An early Xmas present.
When I was in Singapore recently, I bought Mrs.S. her Nintendo Wii that she has been keen to get since it was released, and which I promised to get for her birthday. Fortunately I was able to get a good deal on a Japanese imported version, with games and extra controller etc. all for a price that still worked out cheaper than buying a grey import chipped version here in Malaysia. Carrying it back on the bike, along with my weekend’s luggage was, hmm, interesting. Didn’t slow me down though! If anyone spotted a bright yellow streak on the highway loaded somewhat precariously up to the max with luggage, doing about 200km/h then you had the pleasure of seeing Suzi the Flying Banana in action. 
But as Mrs.S. and I went shopping yesterday for Xmas sundries for the cafe, I decided to cheer myself up by buying myself a present. Please note that I refuse to use the term “retail therapy” because it is simply used to mask consumerist greed, and I have no issue with buying things just for the hell of it.
Modest spending was the order of the day, and with my well known preference for minimalism, and the concept of small=beautiful, I purchased an iPod Shuffle. In my favourite colour, orange!
There are many beautiful things that have blown me away recently, and this tiny marvel is no exception. Smaller than a box of matches, superbly finished aluminium casing, and of course the Apple minimalist touch, no screen or unnecessary features. I have a 6GB Creative Zen for other duties, but wanted this purely for the form factor and the sound quality which is absolutely superb - not using the enclosed earbuds of course, but with my trusty Sennheiser PX100 headphones - with richness and clarity.
And I find the shuffle feature - which I never bothered using on the Zen - to be great fun! I download a totally random set of songs, and then just switch the machine on, and do whatever I need to do. When Ella Fitzgerald suddenly morphs into Nine Inch Nails, and the Bob Dylan Theme time radio hour playing 50’s and 60’s music before a wall of Smashing Pumpkins comes along is a really pleasurable experience.
A quick and dirty snapshot shows the extremely tiny nature of the machine, but it can really crank out the music, even for my partially deaf ears 
If people mumble then they might as well be speaking Mongolian for all I know, and I have now developed the appalling habit of mumbling as well. Makes for long drawn out conversations, with lots of repetition required to catch the drift of the conversation. Especially bad in clubs or bars, when I simply cannot filter sounds and voices to manage a conversation 
Too many loud concerts, a liking for high volume music, and probably the main culprit, noisy motorcycle helmets. 25 years of helmet noise, at speed, will definitely have a deleterious effect on one’s hearing in later life.
But I digress. I love this little gadget, it’s quality and size and ease of use, which means that I end up listening to tracks that I wouldn’t necessarily choose for a playlist, and that’s great because surprises lurk at every song change. Highly recommended!!
