Ryanware

The problem with an epidemic is that just because it’s gone doesn’t mean it will stay gone forever. Unless you developed an immunity in the first pass, you’ll probably die the second time. When it comes to epidemics, the glass isn’t half empty: it’s broken. Unless, of course, you use a glass that isn’t made of glass. I recommend plastic.

What would be better than a plastic drinking cup, though, is some sort of shield to go on my head that keeps certain things out, and alters my brainwaves, making it impossible to think specific things or sing certain songs.

The first thing I would filter out of my brain is a certain song that has long haunted not only my dreams, but every waking hour as well.

Yes, it’s true. It’s back. With vengeance. My permanent head song.

So for the past 3 weeks or so I have been waking up between 5 AM and 10 AM. I’ve finally trained myself to wake up and stay up when my alarm goes off. But, it only works if it’s a certain song being blasted out of my computer speakers. I still don’t wake up to my normal alarm clock and there’s been two or three days out of the 3 or so weeks that I’ve slept in. Last night, for example, I only set my alarm clock, too lazy to setup the alarm on the computer. So this morning I apparently turned it off in my sleep and slept until about 12:30 PM.

Lesson: once you have a way you can wake up early, stick to it.

I’m pretty excited though about this whole waking up early thing. I can now set my alarm for whenever I want and I know I will wake up. That is, as long as it’s that one song on my computer.

The song is “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” by Sufjan Stevens, on his Songs for Christmas album. Go figure.

So I got an iPod Shuffle for my birthday from some friends. I’ve stayed out of the iPod craze mainly because I didn’t think I would ever use one. I only listen to music while on the computer, or in the car. Even in the car I tend to listen to talk radio a lot more than I listen to music lately. Now that I actually have an iPod I still don’t think it’s all that useful to me when it comes to music. I do get most of my music off iTunes, but I don’t really want to listen to music anymore than I do already (on the computer and in the car). Who knows, this thing may change all that, but generally speaking I enjoy skiing, hiking, walking around, etc. in silence or talking to other people. That is, unless I can listen to educational or other entertaining non-musical things. Hooray for Podcasts! Oh the heavenly podcasts! I’ve been collecting some for some time now, but didn’t ever listen to them because 1) It’s too much of a pain to burn them to CDs, and 2) I couldn’t listen to them on the computer while working and actually work at the same time (too distracting). So I’m quite thrilled I can listen to all the podcasts I’ve been wanting to listen to for so long.

Oh, it’s the 512 MB version of the iPod Shuffle. I was amazed that 17 hours of podcasts would fit in 512 MB. I can see how if I was using it for music I’d want more space, but for podcasts I don’t think 512 MB will ever be too little.