The yPod

Continuing from yesterday.... My Least Favorite Sign: Anything used to promote back to school deals at Target. It's July 21st, people. Seriously.

Anyway. Tonight I'm going to tell you a little bit about the yPod. When I first got my membership at the Y, I brought my iPod along to have some music to listen to while working out. But I never felt secure about that -- all it would take is one swinging arm and a stray finger catching the earphone cord and yanking the iPod to the ground, and what might happen to it when it landed I would rather not think about. Solution? I bought a second iPod, a little postage-stamp sized iPod shuffle. Second generation, I think - the little square ones with minimal controls that only hold a couple gigs of music and have a clip built into the back of it. This was perfect for workouts. Clip it to a pocket, or stuff it into the pocket instead, and it's secure not to mention barely noticeable. I named it the yPod, since it's the iPod I use at the Y. Indeed I amuse myself far too easily.

Going back as far as high school and college, I've used music to help create a certain mood and energy level while exercising. Half the fun of having a yPod is taking the time to continually tweak the songs I keep on it to create a perfect workout playlist. All I need is 100-200 songs on there that will come up randomly and help me to stay focused. Sometimes they seem better in theory than in execution, which just leads to another little tweak to the playlist when I get home. Right now I'm feeling pretty good about what I have on there -- it's been a few days since I've had a song come up that I really wanted to skip. To give you an idea of what I'm striving for, here is a current list of the musical acts featured on the yPod. I'm willing to bet there isn't a single person who will ever read this who can identify every act:

-Alter Bridge
-Metallica
-Redemption
-Dream Theater (of course)
-Iron Maiden
-Mastadon
-Kamelot
-Nickelback (though I'm a little embarrassed about this)
-Night Ranger
-Tesla
-Symphony X
-Coheed & Cambria
-Damn Yankees
-Def Leppard
-Guns N' Roses
-Judas Priest
-Rush
-Saliva
-Savatage
-Serenity
-Valentine
-Van Halen
-Vanden Plas
-Chickenfoot (yeah baby!)
-Hardline
-Motley Crue
-Sum 41

How many of those names left you scratching your head?