iDont iPod

I don't have an iPod, can you believe that? I'm a rare beast, I know; and not having an iPod this days is something you shouldn't say out loud. Some of my friends even have two iPods, an early version and a smaller one, or two mp3 players of different brand.

But an iPod is just a particular brand of a flash-based mp3 player, and I do have an mp3 player. Is actually a CD player that reads mp3 files. It looks, weights and feels like a brick; and I'm sure I look like a dork for using it at the gym where I go to. Which by the way, that gym looks like a commercial for the Apple Store.

But that's me: I'm many months behind any new trend or fashion or gadget or whatever is hot these days. Or maybe I'm just years ahead of whatever new retro culture trend is about to pop up later this century.

But going back to the gym issue, where I haven't been in quite a looooong time, that's a place to do some exercise of course, but is mainly to meet people. That's why I never felt the urge to get me one of those gadgets, because then I'd be in my very own private universe, disconnected from everybody else and I couldn't talk to all those girls that approach me on regular bases due to my magnetic personality and good looks -yeah right, I only wish.

I've met only four people while going to the gym: one is the old lady that sits behind a computer by the entrance checking that the *beep* that produces the scanner means that you're not behind in your monthly payments; the other one was the instructor that gave me my first routine and that I never saw again, I'm sure he got fire because that routine was so shitty that I didn't even followed it that very first day. The third one is a guy who works there but that I knew before, nice dude but a fucking chatterbox [he never shuts up] so I always avoid him. And the fourth one was a petite blonde with short hair who forgot to re-charge her iPod one day and end up in the treadmill besides mine. Very nice girl, but she moved to Dallas shortly after that day.

I can say though, that I've improved my sign language techniques more than my abs while going to the gym, because everybody is listening to their music with their iPods so you have to use hand signs to ask them if they are ever planning to jump out of whatever machine they're using for God's sake so that I can use it!

But going back to the Ipod, it seems to me that everytime Apple launches a new version of their star product, all magazines and newspapers and mainstream news services give them front page like if they have just discovered hot water. But seriously, is just another frikking player! And even little tiny video players have been around for several months now, so what's the big fuss?!