I once had a pod, or should i say, it once had me.

My iPod is on its last legs - actually, it barely works, randomly skiping tracks, with horrible sound quality that gurgles and fizzes where it really shouldn't. Which makes me glad i brought my CDs to the new place so i can listen to music here. I feel ambivalent about the death of the iPod. On the one hand, it was really exoensive and i don't have a lot of money. On the other hand, i knew this was going to happen because the pieces of shit only last like a year anyway and i bought mine used 12 months ago, and i wasn't really feeling the sound quality or the sanitized and unemotional interface you get with music when selecting it from a long file list rather than finding an actual cd or record and physically doing something to it to make it make noise. This is probably a bit reactionary of me. At any rate, in the interest of not spending any more money than i need to right now, i'm going to delay any new digital music device purchasing for a while, with the possible exception of a cheap ass discman or something so i can maybe listen to music while i'm out walkin'.

Speaking of music, the M.I.A. show at Central Park Summerstage yesterday afternoon was a lot of fun, although my reservations about the cultural politics of Diplo's expropriations of Baile Funk remain in effect. For the most part, the crowd, which included about half of all the people I ever went to high school with, was really cool and peaceful and energetic and hot and excited/ing, the exception being some snooty hipster woman with her entourage who kept cutting in front of us to bring her posse up closer to the center of the stage or something. Didn't ruin it for me though. MIA's performance was fun, playful, jouissant, whatever. Mr. Vegas's "Oh Johnny" crotchgrab was a bit much. I thought DJ Rehka was great.

Before the show I hung out with my parents, my grandparents, my great aunt and uncle, and my cousin -- their son Ben, and his partner and two kids, ages 1.75 and 3.75, who are totally adorable. Today we bought a cheap and serviceable kitchen table and i walked to Manhattan again and then took the train back. I'm a little bored and i am hoping i figure the grad school stuff out real soon.