The Lure of the iPod

If Apple is good at anything, it's good at advertising. I really want an iPod. Luckily for me, they're all sold out because of the Christmas insanity. Why do I want an iPod? That, my friend, is a good question. What's so great about them?

The iPod hype tells me:

• They play video!!
• They play music!!!
• They're microscopic in size!!!!
• iPod will make my life absolutely perfect.
• BUY, BUY, BUY!!

Rational thought tells me:

• Why do I need to watch video when I'm away from my TV? There's an entertaining thing called reality out there for me to watch.
• Yes, great. They play music. But so do a million other mp3 or wma devices.
• Yes, the nano is small. At first this impressed me. But other music players that cost much less cash are not that much larger. I was impressed when I went to Best Buy and saw the competition.
• Why buy the iPod, when the competition is so much cheaper?
• The iPods don't have FM tuners. Their competition, which costs less, has more functionality.
• Picture this image of Jason. There is a cell phone on his belt. He is grasping a GPS reciever in his right hand as he hunts for an elusive geocache. The microscopic iPod is in his left hand as he listens to a geocaching-themed podcast. His digital camera is hanging around his neck. Oh, and his palm pilot is in his jacket pocket, beeping at him because he's late for a meeting. He can't hear it because the volume is up far too loud on the iPod. This is ridiculous. People are staring.

It doesn't make sense, but I still want one. The only advantage I can think of off hand is that the iPod will sync with iTunes. It's possible the competition has something similar, but I'm not sure.

Oh, excuse me. My cell phone is beeping at me. Gotta run!