If you’ve been around me for any extended period of time, you’ve undoubtedly heard about my irrational hatred of iPods. I fully understand that it’s irrational; I’ve admitted it time and time again, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized why I hate iPods so much. It was a long train of thought so bear with me.

The People?
At first I thought it was because I hate Mac/Apple people. I mean, Mac people are always working my last nerve. I wish those people would just park that fucking Vespa in the back of their VW bug and drive their lazy hipster asses to San Francisco. Or better yet, drive to Europe. They’re always talking about how much cooler Europeans are so follow through and fucking move there. But that’s really not it. There’s more to it than that.

I thought maybe it was just the people using their iPods in the most absurd places. Like concerts - really people, you’re at a club to hear live music we get that you’re superhip. Otherwise you wouldn’t be at Emo’s on a Tuesday night. Or walking into the office. I see this all the time where people are jammin’ out on the LONG (3 minute) walk from the parking garage to the office.

Jammin’ Out?
I actually did have the previous thought. And it’s what lead me to the answer. See “Jammin’ Out” is a stupid phrase. When I was younger my brother would say that people were jammin’ out when they were getting a little too into their music. There’s another reason “jammin’” has always struck me as a stupid word. Jim can back me up on this one. When we had our band way back in high school we continually went through singers. None of us could sing and in Mustang, OK our choices were limited. For a short time we had a second guitarist who brought over a potential singer for a “Jam Session” (also not one of my favorite phrases). I can’t remember his name at the moment, but after “jamming” without any singing for a while he stops and says, one of the deepest philosophical statements I’ve ever heard:

“C’mon man, jam on your voice, it’s an instrument.”

This is going somewhere, I swear. The “Jam” thought brought on the final revelation.

iTunes
I’ve gotten enough secondhand information to know that I hate iTunes. For some reason a number of people took it upon themselves to explain to me how cool all the options are. Things like - it can list the tracks that you’ve listened to the least! Oh really? I’ve always wondered what I don’t listen to. Or better yet - it can re-organize your entire music collection into a ridiculous single level structure, removing the track numbers from the file names. That stuff makes me hate iTunes, but it doesn’t explain my irrational hatred of iPods. I’m used to hating software. I’m a developer, it’s a rule. The reason I have an irrational hatred of iTunes is simply for the name. More specifically the “tunes” part of the name. The ‘i’ is pretty annoying too, but I’m getting used to it. It’s like a wound that never heals. “Tunes” on the other hand grates on my soul. No one should use the word “tunes”. Unless you’re an old burnout from the 70’s that can’t comprehend that 30 years have gone by, it should be removed from your vocabulary. It’s simple, really.

FREE FREE FREE
My irrational hatred of iPods and iTunes aside, there’s one thing I can’t stay away from and that’s free stuff. (Here’s where the poker-related content begins) After playing on Party Poker for a few years, I finally decided to do something with the Party Points I have accumulated. Turns out I’m lucky I didn’t get anything before because now they have all sorts of cool shit. Before it was t-shirts and coasters, lame-o stuff like that. Now they have all sorts of nice stuff, like poker books (which I ordered three) and iPods. So I’m getting an iPod shuffle. For free. So that makes it ok, right? I know, I have a hard time living with myself.

Mac people, I’m almost ready for my membership card. I feel dirty even writing about this, I need to take another shower.