But what spurred this post was browsing the internet with a newly-installed Firefox, visiting my own site, and seeing that the Song of the Week posts had that missing Flash plugin symbol. It had never even crossed my mind that those little things were Flash. I mean, of course they’re Flash, but I’ve never thought about this stuff before the iPhone and iPod Touch. I have an iPod Touch and I never even noticed it before — maybe because I barely use it. Combined with the now daily animated GIFs until I receive what I rightly deserve, it must take an obscene amount of time to load the site and then some of the posts end up being worthless anyway. On the other hand, I think stuff I post can wait until someone is in front of a computer.

I arrived at my aunt’s house shortly after 1 to help her figure out why the Spanish speech projects her students had put on flash drives wouldn’t play for her. That turned out to be an easy enough fix — she had to open the flash drives to look at the contents, so she could manually select the Audacity project files. She was probably clicking “Play” when autoplay came up, and it would try to play the Audacity file with WMP or some shit. Just a guess. What’s important here is that in the middle of this activity, I noticed an unopened iPod Touch sitting next to the laptop. How could that not catch someone’s eye? Apparently she received it free two months earlier when she bought a MacBook for her son (my cousin). Not a bad deal.

I continued cleaning up the messy computer: deleting programs, and telling others not to automatically begin their retarded processes on startup. Meanwhile, I continued to eye the iPod Touch, as I can’t help but be mesmerized by a shiny new piece of hardware. Apple products may be overpriced, but no one can deny that they’re almost all striking pieces of hardware. The Touch is half the thickness of my 2.5 year old 80GB iPod and has a screen double the size. It’s impressive before you even turn it on.

As I waited for the installation of Vista Service Pack 1 to finish (yes, I really helped my aunt out!), I mentioned how curious I was about the iPod Touch. I admittedly have been somewhat interested in the iPhone, but the monthly price would naturally keep any unemployed person away. I didn’t realize how easily that curious comment would be construed as wanting the iPod Touch. My aunt immediately replied with saying I could have it, and I was fairly shocked. The natural reaction to protest such a gift was somewhat weighed down by the thought of actually being able to mess around with such a gadget. I tried to tell her the various cool things she could do with it, but she wasn’t having any of it. I knew her son already had one, so I asked if her daughter (other cousin) would want it, and she insisted she would not be interested. I can’t say I put up the biggest fight at this point. I was getting an iPod Touch for Geek Squad work!

I didn’t think of the consequences of having such an awesome piece of hardware in my possession. Ignorance is bliss, and now the thought of having all the functionality of this iPod Touch practically all the time is already getting to me. The phone part of it barely fits into the equation. As I have already posted, I could check Fangraphs with the greatest of ease any time! I could watch Mike Tyson talking about stomping on children’s testicles whenever I wish! I could play games and annoyingly post my high score to Twitter every time! The possibilities are endless.

As for right now, I’m still giddy messing around with the few free apps I’ve downloaded. I’ve also uploaded some pictures and a converted episode of Peep Show (thanks, Handbrake) just to see how they’d look. It’s pretty much a technological marvel, but the iPhone is obviously on an entirely higher level, so having an iPod Touch only makes one realize how awesome having an iPhone would be. Goddamn it. Fuck you, Steve Jobs. Let Verizon in on your shit so maybe I could pay less than $75/mo for a reasonable iPhone plan.

Steve Jobs to me: Get a job, douchebag.