Same video, new way of hearing and seeing it

It's amazing to me...sometimes I think I'm getting old and other times I realize that I'm doing a halfway decent job of keeping up with new technology.

Brian bought me a new iPod for Christmas and I've had so much fun downloading all the music from our library onto it. I decided I didn't need all his freaky World Music stuff -- I kept one album of Turkish phenom Yildez Tilbe, and one of a French musician, but otherwise kept it pretty much "what I like."

I downloaded a video too -- I wanted to see what a TV show would look like on my iPod. I picked out the pilot episode of Desperate Housewives, if for no other reason that to keep from looking like a complete idiot when my friends talk about the show.

Seventeen hours later (yes, 17) after I started downloading the video on my dial-up, it was finally done. It ripped onto my iPod from my computer in about 6 seconds, and before I knew it I was staring at the screen and watching a little teeny TV show on my new toy.

During this long wait, in addition to watching The Denver Broncos beat our nemesis Oakland Raiders yesterday, having dinner and getting 9 full hours of sleep, I also loaded a DVD onto my computer to see if I could get it onto iTunes to show on my iPod (I can't). I watched the first half hour of Lost In Translation on my computer and realized that I was staring at the screen with rapt attention.

Perhaps it was just seeing it on a different screen -- more high definition that my TV -- but it struck me today how some media work well on certain screens, some don't.

One of my pet peeves with new software is that they don't just send you the book anymore -- I had to download it and read it on-screen for my new iPod. Before long, I realized there was no way I would read 69 pages of a manual online, and printed it, three-hole punched it, and put it in a binder.

I guess Old School sometimes still works in certain circumstances.

Merry Christmas