Putting away the desire to be very grown up

Hey everyone. Hope you enjoyed the slideshow, I certainly enjoyed putting it together. About the only thing bad I can say about the service I used to put it together, RockYou, is that you can’t put in your own custom music, you have to select some from what they have, and it’s a really really craptastic selection. Seriously, a whole bunch of pop artists I’m supposed to care about, I’m sure, but guess what, I don’t. Let me upload my own music, ya jerks. I’m thinking “You Can’t Handle This” by Five Iron Frenzy would have been perfect for mine, for example.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about a couple of nifty things I got while I was at Best Buy the other day. I went in there looking to buy a new mouse, and while I didn’t find one that I did like that wasn’t too expensive, I did grab a couple of sweet awesome iPod accessories.

The first one was a DLO leather case. I had a case for my iPod already (you’d be crazy not to have one), but it wasn’t designed for an iPod video, it covered up the right and leftmost edges of the screen, and it had a couple of Velcro straps that go over the iPod to hold it inside, however one of those straps neatly covered up the headphone jack. On previous iPod models, the jack was more in the center of the top of the device, so this wouldn’t have been a concern. My new case snugly holds the iPod in place, and I can perfectly see the entire screen and access the scroll wheel with no problems. The front flap is made from very soft leather and has a small magnet to hold it in place when it’s shut, along with a small hole to access the headphone jack. There’s also a small hole at the bottom, providing plenty of access to the docking port, and a money clip-style belt clip. My old case had more of a clothespin-style clip, with a button which allowed you to remove the clip from the case, so you could pull the case and the iPod off whenever you needed to, and just dock it back with the clip when on the go. This clip tends to dig into your side when you’re sitting down. The money clip on this case does not have such a problem, although it’s a bit more difficult to slide on your belt.

Ask any longtime iPod owner what the most frequently damaged part of their iPod is, and they’ll either tell you the screen or the corners. The leather case does a fine job of protecting both. The material on the bottom of the case extends slightly beyond the corners of the player, and is made of more stiff leather, so if you accidentally do drop your iPod, it will absorb some of the shock and prevent an ugly scratch. And the screen has both the leather flap which protects the whole front of the iPod and the usual plastic screen when opened up. If you’re looking for a case to protect your video iPod, this one is both stylish and practical, and I heavily recommend it.

The other item I picked up was the Griffin iTrip. The iTrip is a small FM transmitter which plugs into your iPod’s docking slot. Dimensionally, it’s equally as wide as the iPod video, and adds les than an inch of length and only slightly more depth, which makes it very convenient when carrying or wearing your iPod. Like most FM Transmitters for portable music players, it works by broadcasting onto an unused FM channel on your radio. The difficult part lies in locating one that is not used or doesn’t have bleed-through from neighboring stations (in the Fort Worth area I find that 87.9 works very well) because the antenna in the iTrip is not powerful enough to override a signal generated by an FM Radio station. If it were so, at the very least any neighboring cars who were listening to that station would suddenly hear what your device was playing. While it’s probably true that the people of Fort Worth would probably be far better off intellectually listening to Demon Hunter, Becoming the Archetype, The Showdown, or Decyfer Down rather than whatever crap K104 or KISS FM is playing, I suppose people do have the right to listen to whatever they choose, and those stations have a right to get their “product” to their listeners unimpeded by me and my more awesome taste. Once you do match up an unused station with your iTrip, simply start playing something from your device and viola, it will come through your radio. There will be some occasional static caused by station interference, but on the whole you should be able to listen to your music very clearly. It’s a nifty and simple to use device. I would recommend an FM transmitter with a car charger built into it, but if you are like me, and the placement of your car’s power outlet precludes the use of such a device, the iTrip is a great alternative

If you know me at all, you know that microwaving food is generally not a choice I make. I prefer stuff cooked in the oven every time. I’ll wait the 30 minutes it takes to properly cook Hot Pockets in the oven rather than eat them after 2 and a half minutes in the microwave because they taste better, every time. However, I may have found a great exemption to this. The Digiorno Microwave pizza I had for lunch came out hot, crispy crust, not lukewarm in the middle at all. All I had to do was stick it in my lunch with a cold pack and cook it at work. Very tasty, and a good alternative to the lunchmeat or peanut butter sammiches I usually have.

Huh, well, since this seems to be a product review entry, what else can I do while I’m here…I like this whole water thing God just came out with, it’s pretty good about quenching thirst., very good at hydrating you too. Keep an eye out for some of this new stuff, I’m betting it’ll be very big.

What? That was funny!! LAUGH DARN YOU!!! Oh fine, take your kitty pic and scram!