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Augh! Too many choices!

Posted May 16, 2009 by Clarisa Gerlach

Updated May 16, 2009 at 01:24 PM

My first iPod held 30 gigabytes. When it bit the dust—sooner than it should have, Jobs—my wife, knowing she’s married to a music glutton, got me the mack-daddy 160-gig model.

This means I walk around with 30,000 songs in my pocket. Not that I need all this but, to paraphrase Raoul Duke, when you get locked into a serious music collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

Now in theory, this is great, because I’ve got a multitude of musical choices at my fingertips. In reality, there are problems with this.

Sometimes all those choices can be paralyzing. I scroll though the artist and album lists, waiting for something to jump up and say “Hi! I’m just what you want to listen to today!”

Nothing ever does, and yes, I would be frightened if it did. But the point is that too many choices can lead to paralysis. Or the shuffle function, where I surrender my will and let the machine decide.

This is the safer option, especially when driving, because if talking on the cell phone behind the wheel is dangerous, and if texting while driving is even worse, then staring at a 2” x 1” screen trying to figure out which album suits your mood is an all-out death wish.

What’s ironic though—really ironic, Alanis, not rain-on-your-wedding-day ironic—is making a choice, scrolling through the titles and finding that album isn’t on the iPod. There’s enough music on here to choke a horse and I managed to leave off ZZ Top’s “Eliminator”?

It’s enough to make a man listen to commercial radio. Almost.