so · dig · this · big · crux

i think i might finally get an ipod sometime soon. not this month, because i had to pay for a car window already, but maybe christmas at the latest. yeah, i haven't had an ipod up to now. keep in mind that i've only had my own computer for a couple of years. yeah, also weird. but anyway.

this has lead to all sorts of thoughts about music, owning music, the importance or lack thereof of having a physical thing like an lp or a cd, all that sort of thing. things keep serving to remind me - two separate friends talking about getting rid of all their cds, the fact that i got a whole bunch of cds stolen the other day, etc.

i'm not 100% wedded to the idea of owning the physical artifact, but i'm pretty sure i don't want to have a completely electronic collection of music either. i think if i get an ipod i'll start to have more and more music in electronic form only, and i'm okay with that. but i want to have some overarching rationale i'm trying to adhere to somehow rather than just going with the flow.

if i only buy cds (i don't listen to records much and don't even have my turntable set up at the moment), i will almost certainly listen to less music. what i do have can easily get neglected. but even if i can't always tell a difference, there is something about the idea of constantly listening to compressed files that gets me down. they're not the same as a .wav file, much less an analog recording.

a lot of you reading this, friendslist people or otherwise, have been dealing with this question longer and/or in a more in-depth, complicated way than me. quite possibly there are facets to this that i haven't thought of. so i'd like to know - what do you think? how do you handle this?