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It's Friday, I ain't got no job, and ain't got stuff to do!

posted February 23, 2007, 7:38 pm | Log In To Post Comments | view comments (4)
Tags: Reel Big Fish, Streetlight Manifesto, Radiohead, Modest Mouse, The Bends, Everything Goes Numb, MP3 Player, suck

My Worst Enemy of Three Syllables: MP3

My fears have come true today... everything I hoped wouldn't happen in fact happened today. My school's renaissance students are going to the local skating rink to socialize and have fun as a whole body. We're head down in the bus and I think to myself "hey, this is one of those opportunities I can take this MP3 player I spent countless hours getting over 200 songs on and use it to it's fullest potential. So I take it out of my pocket and start searching for songs. Now, you must realize, I have a 1 GB. Creative Zen, so I can't see the songs or bands, I just need to search around for what I'm digging. This can become frustrating. But it's not nearly as frustrating as setting everything up, look for a song, and listen to said song for seven seconds before I need to put it away. Which begs the question, what the hell was I thinking when I first got this MP3 player. Let me go to the beginning of this tragic story...

It all started in class, I was listening to my friends huge Ipod full of awesome songs. I sat there listening to Radiohead and Modest Mouse with her and then it hit me... if I had an Ipod, it'd be like, the best Ipod evar. Now, this isn't the first time I've thought of this. Sitting down listening to other Ipods containing tracks from Boys Like Girls, a local bands terrible four track demo, two songs from Led Zeppelin (I'm sure you can guess what two), and any song that's ever been on MTV in the last three years, I've realized that my music taste isn't as bad as I thought it was. But this is the first time I've really considered the digital music realm. My original reason for never getting a MP3 player up until this point is because I like buying CDs and knowing I actually own a bands album. When it's digital, I seem to like it less (unless of course it's a band like Bomb the Music Industry!, in which case I'll download anything they make).

But anyway, later that night, I mention to a friend that I'd like to get a MP3 player, and then I remember something, my mother has one of these jawns but never uses it. So I go grab it and see what’s on it. All that was there was eight tracks of Creed and one of those women songwriters that are half of the time gay (not that there's anything wrong with that). So I find the instruction manual and find out how to get music on it, through the program that came with the player or using my CD player. Naturally, I thought that the program would get more songs on the devil machine faster but this is where my Hell began. I inserted the disc and followed the instructions on my computer screen. Little did I know, installing it would take forever. After a while it ended... but then it started installing more software that I would never use, like an audio book program. Isn't the whole point of getting a book reading it?

So after forty-five or so minutes, all the downloading ends, but my computer runs five times slower than it already did. My first order of business was to delete all the pointless crap that was on my computer, but that was easier said than done. After that, I tried out the program but you had to register first and even then, I had to burn a CD on the computer first and then burn it onto the MP3 player. I found all this pointless and gave up. I now had lost an hour of my life... I want it back oh so much... but I can't. So, I went over to my CD player I tried the second option. What you had to do was hook the two jawns up, go to a special area on the MP3 player and push the play button on the MP3 and the one on the CD at the same time. Well, there first twenty times didn't work so well. The first problem, the recording would start AFTER the song had begun. Second problem, the recording would start before the song even began. Third problem, it sometimes wouldn't start recording at all. And the biggest problem that plagued me, albums like Radiohead's The Bends and Streetlight Manifesto's Everything Goes Numb didn't work, though it did later in my time with this MP3 player. By this, I mean I could hear a buzzing noise.

But I soon got the hang of it and started recording a bunch of my favorite songs. The problem here is that I have to listen to every track. You may say, how is that bad, you're just listening to music. This is my, what, fifth problem? Yes, you have to push a button to start the recording process, but you also have to push a button to stop the recording process. And you may also say, that's not that bad. Well you do it over 200 times and see how it affects you. Now whenever I listen to a CD, right before it ends I stop everything I'm doing and go to push a button that isn't there. It's a natural reaction now... So, spent over a week of time getting loads of songs on this player, killing countless batteries and wasting valuable socializing time that I usually waste anyway. So then the day comes when I'm proud of the work I've done and say to myself "I'm gonna go everywhere with this and I'll always have great music with me".

This is where my sixth problem comes in, I never have enough time outside of my house to listen to music. I don't have a minute in my normal schedule to listen to it. Not even on a friggin' bus ride did I have enough time. This is where the fury my MP3 player brings to me comes from. Wasted days primping it up with songs, wasted money on valuable batteries of power, wasted potential. All gone... all gone... I'd like to end with a quote from Aaron Barret... "Everything Sucks".

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