As I understand it the drawbacks you mention are hackable. Apparently you can rig iPods so that they'll store whatever types of file you want. That, and the new photo feature iPods boast have inspired me to delge into the seemy world of modern doohickery even further: that photo iPod will be mine... OH YES, it will be mine. or at least the current model. I've tracked down a place that is giving the l'il guys away!

I just completed ridiculously easy steps to get a "FREE" PHOTOPOD HERE: http://www.freephotoiPods.com/?r=13393342
Please pass on the above link to anybody who might be interested.

I love it. A pyramid scheme we can totally subvert. We just gotta sign up for another offer from some other business and then refer 10 folks to do the same. I did the BMG, which I do anyways. BMG's another technology of the man's we can turn against him. I always wondered how they made any money selling when there's guys like me out there refering their pets for memberships in which they just buy the one. then I found out they do most of their business selling info on their customers to data-miners. which again is no skin off my teeth. no shiesters are gonna wanna throw their money away, trying to con a guy whose taken bmg for as much as I have. So I get 17 cheap cds, once I made sure to refer my new member Norm D. Plume for the extra 5 (anybody else wanna go the BMG route: email me first please and I'll split any extra booty we plunder from refering you too in my Norm and dog account), and a 40 Gb photo i-pod is mine. Suckas.

We'll be taking pictures which'll document and make visible the all that's wrong and all that could be so right in this beutiful world in no time. I'll be sure and post pix of me enjoying my cds which I'll digitze, complete with scanned images of liner notes, into and on my ipod here.