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No One Has to Die on the A Train
01 June 2005
4 10:49

Today, we celebrate the fact that no one has to die at my hand on the A train. This is truly a great day for all New Yorkers.

My 5-year-old Sony Discman (tm), which had been dropped, banged, smacked, thrown and generally quite well-abused, was truly on its last laser and had become quite temperamental over the last few months, and the last time I replaced the batteries, it simply refused to play. I knew that it was time to find a new source of musical amusement for my regular absurdly-long commutes from Washington Heights to civilised parts of Manhattan and occasionally out into the wilds of Brooklyn and the no-man's-land that is Queens.

I've been in rather dire financial straits, lately, but over the weekend, a friend convinced me that even I could afford an iPod Shuffle. Upon my return to the City, I observed that even broke-ass-looking folk seem to be sporting little white earbud earphones with cords trailing into pockets too small for anything but an iPod. I determined I must make the investment, for the sake of my own sanity, for the safety of all those who must ride the subway with me when I am in a foul mood and wish to pummel them and smear their ugly faces into the dirty windows, for the good of all human-kind, and so that I don't climb down onto the tracks and start playing kick-ball with the rats.

I determined the best course of action was to purchase a 4-GB iPod Mini, only slightly more expensive than the Shuffle, but capable of supplying me with more control over my listening habits, and that the easiest means of affording this instantly would be to charge it at Sam Ash. I was disappointed to learn that they did not have the model I desired in the colour I desired (either green or silver), but decided that blue would be an acceptable substitute and walked out of the store some 10 minutes later with a new toy and a volume of Gershwin songs (because I don't know enough of them).

And this morning, on the A train, it was a very happy DJRainDog who listened to Garbage's Version 2.0 quite loudly for the first time in a very long time. The earbuds are cute and compact, but they do not provide me with the level of sound quality which I require, so I'll be attaching my Sennheisers tomorrow morning for the commute, but I'm thrilled to say I have a new baby. Now, I simply need to figure out what to name it.

Here are the current contents:
BT, Emotional Technology
Concrete Blonde, Group Therapy
Dido, Life for Rent
Everything but the Girl, The Best Of
Mary Fahl, The Other Side of Time
Garbage, BeautifulGarbage
Garbage, Version 2.0
Macy Gray, The Id
Bruce Hornsby, Hot House
Jinxed (an EP by a probably now-defunct Maine band)
Allison Krauss, Now That I've Found You, A Collection
Lone Justice, This World Is Not My Home
Love & Rockets, Sorted! The Best of...
Moby, Hotel
Alison Moyet, Hometime
Alison Moyet, Hoodoo
Joan Osborne, Relish
Saint Etienne, Finisterre
Veronique Sanson, L'Olympia '83
U2, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
And finally, Trembling Blue Stars, "Do People Ever". (Thank you, Ian, you're beautiful.)

And that is why no one had to die today on the A train.

r

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