Here's where it gets good ... just got my Archos 5GB MP3 player via Uber whilst at Rocky. Major kudos to Uber for having the foresite to procure one on the hunch that I'd be desiring of one as we've been discussing a few such toys over the last few months. This one, to be sure, is not as powerful as the 20GB or even the 10GB version, as either would be suitable for storing the complete collection of my MP3s, but 5MB is nothing to sneeze at and the price was right, courtesy of Fry's and the fact that Archos is discontinuing the 5MB version.

This little baby suits my needs to a T ... well, maybe a lower case t ... but I can always add on another hard drive if I want to. There's all sorts of adaptors for this thing. Right now, I'm still giddy over just having a single repository for my A-list of MP3s. No more burning a CD ... no more making sure I use a CDRW to save a nickel here and there. Now, its just upload em, sort em out by directories, and whammo.

I'm presently in the midst of sorting all the stuff I've uploaded into some genre directories. I normally need something heavy and fast-paced to get me to work. I can listen to pretty much anything at work since I can't crank the speakers ... its all background noise anyway. And on the way home, I like to have the option to either mellow out, or bang my head all the way home. I can even sort out a few oddball directories for particular moods. Likely will have to put all my Jason & the Scorchers in one directory, make another directory of the alt-country stuff, and then the pure country stuff. Still debating how to sort out the 70s stuff ... lump it all together since it gives me a certain vibe, or mix it in with the soft crap. I dunno ... this thing is so cool.