"H" is for "Happy"

I had a philosophy professor in college who claimed Plato called music "magic" because it can alter one's mood with no reference to prior experience. You are walking down the street and hear a song you've never heard before and all of a sudden you feel good. What is that, but magic?

My alphabetical sojourn through my Ipod has been stalled lately, but I'm up to the letter "H" and in honor of Plato, I say "H" is for "happy."

There are 90 songs beginning with the letter "h" in my Itunes, list. What follows are the songs from my list that tend to make me happy when I hear them--songs that put me in a good mood or that I enjoy hearing when I am in a good mood:

5) "Heartbreaker" by Dionne Warwick.
Okay, the bizarre thing about music is that sad songs often make you happy and happy songs often are just depressing (often, because they are insipid). It doesn't hurt that this song came out right around the time I was a junior or senior in high school, so it perfectly captures the overwrought emotional romanticism that is young adulthood. There is, perhaps, some nostalgia driving the engine--ah, to be young and to feel each nick and cut as an epic tragedy--but there is something self comforting in the song, too: "Get to the morning and you never call / Love should be everything or not at all." Of course, its always happier nostalgia because, in retrospect, one knows that the greater love was yet to come.

4) "Have a Heart" by Bonnie Raitt
Like Warwick, Raitt is able to sing about heartbreak and make it sound down right enjoyable. Still, while Warwick's song is overwrought, there is a fiestiness in Raitt's lyrics and voice that I just love. Lot of pluck. Glad I've never had to have that sort of spunk in love, but I wish I could have it in all areas of my life:

Hey!
Shut up.
Dont lie to me.
Hey!
Mister, how do you do.
Oh pardon me I thought I knew you.

I mean, that's perfect.

3) "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira

I discovered this song after reading an interview with some athlete on SI.com where they asked him, "What's the most embarassing song you have on your Ipod." When he said he had the music video for this song I had to look it up. "I never really knew that she could dance like this / She makes a man want to speak Spanish..." Okay, I was gonna say that's positively Donne-worthy, but I'll settle for Byronesque (he who rhymed "intellectual" with "hen-pecked-you-all." Besides, goofy is fun, isn't it?

2) "Heart and Soul" by T'Pau
Actually the lyrics of this song are pretty damned depressing. Good thing one can't hardly decipher them. Love the music, though.

1) "Hymn to Her" by the Pretenders
Doesn't hurt that I discovered this song when I was falling in love for the first time. Never fails to bring a smile to my face.

Honorable mentions: "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, "Holding Out for a Her" by Bonnie Tyler, "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle; "Human Wheels" by John Cougar Mellencamp; "Head Over Heels" by Tears for Fears.

"G" is for Great

One of the stereotypes of critics is that repeated or more frequent connoisseurship makes them more jaded, harsher. I noted once that in the first five years I wrote movie reviews, I used the word "masterpiece" exactly once.

But I'm not a music critic, nor do I listen to music as often as some of my friends. So, by the stereotypical logic, I ought to be a bit less critical in my judgments--willing to give a nod to songs of a quality that I might poke holes in were they films.

The flip side of such an argument, though, is that it seems in music, even more than film, people want to get there first, be the discoverer, lead the backlash against that which is popular.

In my alphabetical trek through my I-tunes, then, I decided to take the 50 songs beginning with the letter "G" and apply to them one, (it turns out not quite so) simple judgment: which, if any, would I unreservedly call "great"?

A quick scan gave me one definite "yes" and an additional two "probably"s, as well as a hand full of "maybe"s.

A more considered response, then, yielded the following results, in order not necessarily of my liking them, but in the strength of my belief that they are great songs:

1) "Gimme Shelter" -- The Rolling Stones
Here's the thing, I'm not now nor have I ever been anything more than a lukewarm Stones fan. By any reasonable standard that I can think of, however, "Gimme Shelter" qualifies as great. Longevity, popularity, acclaim, replayability (i.e. standing up to repeated listenings without making you sick of it). There may be some who imitate Jack Black and try to lead a backlash against it for its association with movie soundtracks, but really, so what? That it fits so well in a movie soundtrack is in part due to its iconic quality, its capability of expressing a mood and evoking a time. The lyrics, while not complex, are meaningful, and I do like the shift from "war" to "love" in the final chorus.

2) "Girlfriend is Better" (Live) -- The Talking Heads
Okay, as far as lyrics go, I have no idea what this song means--and I have tried to decipher it many times. I keep thinking of a line from Claude Chabrol describing Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux: "It's hard to put into words, but extremely easy to feel." The gamut of emotions that the song evokes in me--from excitement ("its always showtime, here at the edge of the stage"), to constraint ("down in the basement, we hear the sound of machines"), to hope ("nothing is lost, everything's free / I don't care how impossible it seems")--is greater than just about any that I can think of. I usually feel better after listening to the song, and the energy with which the band has in the live performance is positively infectious.

3) "God Give Me Strength" -- Elvis Costello
From The Grace of My Heart soundtrack, this song combines some beautiful poetry that is made more complex through vocal performance rather than merely just disseminated by it. The transition from "I want him to hurt" to "I want him..." perfectly encapsulates the mix of hurt and desire that is true of the character who sings the song in the film but is also universal. There is some weirdness created by the gender pronouns of the lyrics (a female sings it in the film), so make of it what you will.

4) "Go Insane" -- Lindsay Buckingham
"Two kinds of trouble in this world: Living. Dying." The main reason I'm on the fence with this one is because it always feels a little short to me.

So, that's four out of fifty, or just under ten percent. The following songs get honorable mention...meaning I had to consider whether I would call them great, even if I couldn't quite give the nod:

"Greatest Discovery" (Live) -- Elton John. Really builds to a transcended final verse, but I wonder how much is created by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and how much by the song. On odd numbered days, I'd probably put this song in the "great" category. I wrote this on an even numbered day.
"Goodbye Stranger" -- Supertramp. You know, I think Supertramp is a bit underrated. They are like the perpetual B+ student or 10-6 football team. A lot of "good" but missing some element that separates the elite.
"Grease" -- Frankie Valli. A bit short. But man, it's fun.
"Grace by Which I Stand" -- Keith Green. I think there is some CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) that I think is great, and maybe even a few songs by Green that I would put in that category. This one ultimately feels more like a patter sermon than a song.
"Greenback Dollar" -- The Kingston Trio. Folk, like CCM, is a category unto itself, and I understand some won't like any of it. So I try to compare it to others of its category rather than simply measure crossover appeal. Not quite "Tom Dooley," though, is it? Just a tiny bit too much repetition in the chorus for me to put it in the "great" column.

"F" is for Frequency

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

That seemed to be the question worth asking as I perused the 56 songs beginning with the letter "F" in my Itunes library.

The playcount feature on the right column is an odd thing--I don't remember listening to these songs proportionately more than any others (I tend to only really listen to stuff on shuffle play), but here's what the counter says are the five most frequent songs that came up when the shuffling stop:

1) "Fast Car" -- Tracy Chapman. Weird story about this song. I always assumed it was a guy. I had heard it on the radio but never knew who sang it. I had heard of Tracy Chapman but never listened to any of her music. Then I downloaded "Change" after hearing it on a commercial for HBO DVDs and searched for other songs by the same artist.

2) "Find Us Faithful" -- Steve Green. Honestly, I don't remember listening to this song ten times in the last decade, but the counter says...Must have come up when I pulled the earbuds to pay my bills. Fairly well made if conventional CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) that I've always liked since a guy sang it at my church when I was in college. (Though I confess I liked the cover better he did better.)

3) "For Your Eyes Only" -- Sheena Easton. Personally, I think this is far and away the best Bond theme song. (No offense to Carly Simon.)

4) "Further to Fly" -- Paul Simon. You know, I remember playing Graceland during a Spades game in Marye House and Cindy (who was just a friend at the time) asking me who it was. That was the first (and last, really) time anyone who was at all cool artistically ever complimented me on my taste in music. I thought Rhythm of the Saints was a great follow up, but I haven't heard much from Simon after that, have I?

5) "First We Take Manhattan" -- Leonard Cohen. I actually have no idea what this song means. But I kind of like the lyrics: "They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom /For trying to change the system from within."

"E" is for Eclectic

Okay, so I haven't been working through the Ipod recently. I think my trek through the alphabet got stuck on "D." Hard to find new ways of sorting the list, and I figured anyone who sees an ample amount of The Police, The Pretenders, or Billy Joel in letters "A" through "D" will no not be surprised to find "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic," "Every Mother's Son," or "The Entertainer" on my Ipod's list of "E" songs.

I have 46 songs beginning with the letter "E" in my Itunes library. For this letter, I decided to focus on the eclectic--songs from artists of whom I have less than one entire album. This generally means that there was something about that particular song that caught my attention even if I didn't normally listen to the artist. Here are the "E" songs that qualify:

"Ebudae" by Enya. This is from the Toys Soundtrack. I sort of liked a few other songs on that album, but once I had it, the Enya song grew on me. I think we got one of her albums once, but it all sounded the same to me (sort of like Liz Phair, right Sherry?) so I didn't upload it to the Ipod.

"Edge of Seventeen" by Stevie Nicks. Well, I do have a Fleetwood Mac album, so I wonder if this one qualifies. Strictly a nostalgia piece. There's no music quite like the music that was popular when you were in high school.

"Eli's Coming" by Three Dog Night. Blame it on Sports Night, if you must.

"Even if My Heart Would Break" by Aaron Neville and Kenny G. I cannot tell you what this song sounds like. It was apparently on the soundtrack for The Bodyguard that I uploaded to get some Whitney Houston songs. Since I just made a folder for "E" songs to put in shuffle play, perhaps I will actually listen to it this month.

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears. They aren't quite one hit wonders (I do still have "Shout" on Itunes as well). Great theme song for Dennis Miller's show and used quite effectively in Real Genius.

"Eyes on the Prize" by the Emmaus Group Singers. From the Green Card soundtrack. See, now this is what I love about my Ipod. I never much listened to that song because there were like two or three good cuts on that CD. Now I can take those two or three and put them in rotation.

Other "E" notes:

--I have four different artists (Dixie Chicks, Leonard Cohen, Rufus Wainwright, Dar Williams) that have songs beginning with the words "Everybody Knows" (yeah, the one is a cover, but, still, that's weird).

--Since I have an entire album of The Nylon's their version of "Eli's Coming" doesn't count.

--My (current) five favorite "E" songs (in no particular order):
"Easy Silence" -- The Dixie Chicks. Just a beautiful song with beautiful sentiments.
"Eat for Two" -- 10,000 Maniacs. Not sure what to make of the lyrics, but I love the haunting tone of Natalie Merchant's voice. (It is Natalie Merchant, right?)
"Everybody Knows" -- Leonard Cohen. Call me perverse, but I like Cohen's voice. What a consummate lyricist.
"Everybody Want to Rule the World" -- Tears for Fears. I make no claims for it musically, but it I can listen to it a lot and not get tired of it, which is something.
"Every Day" -- Don MacLean. Very easy to listen to.

Juror's special prize: "Embassy Lament" from the Soundtrack to Chess: "Oh my dear, how boring/He's defecting/Just like all the others/He's expecting..."

Pressing Question of the Day

How does one keep Ipod earbuds from getting tangled up every time one momentarily puts them away? It seems like every time I sync my Ipod or put it in my shirt pocket (like while driving), the next time I use it I spend two-three minutes untangling the ear buds. Do this a couple of times a day and that's 10-15 minutes of my life every couple of days. So what's the solution? (Preferably one that doesn't entail buying some earbuds that are three times more expensive.)

Shouldn't My Ipod Just Implode When this Happens?

So I was driving home from disc golf this evening (second time in a week I've been in the money only to get bumped by the last freaking card), when my Ipod, on shuffle play, gives me, in succession...

"Life is a Lemon (and I Want My Money Back)" by Meatloaf

and

"The Easter Song" by Keith Green

Man, that's just not right.

D is for Demands

There are 62 songs in my Itunes library beginning with the letter "D." The proximity to the number 64 tempts me to make another bracket, and truth be told I think the "D" songs would kick some serious butt against the "B" songs.

One thing that's odd, though, is that while I have the same number of songs beginning with the letter "D" as the letter "B" there are fewer different words that begin with the letter "D."

There are several songs beginning with some form of the word "dance" including "Dance Me to the End of Love," "Dancing Boy," "Dancing in the Dark," "Dancing Queen," and "Dancing with Myself." [Try to avoid dancing with yourself in the dark until the end of love, though.]

There's a "Desert Pete" and a "Desert Rose."
I've been "Down So Long" that I hardly know if I'm "Down There by the Train," "Down on the Border" or "Down the Road Tonight." I do know that if I go "Down to the Waterline" I may just see the "Downeaster Alexa." I may just be in "Downtown" Akron.

Supertramp is a bunch of "Dreamers." The Nylons "Dream" but Fleetwood Mac "Dreams" but only Sting dreams the "Dream of the Blue Turtles."

The Police are "Driven to Tears" but Johnny Cash will just "Drive On."

By far, the most common form of Itunes advice, however, comes in the form of the negative imperative. A stunning 20 songs begin with the word "Don't." If I take out the two in the interrogative form ("Don't You Want Me?" by the Human League and "Don't You Think It's Time?" by J. Mascis from the Grace of My Heart soundtrack) I'm down to 18. An additional three songs are descriptive--"Don't Need a Gun" by Billy Idol, "Don't Know Much About History" by Sam Cooke, and "Don't Miss You at All" by Norah Jones. So I'm left with a still healthy fifteen prohibitions from my Ipod. Rather than rank them from best to worst, I will rank them from easiest to hardest in terms of taking the musical advice.

Easy:
"Don't Burn the Bridge" (Don McLean)
"Don't Stand So Close to Me" (The Police)
"Don't Stand So Close to Me 86" (The Police)
"Don't You (Forget About Me)" (Billy Idol)

Moderately Difficult, But I think I Can Comply:
"Don't Stop" (Fleetwood Mac)
"Don't Get Me Wrong" (The Pretenders)
"Don't Slow Down" (Mister Mister)

Darn Difficult
"Don't Stop" (Rolling Stones)--Yeah, I know, it's the same title, but somehow I think the Stones are talking about something else than Fleetwood Mac.
"Don't Ask Me Why" (Billy Joel)
"Don't Fear the Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult); I shouldn't but I do.
"Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" (Elton John); like that's in my control.
"Don't Pay the Ferryman" (Chris DeBurgh); have you ever tried to stiff the ferryman?
"Don't Give Up" (Peter Gabriel)
"Don't Stop Believin'" (Journey); holding onto that feeling can be hard sometimes.
"Don't Worry About the Government" (The Talking Heads); hard not to when it has us on the road to nowhere. Maybe they heard Leonard Cohen tell them that "Democracy" is coming to the USA.

Demanding bunch these rockers. I must fight to the end, never give up, never slow down, never forget Billy Idol, never misunderstand Chrissie Hynde, and never stand too close to Stewart Copeland. If you can do all that "Day After Day" perhaps at the end of the day you can "Dim All the Lights" take your "Dirty Knife" go see if "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" or just "Drift Away" before all the effort makes you "Driven to Tears."

I would like to respectfully and non-ironically dedicate this blog entry to "Daniel" my brother, who is older than me but who is not, to my knowledge, traveling tonight on a plane.

"B" is for Bracket

In my alphabetical mosey through my Ipod I'm now up to the letter "B." I noticed that I have 63 songs beginning with the letter "B," and since that was close to 64, which is a magical number in March, I figured I would do what any person would do with too much time on his hands...break up the songs into alphabetical order as rankings and do a bracket challenge. This sort of meaningless exercise makes me nostalgic for the old days of whatsbetter.com, back when you would get two random entries and simply clicked on whichever was better. I used to waste waaay too much time on that site, pondering whether Liquid Soap was better than Nirvana or incense was better than an electric pencil sharpener.

A truly random distribution matching of songs already randomly selected by letter leads to such interesting quandaries as why does Bruce Springsteen have so many songs that begin with the letter "B" ("Born in the USA," "Badlands," "Born to Run," "Better Days," "Brilliant Disguise"), whether or not Dire Straits's "The Bug" is better than Mary Chapin Carepenter's "The Bug" (tough call), and whether Johnny Cash's "Bird on a Wire" is better than Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire" (yes, I think so).

Anyway, here is my final four of "B" songs and the songs they beat to make the final four.

"Brass in Pocket" (The Pretenders)
[Songs beat: "Bearers of the Light" by Michael Card; "Be Thou My Vision" by Fernando Ortega; "Bitter End" by the Dixie Chicks; "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits.]

The Pretenders did have the proverbial easiest path to the finals, somehow drawing CCM into the sweet 16. Still this is a great song. It is (not kidding here), the only song I've ever called a radio station during request hour to request. They didn't play it. Love Chrissie Hynde's vocals.

"Badlands" (Bruce Springsteen)
[Songs beat: "Burn Down the Mission" by Elton John; "Bloody Well Right" by Supertramp; "Brilliant Disguise" by Bruce Springsteen; "Burning Down the House" by the Talking Heads.]

This regional bracket was loaded. Somehow, but a fluke of aphabetizing, almost all the Springsteen songs ended up in the bracket, beating up on each other like ACC teams trying to get into the big dance. I really think Springsteen is underrated as a lyricist. There are times where he can rival Paul Simon for poetic metaphors, but he also has a sardonic edge to him that really encapsulates certain emotions:

"Workin' in the fields
till you get your back burned
Workin' 'neath the wheels
till you get your facts learned
Baby I got my facts
learned real good right now"

I'm mean that's just brilliant.

"The Boy from Tupelo" (Emmylou Harris)
[Songs beat: "Beast of Burden" by The Rolling Stones; "Be Good to Yourself" by Journey; "Blonde over Blue" by Billy Joel; "Beautiful Enemy" by Dar Williams.]

It sort of makes me sad that "Beautiful Enemy" didn't make the final four since it was the song that was playing in a Barnes & Noble one day that literally made me stop in my tracks, go to the counter and say "Who is that?" Still I think that Emmylou Harris's song is more compete (not as flashy at first but it works its way through the song rather than just stopping). I didn't even think it was the best song on the album, but one thing this exercise made me do is relisten to some songs when they came up on shuffle play.

"The Boys of Summer" (Don Henley)
[Songs beat: "The Beast in Me" by Johnny Cash; "Be Still My Beating Heart" by Sting; "Bye, Bye Love" by the Everly Brothers (kind of a neat contrast there); "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen.]

Yes, I'll admit there is some sentimental value here. This song was hot on the radio the year I got engaged (I feel old all of a sudden), so it's the closest thing the spouse and I have to "our song." I will say, as I've gotten older, different things stand out about the song, to whit: "Out on the road today, I saw a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac / A little voice inside my head said 'don't look back; you can never look back."

So that's my March Madness of "B" songs (not to be confused with "B" sides.

"A" on my Ipod

Because I'm a hopelessly derivative person and have seen other people post on their blogs or columns the "what's in your Ipod" question, I figured that the alphabetical arrangement was as interesting way as any to talk about the music of the moment.

I have twenty-six songs beginning with the letter "A" in my music library. I will try to bullet my (current) three favorites for each letter:

All Out of Love--Air Supply
All Revved Up (With No Place to Go)--Meatloaf
All Right--Amy Grant
All Right Now--[Live]--Queen & Paul Rogers
All the Way to Kingdom Come--Rich Mullins
All You Zombies--The Hooters
Allentown--Billy Joel
Ally Ally Oxen Free--The Kingston Trio
Alone--Heart
Along Comes a Woman--Chicago
Amazon--The Nylons
America--Simon & Garfunkel
And She Was--Talking Heads
And So It Goes--Billy Joel
And We Danced--The Hooters
Angie--The Rolling Stones
*Another Day--Sting
Another One Bites the Dust--Queen
*Anthem--Leonard Cohen
Any Way You Want It--Journey
Anybody Seen My Baby--The Rolling Stones
*Apeman--The Kinks
*Are You Out There?--Dar Williams
Ask the Lonely--Journey
Atlantic City--Bruce Springsteen
Autumn Almanac--The Kinks

#3 Tie ("Apeman"/"Another Day")
I sometime use the Sting song in class to talk about if certain styles or genres lend themselves to certain content/subject matter. I'm always struck in a cognitive dissonance sort of way by the irresistible dance beat of "Another Day" in conjunction with its almost suicidally depressing lyrics. But maybe that's the point. The Kinks' song has a goofy cheerfulness to it that belies its message.

#2 "Anthem"
When I heard a cover of this while watching the DVD Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, I turned to Cindy and Todd and said, "I hope every artist who has ever written a crappy, derivative CCM song is forced to listen to "Anthem" some day and at least has the decency to feel ashamed."

#1 "Are You Out There?"

I really like Dar Williams's lyrics. Her songs remind me of Paul Simon's lyrics at times, but with a bit more probing spiritual quality. (Yet not openly underscored like CCM.) I didn't like the album this was off of as much as My Better Self, but the song is terrific at expressing the sense of connectedness one longs for at a certain point in life while hinting (perhaps) that that longing is itself a symbol of another, deeper one.

"I'll Take Crappy Customer Service for $100, Alex"

Apple and Directv...

"What are two companies that have as poor customer service as Blockbuster?"

Frequent readers of this blog know that I've picked on Blockbuster more than a few times for the ways in which it has failed again and again to parlay whatever advantages its service has over Netflix into a decent alternative to the Red & White.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I got a holiday letter from Blockbuster saying they were raising the price of their Total Access option an additional $10...about a 30% increase.

I was happy to get an Ipod this winter and happier still to receive a $15 gift card for Itunes this Christmas. The only problem was that when I scratched off to reveal the code and enter it at Itunes to redeem my gift I got a message saying my card had not been "activated." They told me to take it up with whoever sold me the card. Since it was a gift (hence, you know, the term "Gift" card) and I had no way of knowing where it was sold, I contacted Apple's customer service via their hard to find link. Their response? Fax them a copy of the card along with a copy of the sales receipt. (This after I told them I didn't know where it was bought because, you know it was a "Gift" card.)

I understand Apple doesn't want Target or Wal-Mart or Best Buy or Kroger or whoever to rip them off in some way and that these cards may be easy to steal, hence making activation important. But I find it hard to believe in a computer world where my grocery store can send me specialized coupons based on the fact that I charged Pop-Tarts seven months ago, my car dealer can e-mail me about how many miles its been since my last oil change, and my video store can tell me which shipping center Felicity season four, disc one was sent three years ago when I ordered it that Apple has no way of knowing where a serial number was distributed to and whether or not, based on the bar code, it was purchased. They just don't want to do the leg work of checking...they want me to do it. Or they figure enough people won't want to embarrass the "gift" card giver and just eat it. If you are going to market "gift" cards aggressively, then you should reasonably foresee that people will want you to resolve problems they have with YOUR product. The Itunes brand is the name on the card, not Target, Best Buy, etc. Problems with the cards will be a mark on the Itunes brand and image.

I recently decided to downgrade my Directv membership to just one room. I hadn't used the one in the office much, and it kept losing signal. When I contacted Directv, they said I needed to return the receiver or face up to $490 in charges. No problem. Where to return it? Well wait until I receive a "recovery kit" in the mail and then follow the instructions. A week later and I still had no recovery kit. I e-mailed Directv customer service and requested it again. Then I started getting the collection calls. Why hadn't I returned my receiver? They would charge me up to $490 if I didn't do so.

As an aside..I hate automated reminders. Calls generated by computer with no humans at the other end. Blockbuster does these too. Another of my pet peeves is when you are in line at a store (okay, usually Blockbuster) and the person on the phone gets priority over the customer in line. You know...if they are always on the phone, why are all my calls automated?

Anyways, I finaally got the recovery kit and sent it back to Directv via Fedex. According to the tracking number, it was received 12/26/2007 and signed for. Home free, right?

No, not really. On 12/28, I get another automated call from Directv threatening me with a $490 charge if I don't return my receiver. Then the kicker.

"If you have already returned your receiver...press 1; if..."

What???? So two days after they signed for it, they send me an automated message saying, in essence, "we don't know if you returned it or not, but if you didn't we'll charge you for it."

Postscript--Apple sent me one of those e-mail surveys generated by a "visit" to customer service...you know, "was your problem resolved?" (no) "were you satisfied with your service?" (hell no). What I love is they don't ask "how can we do better?" Instead it is, "please outline the steps you took to try to resolve this problem before contacting customer service?"

Oh...and for the record...I gave the gift card back to the giver who will go back to the store for a refund. She said she might give me a card for Amazon instead.

Way to go, Apple. Within 1 month you took a guy who was thrilled to get his first Ipod and turned him into a guy whose first thought was "where can I get content for it someplace else."

I Have Joined...

...the IPod tidal wave.

Next up, I'll be podcasting my classes no doubt.

More on this earth shattering development as it occurs.

P.S. I have a measly 740 songs on my IPOD at the moment. (Sherry can mock me now.)