iPod Changed My Life

There are very few positive aspects of being a law student. The following comment from Tyler Durden seems appropriate: "If the applicant waits at the door for three days without food, shelter or encouragement, then he can enter and begin training." For the record, Project Mayhem is way more interesting than law school. Given the choice between the two, you should choose the former.

Despite the difficulties presented by law school, there are some perquisites that are pretty nice. One of the best one is free access to online databases that contain tons of interesting information like mortgage records, arrest records, and average income in your ZIP code. If you are creative enough to come up with the right search terms, you can find pretty much anything you want. There are two major companies who operate the databases and for the most part they are almost identical in terms of material available. The database proprietors stand to make a lot of money by getting law students hooked on their particular service, so they give us free access to a lot of their content. Not only that, but they give us reward points for answering questions that demonstrate your understanding of their services. Moreover, a few times each semester the respective companies send sales reps who provide free lunch and even more reward points just for attending training sessions.

I have attended every training session since my first year of school (often choosing to go to training sessions instead of less practical meetings about job hunts and networking). Needless to say, I have had a lot of free meals and earned a lot of rewards points.

In December I cashed in some of my points and "bought" the family an iPod. Although we haven't used it as much as I thought we would, it is slowing becoming a necessity for any trip outside of the house. I take it with me when I check the mail, and it saved my life on a flight from Portland to Las Vegas.

The best place I have found to use the iPod is the grocery store. We shop at WinCo, the greatest store in world. Actually, it is a pretty bare-boned store. The kind of place where you bag your own groceries, try to stay out of the way of the employees, and make sure you sanitize your hands when you leave.

The first time I took the iPod, I was a little nervous. I didn't want to look like a wiener. Most of the folks to the WinCo are somewhere south of affluent, so walking around with an iPod can look a little out of place. I quickly got over my initial fears and now I only go grocery shopping if I have the iPod with me.

I keep the iPod on shuffle so that I can listen to a bunch of different songs. On Saturday my setlist was especailly appropriate for a trip to the store.

First song, Harvester of Sorrow by Metallica.

When you walk into WinCo you walk through a chute that spits you out at the produce section. If you're not pumped up when you get to the end of the chute there is a good chance that you will be trampled by these guys getting great deals on bananas.

Second song, 1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins.

It is a good song.

Next up, A New Hope by blink 182.

I don't really like blink 182. They are on the iPod to make the missus happy. But I listened to the song at the store and it was fun. I don't think this the actual video, but since my loyal reader is also a Star Wars fan, re will love it.

There were a bunch of other songs in here, but I don't really remember what they were. Probably some Poison and Tesla. I was busy pricing meat.

I closed the set with A Plea from a Cat Named Virtue by The Weakerthans.

If you don't like this band, you suck. Best band to come out of Canada with the exception of The Guess Who, Alanis Morresette, and Rush.
It was a good song to wind down and get ready to bag my groceries.

I put the iPod away before I get to the checkstand because I'm an excellent bull sh*tter and I like to chat up the checker.

Lots of people use iPods when the exercise. Those people are idiots. If you haven't used yours at the grocery store, you need to start. I would say I'd be interested in hearing your experiences with songs, but I would be lying.