iPaid

I bought my first piece of new gear in preparation for Kona:



This is my sixth iPod. My first iPod was a "Mini", but by today's standards it's huge. I have a Nano which is ok, but it works best with an armband and after 2 hours of running or more it gets pretty uncomfortable. I've had a few Shuffles which got ruined by me sticking them in the pocket of my tri jersey and getting them all sweaty.

This is the first generation of the iPod which I like LESS than my previous one. The new Shuffle has no buttons on it; instead, all of the controls are on the headphone wire. Normally I like to run with my the cable hanging behind my head out of the way, but now I have to keep in up front to access the controls. You click the button once to play/pause, twice to skip a song, three times to go back. It just doesn't have a good feel to it.

The new iPod has a feature where if you click and hold the main button, a computerized voice will tell you what song is playing. But guess what, Mr. iPod: I'm the one who put all the songs on you. I loaded you up with songs that I like. Do you really think that I need to have you tell me that "Hungry Like the Wolf" is currently playing?

I did have the iPod engraved, so at least that part is pretty cool. But the thing is so tiny, it won't be very long before I lose it.