MP3 Player Escapes Destruction

My last MP3 player was an iPod style device. I shouldn’t have bought it. Most of the storage capacity went unused. The battery life sucked and I wasn’t going to shell out another wad of cash to have it replaced. Since Erin and I are planning to join the new Y when it opens up in a few weeks, I thought that it would be a good time to get one of the new flash drive MP3 players. The price has gone down for them and they are better for running with. So I got my card and headed over to Best Buy.

I got the Insignia 1GB and it has turned into a nightmare. It has taken me two days of screwing around with it to get it to play songs. First, I had to install a new program which required me getting on to the internet to download some files. Then I find out that I can’t put on my copyrighted songs on it. So then I had to connect again, and download the digital rights management thingy. I thought I was in the clear. Nope, I find out that the playlist function doesn’t work. I find myself back on the net in order to download the latest firmware update. The firmware update deletes my pre-loaded songs, some of which I actually liked. Did the update solve the playlist problem? Nope. Back to the internet to find some better online instructions for this model. None addresses the problem. So then I make an appeal to my techno-wizard cousin via email to help me. Meanwhile, I am playing with Windows Media Player and somehow I get a playlist to appear on the Insignia. How the hell did I do that? I have no idea.

The lack of a playlist option doesn’t bother me too much. However, if I wasn’t able to get my purchased tracks on to it, I probably would have taken it to the back field and connected it with my baseball bat.

The player came with pre-loaded music. Some of it was pretty good and I am sad that they got deleted. If you like music suggestions, I liked:

“Do It For Me Now” by Angels & Airwaves
“Best Days” by Matt White
“Happy Birthday” by Flipsyde
“Wanted” by Holly Brook

Remember blink 182? The band broke up and one of the members went on to form Angels & Airwaves. I may have to check out their album.

Flipsyde’s “Happy Birthday” is about an abortion but it reminded me of Fort Minor’s “Where’d You Go?” Now that I’ve listened to both in succession, I wonder what I was thinking.

Try them out.