S#*tty Shuffle

Rarely do I enjoy forwards. In fact, I pretty much despise every forward ever (can you please take me off your distro? Thanks.) Not just for their content but for their sheer existence.

Who actually has the time to draw pictures solely comprised of @, #, $, %, ^, &, and * symbols. Or make up stupid questions like “What’s your favorite lunch meat?” or “If you were a crayon what color would you be?” Or write sob stories about believing in angels. Or invent hoaxes for free money.

Seriously.

That being said, you can only imagine my sheer dismay (I do have a cynical, judgmental persona to live up to!), when I received a forward that I actually enjoyed.

Kelly, a fellow forward-loather, stipulated before sending that “Random Thoughts” was actually a pretty good one.

And I couldn’t agree more.

It was a fairly viral forward cause within days people were using the extraordinarily ordinary tidbits as their status updates. (For reals people, stop stealing thoughts and passing them off as your own just so you can have “5 People Like This” in your mini-feed.)

I wasn’t going to post any of the Randos here but feel they deserve to be shown in a more classy, sophisticated arena - ah hem - this blog. Some of my faves:

“As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.” (Me too!)

“There is a great need for sarcasm font.”

“How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?”

I digress. I’m feeling fairly ADD today, sorry. This blog could have been about how much I hate forwards, or how much I hate people posting quotes and passing them as their own, or how much I hate the Like button on Facebook.

But...drumroll please...one of these random thoughts caught my special attention:

“I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.”

I could NOT agree more. I mean, obviously I’m guilty of putting music on my iPod that I know I will never, ever listen to - simply because I want to beef up the number of songs I have.

The more songs you have the cooler you are, right? Right?

I have 4,053 songs. So I listen to the same five or so on repeat. So what. I do make valiant attempts at Shuffle every so often. Truly, I do. But when I try to branch out, I find myself skipping over songs faster than one flips through the ads in a magazine.

Oftentimes, in my exasperation and frustration, I won’t even listen to the opening notes and lyrics. I will stare at the small colored screen, right-clicking incessantly.

Skip. Skip. Skip.

Then I will wonder why I ever make Shuffle attempts (ever).
Sometimes Shuffle will hit its stride. A song will come on and I will think I’m the coolest person in the world because I had no idea it was on my pod. Shuffle can be a gold mine.

Sometimes there will be four or five great songs in a row. (OK fine, I exaggerate. I’m excited if there’s two winners.)

But then Gloria Estefan’s rendition of “Love on Layaway” will come on, dashing all my hopes and dreams of a Merry Shufflemas.

Why aren’t iPods smarter? Come on Mac! You’re so good at knowing what we want before we even know we want it! Why don’t you know what we want to LISTEN to? (Genius is OK, but not really.)
Skip. Skip. Skip.

My poor thumb pad is getting sore just thinking about all that next-clicking.

Please, Mr. Jobs. Now that you’re back on the job can you come up with a way for us to better live our lives to a Shuffle-style-soundtrack? Please?