If iPods are a waste of time, what a sweet waste of time it is.

I got myself an iPod for my last birthday, and we've been together happily (mostly) ever since. We'll be married in the spring. Here's a list of 7 reasons an iPod doesn't have to be a waste of time, and in many cases, a time saver.

1) You can take your iPod with you virtually anywhere. If you find yourself waiting in line, or sitting in the waiting room of a doctor's office and all the magazines are lame. Or perhaps you take public transportation. (Good for you!) Pop it out, plug yourself in, who cares how long it takes? It's like a radio station or a television channel with no commercials and no talking, and they're only playing what you told them to play. And, if you're antisocial like me, now you're discouraging people from talking to you. (Works better than acting like you don't understand English.)

2) Learn something! I've downloaded a ton of podcasts via iTunes to teach me some languages. I'm currently learning basic French, Latin, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Greek, German and Brazilian Portugeuse, and at no cost to me. I intersperse them in my music playlists so I have no choice but to listen to them.

3) Besides being very educational, podcasts can be very entertaining and informative. (Yeah, informative kinda means the same thing as educational, but just go with it for now.) I download podcasts according to my interests, and I find out things I might never have read of in books, or seen on television, or found in other media. And if something is really interesting and worthy of many listens, you can always burn the mp3 to a CD.

4) If you're lucky enough to be allowed to listen at work, then you can make playlists of music that will help you get through your workday with a smile on your face (or a grimace, if you prefer.) If you have to read at work, for example, make playlists of instrumental music so as to not be too distracting. If you're rather high strung or your job is stressful, make playlists of calming music. If you find youself slacking and running out of steam, put on a playlist of jaunty tunes to rev you up.

5) Ah, don't forget you can play video on your iPod. Lots of podcasts offer vintage movies and cartoons, since the copyrights no longer apply. And if you want to purchase copyrighted movies, you can download them via iTunes. If you have kids and you find yourself in need of bribing a little one to be quiet, just let them borrow your iPod and put on something appropriate for them to watch. Let them know though, that it is not a toy and they need to be careful with it, which should go without saying. Works with my nephew. And it doesn't have to be vintage to be free, it can be new. I currently have a lot of Happy Tree Friends on my player. (Not appropriate for children, don't be fooled by how cute they're drawn.)

6) You don't have to miss your favorite radio or television show. Radio shows are free (all of them? I think so), and, if you don't mind paying, you can download almost any television show on your iPod (it's like 2 or 3 bucks an episode.) They used to offer some of the daily news and fake news for free to download, but I see they don't anymore. *sniff sniff, tear trickles down*  But if you need your NPR, Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, news, sports, or political talk fix, I'm sure there's something there for you to enjoy. If you're a senior, or an elderly person in a young body, such as myself, you're gonna love the vintage stuff. I had to download some old time radio podcast shows (Horror! Mystery! Suspense! Talking Fast and Overacting!) By just watching the shows worthy of your time, you won't find yourself channel surfing when you're bored, thereby being a time saver.

7) The other thing that most people don't know is that you don't have to use iTunes to find a podcast you might like. They can only list so many, and the list there is daunting. If you find a podcast online somewhere, chances are there's a button that says "subscribe with iTunes" somewhere on the page. You don't have to subscribe to a podcast in order to download, it just makes it easier if you want automatic downloads as soon as another podcast is made available. And if you don't like iTunes, there's Juice - http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/

Just like any other addictive thing, use your mp3 player moderately, and not while driving. Well, you can use while driving if it's just audio, and you're a person who can listen and drive at the same time (I swear most people can't.) Besides, being addicted to your iPod is a lot better than most of the addictive alternatives. You're not going to get liver disease, overdose, or lose your kids college fund. At least I don't think you can.