I hate to admit it….but I’m now addicted to my iPod. I’ve loaded on lots of my CDs (and have spent a bit of cash at iTunes) and now can have my favorite music whenever and wherever I want. I’m not really a very music-oriented person, but this….is great. (I can even now enjoy my favorite Ethiopian jazz; I got turned on to it by the many Ethiopian, Tigrayan, and Eritrean cab drivers in D.C.)
And when I’ve got more of a chance to concentrate, I can listen to books from Audible.com. I’ve gotten through a bit of Roman history (including the works of Sallust) and hope soon to move on to the unabridged Gibbon. The iPod is so much better than the other devices I had tried, which didn’t allow you to rewind to find your place in the text, something that I find necessary when listening to recorded books.
(I also found that having my little iPod allowed me, for the first time in my life, to be a DJ at the birthday party for my friend Pierre Garello at the IES Europe seminar in Romania.)
May I suggest you some podcasting shows?
http://www.itconversations.com/index.html
http://www.thepodcastnetwork.com/tpn/
http://radioeconomics.com
Very promising. Thank you. (I also got a chuckle out of a pioneer of podcasting being called “the Podfather” on the itconversations site.)
You also can link directly to the album and song in iTunes, instead of Amazon, and sign up as an Affiliate:
There are quite a few podcasts available from iTunes as well.
The Ethiopiques series is great! I have the first 15 volumes loaded on my work computer and I listen to them all day. Be sure to check out “Mekeyershin salawq” on #9 if you haven’t already.
The link I added to the above post did not stick. It’s at www apple com ‘slash’ itunes ‘slash’ affiliates
Thanks, Anders and Kim! I am checking on the iTunes program and will be sure to order more of the Ethiopiques items. I wish that I understood Amharic so that I would have a better appreciation of the songs.
“I got turned on to it by the many Ethiopian, Tigrayan, and Eritrean cab drivers in D.C.)”
Tigrayans are Ethiopians.
Not according to some of the Tigrayan taxi drivers. First, I have been told insistently that the language is different from Amharic, although Amharic and Tigrayan are mutually understandable (and remember the ongoing debate about whether this or that way of speaking are related to each other as “dialects” or as “languages”), and that Tigray ought to be independent. I mentioned them as a separate group for those reasons. (Eritreans were also “Ethiopians” until recently, but most did not want to be.)