ThinkingSkull.com

I own two iPods, neither of which I paid for. I won an iPod Touch last Christmas that I have hooked up to my home network and pretty much use as a portable Internet device since it runs Safari to test my websites with (and I don’t own any Apple computers). My first iPod, however, was a 1st-generation 1GB iPod Shuffle, which was a gift, a so-called “geek whistle” with an all-white casing and lanyard that plugs directly into a powered USB 2.0 port.

Apple recently dropped prices for their 2nd-gen Shuffles to $49, so I had the opportunity to actually buy a Product “Red” iPod (to which I’ll confess they don’t make a cool shiny black one, so this red one is my second favorite color rather then those other “ugly” color metallic ones). Ordering the iPod online also got me a free engraving for the device, to which I cheerfully added, “Death’s Bloody Little GrimPod.” Is that personalized enough for ya?

Now, I confess to tracking online purchases religiously. I think that the infrastructure required to build and ship products like these is amazing, so I patiently waited for the first email telling me that my iPod was on a plane heading to my city of residence. And then, something funny happened. The name of the city of origin was called Suzhou… a city in China. Really?

Usually when I order through the Internet, shipping is fulfilled in the continental US, so normally I see stuff coming from Chicago or California or wherever. “China” never entered into my mind, but the free engraving had to be done on-site, so no regular-stock New York iPod for me. This one was hot off the line, laser-inscribed with my silliness, then personally bicycled (because my iPod is obviously too cool to just ride in a truck with a bunch of other strange devices) to Shanghai before hopping a plane to Anchorage, Alaska.

Now that I know what a world traveler my iPod is, I’m a bit jealous.