It's raining outside. Hard. I'm sitting here on the couch in our hotel room in Killington, Vermont. TheWife™ is attending a conference of math teachers. I came along for the trip, figuring to be working out of the hotel room. Definitely a nice and relaxing work environment. No doubt about that. The view, if it wasn't completely obscured by the fog, is stunning. Mountains, ski slopes, and the occasional flash of leaf color next to the mostly bare trees.

Obviously, I have no commute this morning. Can you count getting up, pulling on pants, making a pot of coffee and then walking four strides to the couch? Well, it's gonna have to do, because I'm not going anywhere for the rest of the day.

But... there are choices to be made. On the coffee table is the iPod. Over on the desk is the mini-stereo/boombox provided by the hotel. I was pretty psyched to see that thing since I'd forgotten to pack my usual speaker/subwoofer contraption. However, my psyched-ness melted away after the first attempt at playing a CD. This contraption has one of those multi-disc CD drawers. I'm opposed to such things on high fidelity/moral grounds (a topic for a whole other rant, believe me), but have to look the other way in this case. Hey, they were nice enough to put a stereo in the room, I might as well quash my inner music snob and take advantage, eh?

Playing a CD on this thing is a new adventure in hi-fi. Make that "lo-fi." (Oh shoot... inner music snobbery... bad!) Here's the blow-by-blow of attempted play:

• Press "Power" switch. Display lights up.
• Display says "CD", followed by "Read"... with funny clicky noises
• After about 15 seconds, display says "No Disc"
• Press "Open/Close" button and tray slides out
• Place CD in position 1 and press "Open/Close" button
• Display says "Read", then "No Disc"
• Press "Skip" button and multi-disc spinnie contraption rotates
• Repeat all of this foolishness until positioned back at Disc 1
• Press "Play"
• Display says "Open Drawer"
• Drawer opens
• I begin to cuss like a sailor
• Press "Open/Close"
• Clicky noises ensue... followed by information about the disc
• Press play
• Music drips out of speakers

Okay, so that description was exhausting enough. There's absolute no way I'm putting myself through the real thing this morning. I mean, I need more coffee (hey, nice hotel staff, thank you for the complimentary Starbucks coffee packs... but they only make 20 ounces. That's, like, a coffee tease). So I'm going to do something that has never happened in the history of the Friday Morning Listen.

Ready?

The iPod shuffle mode. It's so unlike me. In fact, I don't even know how to turn on shuffle mode . Excuse me while I figure that out. It's got to be less aggravating than the disc changer.

Settings > Shuffle > Songs. Got it. Press the play button, and the same song I was listening to last night starts playing. Ah, maybe it takes effect after the songs finishes? Uh, nope. Okay, cheat and look it up on the Internet. Oh, it needs a playlist. Hmmm... I don't do playlists. Well alright, how about "Recently Added?" With over 700 songs, "recent" is a bizarre concept but I'll take it.

"Two Doors Down", a nice country ballad from Dwight Yoakam's Dwight Live. Ah right, I put that on there just before vacation in August. Ain't technology grand?