Those crafty Microsoft "Laptop Hunters" have been telling you for weeks now that PCs are value and Macs are vanity.
So, while you cling on to what's left of your 401(k) with what's left of your fingernails, here comes a nice blond-haired man to tell you that it costs $30,000 to fill up the latest iPod. Assuming you use iTunes.
Well, I had never thought of it that way. Those little iPod thingies can hold that many songs? Goodness me.
Then I look back at the nice blond-haired man who is advertising the Zune Pass and think: "Hold on, I know you."
Yes, this is Wes Moss, a very nice chap who survived 11 weeks of Donald Trump on "The Apprentice." Which would classify him as a very, very nice chap indeed.
Wes is, allegedly, a certified financial planner. And this new TV ad for the Zune Pass shows that he has done very well for himself.
At WesMoss.com, you can discover some of the principles by which Wes lives long and prospers. The prime phrase seems to be: "Make more. Worry less."
It is a message Wes is very keen to propagate. Indeed, he has a message to anyone organizing, for example, a conference: "Let me know if your speakers have been boring lately--and I'll be happy to come try to lighten things up!"
Wes is, indeed, quite light on his mouth as he explains that if you're one those people hooked on iTunes, you should dedicate $14.99 each month for a Zune Pass. It will make you happier, wealthier and wiser.
Now, I wasn't all that familiar with Zune Pass, but I understand that it allows you to keep 10 songs every month as your own. I know those of you who have technology as one of the permanent buttons on your shirt will correct me if I am even in the remotest part mistaken.
But wouldn't this mean that in order to get those 30,000 songs (which, to me, feels like the goal of having 100,000 Facebook friends, but still...), you would have to wait, let's see, 12 times 10 is 120. 30,000 divided by 120, that would be 250 years, no? And perhaps even more money than $30,000.
Clearly there is something I don't understand, even though Wes is keen to tell me that "one costs a lot and one costs a little." Oh, I see, you just rent the rest of the songs, yes? You get bored of Cat Stevens and you just give him back? Won't Cat be offended? Do they have a list of songs returned? Would Coldplay be at the top?
Still, I do like the fact that this ad has a stance and a familiar face and makes me think that Zune Pass exists. Which means that Zune exists.
Which made me just try another calculation. $15 a month into $30,000, um, that would be 167 years? More or less?
Which means I will make more and worry less with Zune Pass! Because in 167 years, more or less, I will not be here, more or less.
Oh, please tell me. What have I missed here?
If you spend more than an hour a day in deep intimacy with your iPod, your Zune, or some other MP3 machine, a group of important scientists would like you to turn it down and listen to them.
The EU's Scientific Committee on emerging health risks, which is normally concerned with noise in factories and the British Parliament, performed a study of MP3 usage.
The committee members' findings left them with a strange ringing feeling. They concluded that an hour's iPod usage a day for five years might make as many as 1 in 10 listeners deaf.
The problem, the committee believes, is that many people love to listen to their music too loud.
In Europe, MP3 players are limited to a mere 100 decibels. However, these European scientists concluded that anything above 89 decibels listened to with regularity has an effect that is louder than the limits imposed on factories.
Naturally, special-interest groups have already supported these findings. Britain's Royal National Institute for Deaf People already has a 'Don't Lose the Music' campaign to raise awareness of the need for lower decibels.
Those with a nonscientific bent might be be wondering whether this research was as comprehensive as it might have been. (After all, the European Union is a body that likes to control many things in its region--tomato size and cake displays, for example).
The iPod has been around since 2001. Presumably, therefore, there must be some people out there who have listened for an hour a day for five years. Would it be an idea to find them and ask them if they are deaf?
I ask only because when the Devil's racket, called rock music, came along, my ears were assaulted by older folk telling me that if I listened to Ozzie Osbourne, Deep Purple, Van Der Graaf Generator, The Jam, and Southside Johnny on a regular basis, I would lose my hearing. (I don't appear to have.)
What perplexed me was that these irritable, hairy-eared fogies who were nagging me to stop listening couldn't themselves hear very well. What had caused their deafness? It can't have been the Guns of Navarone in every case. And it can't have been Frank Sinatra, can it?
I do want to take this research seriously, however. Because, well, you never know.
Might I therefore ask readers to share whether they have noticed some alteration in their hearing since they have been a regular iPod or Zune ear stuffer? Are you turning increasingly deaf ears to the sounds that used to be a part of your everyday existence? Are you leaning forward a little more on dates, for reasons other than ones you recognize and respect? And are you using the phrases "excuse me?", "you what?" or "huh?" even more than usual?
We need to know whether this is more than just a theoretical issue. Still, there are always unintended pleasures that might come from overprotective regulation. Surely, you have often wanted to regulate that nodding youth next to you on a plane with his iPod cranked up beyond Metallica's tolerance. Especially when he's listening to some truly desperate trance bilge.
We need to work together on this one, people. Don't you agree? Huh?
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