Faith in Humanity! (repost)

22 Mar 2007

iPods vs. Cassettes

Current mood:quixotic

Isabelle confessed to me last night her crazy gambit that she pulled off last week. She had been to a "mixtape night" at a bar in Chinatown with a couple of her friends. The idea of the night was for everyone to bring a mixed cd or tape, whatever, exchange it with other people, and then meet up next time and exchange back. Well Isabelle had gotten into an interesting conversation with one of the guys there and he decided she should be the recipient of his mixed tape, literally on cassette mind you. When the guy went to retrieve his cassette he noticed someone was already holding it, assuming he'd have the opportunity to listen to it's contents. The Cassette maker asked for the tape to give to Isabelle but the other chap thought he'd really like to hear it himself. So after a bit of negotiations the second fellow said "but look, she doesn't have a mixed tape to exchange anyway!" And his argument had some wieght, as that was the entire point of this evening.

It was then that Isabelle truly raised the ante. She pulled out her iPod (the 30GB one that plays movies as well as songs- and I gave to her for christmas last year BTW) and said "this is mine, put it on shuffle and there ya go." Neither of the guys believed she was serious, so they both denied she's go through with it. Have I mentioned Isabelle is Scottish? Or that she's not one for bluffing? She figured if the guy was so keen to have the cassette that he wouldn't back down from his having it, then it must be one hell of a good cassette! SHE wanted to hear it. So the deal was made, one week with a mixed cassette for Isabelle and one week with Isabelle's iPod for the kid! Honestly. I'm glad she didn't tell me about it sooner.

The cassette was a curiousity, for a twenty year old person to have so much oldies music, I mean from the 50's, was quite surprising, and the B-side was even more eclectic: lots of instrumentals, soundtrack music and rare tracks that I'd never heard of. Of course he had something like 2000 song to listen to on his end so I'd be curious to know what he made of that group of songs.

Fast forward to Monday and now the exchange is supposed to take place. The chap works in a video shop near where one of our friends works. He's not there when Isabelle calls. He's also not there when our friend checks for him. Oh-oh. But he is there finally by the end of the night and agrees to drop it off at the Block (the clothes store in Gastown) tomorrow. Tuesday arrives, the iPod is delivered, and the young guy even happily claims "I was inspired by the iPod so I found one for myself!" He then pulled out an old sony walkman with a grin. Funny. Isabelle retrieved her iPod with some relief and only then told me what she'd done. The crazy thing is, that even as she was relating the events to me, I somehow knew it was all going to turn out okay. And it did. Trust is an interesting thing, and luckily, or perhaps there was no luck involved at all, it paid off. I would be a bit more comfortable if in the future Isabelle stuck to trading mixed CD's at these parties. Somewhat less of a financial risk! Plus I could put some fancy crossfades and beat matching to work and make it really impressive. That's half the fun isn't it? Anyway, we'll see if she's even allowed to play next time.

Just a little story that was pretty cute I thought. Thanks for reading.

Mark