the iTunes Shuffle

Yeah, yeah, I know that one of the highly-touted new offerings from Apple is called the iPod Shuffle, but this is just a bit different. It's my name for a little game (posted by Will of Crescat Sententia yesterday) that's evidently making the rounds, so I decided to try it. Here's how it works:

1. Open up the music player on your computer (or your iPod, possibly).
2. Set it to play your entire music collection.
3. Hit the "shuffle" command.
4. Tell us the title of the next ten songs that show up (with their musicians), no matter how embarrassing. ...

This is what mine produced:

1. XTC: I'd Like That
2. Phil Woods Quintet with Dizzy Gillespie: Love for Sale
3. Eddie Murphy: Boogie in Your Butt (heh, forgot that was on there)
4. Aphex Twin: Come to Daddy
5. Lee Konitz: Checkerboard
6. Gerry Mulligan: Moonlight in Vermont
7. Saga: Don't Be Late
8. Maynard Ferguson: Pagliacci
9. UNT One O'Clock Lab Band: What Was
10. Saga: Once in a Lifetime (wow, Saga twice)

Interestingly enough, I've seen four of those artists/groups (Woods, Mulligan, Maynard and the One O'Clock [duh]) perform live, and another one (Konitz) in a lecture/clinic situation.

I'm sure at some point in time, I'll actually join the cult of good tunes, as the Blogfather might say. I'm willing to bet, however, that I'll spring for one of the bigger models--at least the Mini if not the full-sized iPod. Even though it's possible to have the Shuffle on a sort of not-random mode, I think I like the whole control-over-my-tunes thing too much to ever go all-random, all-the-time. But I will say that this shuffle game has been fun; I'll do a second round and post those results here as well.

Now this is just cool: And while we're on the subject, here's an article about a Mercedes with a fully-integrated iPod that sits safely in the glove box while you operate it with the sterring wheel. (via UNEASYsilence, who also posted a helpful photographic diagram of how to turn your traditional iPod into a Shuffle model)

A good one from the archives: A conversation with Halfling tonight reminded me of a great story from snopes.com about a pair of brothers-in-law who gave each other the same pair of pants (in increasingly elaborate packaging, of course), for 25 years! I laughed like crazy all over again when I read it this time.