Suzanne's Soundtrack Sunday
Thank God for iPod
Ed noticed it first. "Your car radio is broken."
My response was "No it's not. I get my stations just fine."
It wasn't until I wanted to find the local NPR affiliate that I realized that he was right. The combination of the funky Beetle antenna and the unforgiving Florida sun have conspired against us listening to more than the three stations I prefer.
The offending article.
I think I've mentioned before that my car is what VW called the Satellite Blue special edition. It came with a year's subscription to XM and something very unusual for the time, an iPod jack in the dash. No dopey adapter setups for me-my car has a plug!
The rarely seen factory installed 2004 in-dash iPod plug
A plug that for a long time did not work. It took a year for me to discover this, as Ed bought me an iPod for Christmas 2005. VW probably has since corrected the issue, but it was my complaint for four or five visits to the dealer that the thing STILL wasn't working. As it is, the plug is poorly placed right above the poorly placed cup holders, so if I have a coffee (small, nothing else will fit) in place, the cup will jostle the plug.
(It helps to have a handy husband. Plans are in place to relocate that plug from the bottom of the dash to the front in a currently unused rocker switch, as seen above.)
That plug, once the bane of my existence as an iPod owner, now makes life much better. Especially when I don't feel like listening to the three country stations play Kenny Chesney over and over (this HAS happened, btw). It's still not perfect, as the right channel will sometimes cut out. This is thanks to those cups of coffee jostling that plug a couple dozen times.
You notice that I haven't even mentioned the fact that my car stereo has a CD player in it? How 90's that thing is-lug around a bunch of CDs? (FTR, there are a half dozen CDs in the car. There were more, but I lost a dozen of them and the visor holder at a wedding reception with a crappy DJ and I haven't felt the need to place more CDs in the car.
Besides, once you've got an iPod jack, you tend to think that 10 songs in a row by the same artist is too much commitment. The mix tapes of your youth are now all kept in one place and even better? There is no more rifling frantically through the case for the favorite one, only to find it's in the other car.
Even better, if you want to hit shuffle, there are 2,500, 7,500 or 20,000 songs available for your listening pleasure. (Poor Chef, he has outgrown his little shuffle and ends up borrowing mine.)
Venturing off on a road trip these days doesn't mean gathering all forms of recorded musical media. It just means sitting here and plugging various units into the laptop and ensuring you've got headphones available for those who prefer to listen to their own thing.
We'll see how it all plays out shortly...
Ed noticed it first. "Your car radio is broken."
My response was "No it's not. I get my stations just fine."
It wasn't until I wanted to find the local NPR affiliate that I realized that he was right. The combination of the funky Beetle antenna and the unforgiving Florida sun have conspired against us listening to more than the three stations I prefer.
The offending article.I think I've mentioned before that my car is what VW called the Satellite Blue special edition. It came with a year's subscription to XM and something very unusual for the time, an iPod jack in the dash. No dopey adapter setups for me-my car has a plug!
The rarely seen factory installed 2004 in-dash iPod plugA plug that for a long time did not work. It took a year for me to discover this, as Ed bought me an iPod for Christmas 2005. VW probably has since corrected the issue, but it was my complaint for four or five visits to the dealer that the thing STILL wasn't working. As it is, the plug is poorly placed right above the poorly placed cup holders, so if I have a coffee (small, nothing else will fit) in place, the cup will jostle the plug.
(It helps to have a handy husband. Plans are in place to relocate that plug from the bottom of the dash to the front in a currently unused rocker switch, as seen above.)
That plug, once the bane of my existence as an iPod owner, now makes life much better. Especially when I don't feel like listening to the three country stations play Kenny Chesney over and over (this HAS happened, btw). It's still not perfect, as the right channel will sometimes cut out. This is thanks to those cups of coffee jostling that plug a couple dozen times.
You notice that I haven't even mentioned the fact that my car stereo has a CD player in it? How 90's that thing is-lug around a bunch of CDs? (FTR, there are a half dozen CDs in the car. There were more, but I lost a dozen of them and the visor holder at a wedding reception with a crappy DJ and I haven't felt the need to place more CDs in the car.
Besides, once you've got an iPod jack, you tend to think that 10 songs in a row by the same artist is too much commitment. The mix tapes of your youth are now all kept in one place and even better? There is no more rifling frantically through the case for the favorite one, only to find it's in the other car.
Even better, if you want to hit shuffle, there are 2,500, 7,500 or 20,000 songs available for your listening pleasure. (Poor Chef, he has outgrown his little shuffle and ends up borrowing mine.)
Venturing off on a road trip these days doesn't mean gathering all forms of recorded musical media. It just means sitting here and plugging various units into the laptop and ensuring you've got headphones available for those who prefer to listen to their own thing.
We'll see how it all plays out shortly...
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