<hijack>
No, it adds a layer of “I refuse to speak properly”. “Given” is a past participle, therefore, you can pair it with an auxiliary verb, indicating that something happened before another given event. “Gifted” is an adjective. You can “be gifted” in the sense of, say, having a natural ability. You cannot “be gifted something”, because grammatically, it makes no sense.
Just because something is used on The Simpsons or wherever this came from doesn’t mean it makes any damn sense. I apologize for the hijack, but things like that grate on me.
Now I’m gonna sit back and wait for my inevitable grammatical errors to be pointed out to me.
I’d be much happier with “I was given,” but will concede that ‘gifted’ can replace ‘given’ there. However, if you must do so, I think it should be “gifted with” rather than just “gifted.” Saying “I was gifted x” sounds very wrong to me.
But I’m willing to shut up about grammar now and let you all go back to yelling about overpriced MP3 players.
Speaking as a person with intermediate computer skills, I love iTunes. I can import my existing collection and purchase new music easily. I can also purchase shows such as “Heroes” to watch when I travel. The only other application that would make it perfect would be the ability to download my existing dvd’s onto my iPod.
Okay, yes, so my first 30gb classic crashed less than 2 years after I purchased it. But, for the same price, the new model has more than twice the memory and twice the battery power. And the cottage industry that’s sprung up to support the iPods means that I can spend every last dime of discretionary income on cute little accessories.
I have a (3G? 4G?) iPod and use Anapod Explorer with it. Can’t stand iTunes. If Apple is trying to keep me from using third party apps so I can actually (GASP!) DRAG AND DROP music to my iPod, then fuck them. I’ll go buy the 120GB Archos 605 Wifi, which is more like what the iPod Touch should have been.
My mind similarly boggles at the thought of an 80gig player - I’ve got a 30 and it’s still only two thirds full (and I’ve got something like 400 albums).
I’ve got a 40GB iPod and have to pick and choose what I put on it. I think I have around 100GB of MP3s. I have a lot of CDs, ripped them all. Now I’m starting to buy albums in MP3 format from Amazon.com.
Might not all be albums. Video, even at the low res that the previous generations of iPods have required, takes up a lot of space, especially if they’re badly compressed (I don’t know enough about prepping video for the iPod to comment on that specifically). You’d be surprised how fast you can fill up a few gigs if you’re not careful.
I’d rather have empty space than pick which songs I may, on the off chance, want to have and not be able to hear. The price for this wasn’t an issue for me (no kids, mid-40s). I haven’t come near to filling it all up, and probably won’t for some time.
Looking over at my music folder right now, I see that I’ve got about 45 gigs of music right now. Number of albums is a silly way to measure my music, because much of what I have is just a few songs that I like, not everything the artist has ever done. Also, I’ve got some audiobooks that don’t take up much space per minute but can be several hours long. If I started including video, I’d easily get to 60 gigs.
I can see how you guys can fill up an MP3 player, but listening to all the music is another task. I have a hard time coming up with 150-200 songs that I want to listen to yet alone 6,000.
I only have 1-2000 songs in my WMP, but I could use a couple thousand more so I won’t hear the same song again for several days. I import at a quality high enough that I can’t tell the difference from my computer speakers, and at that bitrate it’s enough to fill up quite a few gigs (I think around 20) on my hard drive.
And I’ve only imported around 1/3 of my CDs. And when the songs are played randomly, there’s enough variety that only occasionally do I find myself skipping to the next random track or wanting to delete it from the playlist entirely.
