I-PODs, SWIFFERS AND HUMAN PERFECTABILITY

When not saving orphanages from evil billionaires, leaping tall piles of laundry in a single bound, or waking up in my own vomit, I ponder the human condition. Which depresses me.

But two things have come into my life in the last year that make me accept, at least, the concept of perfectability. The I-pod and the Swiffer.

The I-pod is a thing of beauty in form and function. Compact, effective, well integrated to the web (gotta love the intarweb database of CDs that autonames your albums and tracks!). Plus it costs a lot so just the fact that I own one makes me better than people who don't. ;-)

And the idea of the playlist as infinitely controllable and mutable? Brilliant, fucking brilliant. Creating a mix is no longer an agonizing process of figuring out what fits "just so" on a CD or tape, rather it is building an environment for life. It allows you to try to balance ideas like "every once in a while I would like to hear a song by the Outlaws" with "I must hear the Dead Boys every day."

And you get to struggle towards the perfect mix. Every song lies in the balance and everything is a possibility. The "hootenany" cover of Snoop? Classic, gotta stay. "Beautiful Disaster" by 311? Takes up space for now.. space I have. Someday it will go.. and my playlist will get that much closer to perfect. When it is perfect?

I will commit suicide in some way that leaves my ears untouched.

You can bury me in an open casket with my I-pod blaring.

The Swiffer? It just cleans dust. Sure.. Procter and Gamble won't tell you what's in the thing (proprietary, don't you know) but they are pretty much willing to guarantee that it won't kill your dog. So that's good. Well, if you have a dog. And you can trust Procter and Gamble cause they're way past that Satan thing.

Really.

But it does pick up dust in nooks and crannies that only Old Nick himself could get into (hey. wait...!). And if that's gonna take a few years of my life for any reason?

It's worth it to die clean enough to wear my I-pod into the lack of afterworld.