huge problem. So after reading up on some of these so-called "abductions," it turns out that the children are "kidnapped" by one of their parents. That's right, it usually is a child custody issue, and one parent has "stolen" the child from the other parent.

When you add together the two scenarios I just mentioned, here is what you get: Some white trash family has a custody issue over their mongoloid child, one kidnaps the child from the other, the police are notified, they issue an amber alert, every idiot on the freeway has to stop and read it, and I am stuck in traffic for an extra half hour for no reason! This really needs to stop, seriously.

insPecting iPod Shuffle

2005-03-01T15:35:00.000-08:00

After two days of struggling with UPS, my iPod Shuffle arrived yesterday. It should have been delivered two days earlier. The ability to track packages online is wonderful, except when the status for a package you are expecting says the following:
" THE PACKAGE WAS MISSED, NO ATTEMPT WAS MADE TO DELIVER AS SCHEDULED"
Seriously? You mean I paid a premium for a package to be delivered on a certain day, and the driver said something like "I know I have packages left to deliver, but I need to go home and watch gay porn, so screw it." ? The good news is that when you call UPS, a person answers almost immediately. The bad news is that they only have the same information that you do with the online tracking system, making it a virtually pointless phone call.

OK, on to the review. The first thing you notice is how small this device really is. The pictures make it seem small, but it's really small. In fact, I was going to have as the initial photo a picture of the shuffle next to my non-erect penis, which would show that the latter is actually much bigger than the former. This is not a comment on my personal size or lack thereof, just an illustration on the smallness of the Shuffle. Since I don't need the FCC shutting down this blog, I decided against posting the photo on this page. However, I am definitely not into censorship, so if you REALLY want to see that comparison, click here.

Alright, enough of the wisecracking. The device is basically a USB flash drive, and thus it attaches to your computer via any USB port. I use a laptop, so as in the picture above, this is no problem for me to simply plug it into an empty port on the side of the machine. If you are a desktop user, and your machine is in a hard-to-reach place, you may have to purchase the USB dock for an additional $29. Once plugged in, iTunes will launch and you will be prompted to add music. One of the cooler features is that you get a new Autofill dialog box at the bottom of the iTunes window, basically letting you choose if you would like the software to automatically fill your player with songs. If you take the time to set up smart playlists, then this is a tremendous feature that will save you substantial time dragging and dropping songs to the player. There is also an option for iTunes to automatically make sure that all songs written to the Shuffle are encoded to 128 kbps AAC files to ensure that you will have room for more songs. This seems to be a good thing, since the player's capacity is so small it may be worth sacrificing just a bit on the quality to be able to travel with more songs.

This is actually the least-talked about aspect of this and similar flash-based MP3 players, and that's the ease of use and software compatibility. There may or may not be cooler looking, more storage having, screen wielding, non-Apple portable players out there for the same price or less. But none of them enable you to work with iTunes, which is an absolutely fantastic digital music management software. This is as important to most users as all of the other features, which is a big reason why iPods have become so popular.

Now to the most important part, the end-user evaluation. The output seems easily as strong as my 2G iPod, if not a little stronger. So, the sound is great! As for the most controversial aspect of the Shuffle, the lack of a screen, I didn't find it to be a problem. You have the option of listening to the songs in your playlist in order or randomly. To access specific songs quickly, you can simply load the first 10 slots or so with songs that you're currently most interested in, which allows you to navigate to them right away, no screen required.

There are a few negative things to report so far, but they are minor. The switch on the back is difficult to maneuver. It only has three settings, but the switch has trouble landing on each setting. Maybe this will improve with more use. The song transfer (write speed) from the computer to the Shuffle is noticeably slower than the firewire transfer we've become used to with our full size iPods. This is a USB related issue and not one specific to the Shuffle itself, so we won't hold a grudge on this one. And finally, to charge the battery from completely dead to completely full takes 4 hours! Thankfully you will get an 80% charge after 2 hours, but still that seems high for such a small player.

Overall, I think this is a great little portable music player. If you are a Mac user, it matches all of your other hardware nicely, and if not, you still get to use iTunes in your virus and spyware infested Windows world. If you've talked to me or read my initial thoughts on this player, you know I thought you would be stupid to buy this as your only MP3 player, basically because for only a few bucks more you could raise your capacity from a couple hundred songs to several thousand songs (i.e., your entire music collection). Well, I still stick by that view. But as a second MP3 player, for use during activities where you don't want the weight of 10,000 songs in your pocket, the iPod shuffle is definitely the player of choice.

And for those that clicked on the link to try to see the penis comparison, you really need to find some meaning in your life...might I suggest a career with UPS?

NBA Beat: Same old Webber, No D in Dallas, Employee number 88 returns

2005-02-27T09:25:00.000-08:00

When Philadelphia traded for Chris Webber this week, they were hoping to get an all-star caliber complimentary player to help Iverson and the 76ers get to the top in the watered down Eastern Conference. If they had made this trade 5 years ago, that might have happened. Sacramento's games frequently don't start until after 1030PM Eastern, which must be past Billy King's bed time. He is the General Manager of the 76ers, and apparently he didn't bother to actually watch Webber play the last 2 seasons. If he had, he would have seen an immobile 6'9" point forward, who spends most of his time 20 feet away from the basket looking to make cute passes and jack up 20-footers. King also might have noticed that Webber has never been a clutch player and/or wanted to take the "big shot" at the end of games. Case in point last night, where Webber missed 3 of his final 4 shots in the last 3 minutes of the game, including a would be game-tying put-back against his former team...

The Dallas Mavericks seemed to be in good shape last night, hosting the Phoenix Suns with all-star and MVP candidate Steve Nash out with a hamstring injury. Unfortunately, they decided to play less defense than they normally do (I know, you're thinking, is that even possible?) and lose 124-123. Even though Nash wasn't there to set the table for his fellow scorers, the other four starters managed to shoot a combined 41 for 69, which translates into a cartoonish 59.4% from the field...on the road! I guess as Dallas coach Don Nelson likes to say, "you are what you are," and that means a playground team that's entertaining to watch, that is if you don't care about actually winning games...

Antoine Walker returned to his former team Friday night, leading them to a rare road win at Utah. He led the team in scoring and rebounding with 24 points and 10 rebounds, and looked like he never left, playing in rhythm with Paul Pierce and the rest of the team. Walker made 10 of 18 shots and was genuinely excited to be out there helping his team win. This is a far cry from the last time he played with Boston, when he attempted more 3-pointers than a few entire NBA teams, and when asked why he shot so many 3-pointers, he replied "because there ain't no 4's..."

Learn To Swim

2005-02-22T15:28:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles is one of the greatest places in the world to live. There are many reasons that this is true, but mainly it's because of the fantastic weather we enjoy here on a year round basis. Honestly, living here my entire life, I can recall very few extended periods of inclement weather.

That is, until recently. I don't know what exactly screwed up the world's weather patterns (tsunami, Bush's re-election, etc.), but it has been raining here pretty consistently for the last 3 months, including non-stop for the last 6 days in a row. The local media says that this season ranks 5th in history for inches of rain in this area. L.A. is currently ahead of Seattle in total inches of rainfall so far in 2005. Since this city is built on driving from one place to another, and doing things outdoors, the rain makes everything here much less desirable. Also, it affects everyone's mood, as no one is really used to going this long without sunny, clear skies and warm weather.

Which brings me to a song I recently re-discovered, which sums up most non-Los Angeles residents' views of the people that live here. The song is "Aenema," off of Tool's album of the same title. The theme of the song is basically that everyone in L.A. is shallow and that the singer is wishing for some catastrophic event to wash L.A. away. I've found it an engrossing experience to blast this song while driving around in a violent downpour.

The lyrics say things like "fret for your latte and...fret for your lawsuit and fret for your Prozac and fret for your pilot," all things you've heard people you know discuss if you've lived here long enough. Another meaningful part of the song goes like this:

Fuck all those gun-toting Hip gangster wannabes.
...
Fuck these dysfunctional, Insecure actresses.Again, living here long enough, you will see plenty of would-be gang bangers, and plenty more insecure actresses. The most moving pieces of art always ring true on some level. This next part just details the wish for destruction:

Learn to swim.

Cuz I'm praying for rain And I'm praying for tidal waves I wanna see the ground give way. I wanna watch it all go down.

And the chorus, earlier in the song:

It's a Bullshit three ring circus sideshow of Freaks

Here in this hopeless fucking hole we call LA The only way to fix it is to flush it all away. Any fucking time. Any fucking day. Learn to swim, I'll see you down in Arizona bay.

The rain just kind of makes you focus on the negative things about L.A. that happen to also be true. Bottom line, it's a great song. But it's even greater when it's pouring rain and you're envisioning L.A. being flushed away, which if the weather continues, doesn't seem like that bad of an idea.

If the weather ever returns to normal, I'm sure I'll be changing my tune, but until then, I'll just learn to swim.

iPod Shuffle: IQ Test?

2005-02-14T02:48:00.000-08:00

Being an Apple computer user and gearhead, I am very interested in all new Apple products that come on the market. So, when the iPod Shuffle was announced, I basically saw this as an IQ test for the iPod buying public. A few qualifiers: 1) Money is not a primary concern. 2) This would be your only MP3 player. 3) You are not in a specialized group that would require you to need more features than a normal person (i.e., you aren't a graphic designer that needs a portable 60GB ipod photo to show off your portfolio).

With that in mind I figured these are your options:

Buy a 20GB iPod for $299. Store easily 5000 songs, more than enough storage for most people to store their entire music collection. If not, double the capacity for another $100. Screen included to select songs, artists, playlists, etc! Definitely the best bang for the buck. IQ LEVEL: VERY HIGH

Buy a 4GB iPod Mini for $249. Store 1000 songs, plenty for most people. Also comes with a screen! Get to choose from 5 colors, 2 of which no one chooses. If you're into style over substance, this one's for you, being that for only $50 more you can quadruple your storage capacity. But then you wouldn't have any anodized aluminum colors to show off :( IQ LEVEL: AVERAGE (You are mesmerized by shiny objects)

Buy a 1GB Shuffle for $149. No screen means you cannot choose what songs or artists you can listen to. You are at the random mercy of this machine as to what you will hear. Granted, you probably like all of the songs you loaded into the player, but most of the time we want to choose what we will be listening to. Also, as your only MP3 player, only holds 240 songs. If you have any type of music collection at all, this is a ridiculously low amount of storage. You would spend a lot of time refreshing the content of the player and then hoping to hear a certain song without pressing the "next" button potentially 239 times. One bright spot is that it's incredibly small, which makes it convenient for using during periods of physical activity. IQ LEVEL: BELOW AVERAGE (That's ok, as Judge Smails said to Danny Noonan in Caddyshack "the world needs ditch diggers too")

I can't resist any chance I get to comment on the relative stupidity of the general public, nor can I pass up a chance to quote Judge Smails. HOWEVER, as a self admitted Apple sycophant, and as a current owner of a 2nd generation iPod, when I recently received some gift certificates to Amazon.com I decided to pick up a 512MB Shuffle as a second MP3 player and additional toy to play with, for FREE! It should arrive within the week and I will post a full review once I receive it. I still think it's stupid to purchase one as your primary music player, but maybe I will find some charming features to report once I start using it.