iPod Nation... March on

I'm now the proud owner (read: slave) of a totally adorable, irresistable, technologically impressive iPod Shuffle. Her name is FRANKi and she does a very good job of keeping me from sleeping on the subway. Which is quite a feat. It's a lifesaving task, really - falling asleep on the train can result in all sorts of nasty happenings (I know a guy who knows a guy who woke up at the end of the line w/o shoes or a wallet, and he's not a chick so one can only imagine what could have happened).

All of FRANKi's wonderful attributes aside, I feel this strange (read: slightly disturbing) kinship with literally about 40% of my fellow subway denizens. Lately there are more sets of little, white earbuds hanging out on the train than homeless guys smelling like week old morning pee. It's a bizarre change of pace, I assure you. It's crazy to sit there first thing in the morning and mentally tally all the money spent by one car's worth of people on iPods of all types. The original Big Daddy. The Mini. The Shuffle. The new Mini. Lots of dough there, folks. Makes me feel slightly developmentally retarded in that "I didn't get in on the dot com stock boom, either" kind of way.