An Ode

Okay, not really. As I was wrapping up my American life in November / December I realized that bringing 100+ CDs with me to Shanghai was impractical. The CD case is pretty large and heavy. Not only that, as I didn't have a portable CD player and didn't feel like buying one, the option would leave me tuneless for the 14-hour plane ride (which was still a scary mystery at that point). But mainly it was the thought of keeping track of many small physical objects in the course of moving to, and living in, China.

So I bought an 80 GB iPod and ripped most of my CD collection to MP3. Of course the first iPod came out in 2001, 7 years ago, but I'd not bought one (or any MP3 player) up until that point. The reason was that I had a CD player everywhere I wanted to listen to music. All my music needs were met with CDs.

But the iPod has changed all that. It's perfect for me in so many ways. I commence now with a numbered list for your organizational enjoyment:

1. It holds my entire music collection with room for tons more. Right now I have 1,469 songs or 11.34 gigs of music loaded on there, enough for almost 6 days of non-repeat playtime. I can duplicate that 7 times over ...
2. ... but not really, since it also stores video, and I many episode of TV shows on there. Videos are handy for the plane rides and when I got a divorce that one time.
   
3. No physical media to mess with. No jewel cases and liner notes to buy and then discard. CDs to get lost or broken or stolen. And if my iPod gets lost or broken or stolen, I can just buy a new one, since my media collection is duplicated on my laptop. (If my laptop gets lost or broken or stolen, my media's backed up to an external hard drive.)
   
4. Using iTunes (and Amazon for DRM-free stuff) to buy music means I don't have to worry about finding an American CD store in Shanghai (or anywhere else I happen to travel).
5. It's small and fits in my pocket.
6. It gets near constant use every day in Shanghai as I move about the city. Especially on boring metro rides or long walks home from work. The battery is good for almost a full day of music. From the number of people I see wearing earbuds, I'm not the only one.
   

So I'm done with CDs. When I go back to the States and buy a car, I'm going to get one with a line-in on the stereo so I can just use my iPod. Ditto with any sort of home stereo I buy.