When last we spoke, I was pulling my Luddite ass out of analogue quicksand with the iPod preserver my wife threw me for Xmas. I'm in the midst of a move and have become painfully aware of my music collection's size and weight. So the convenience of potentially putting it all in something the size of a deck of cards is pretty cool. But let me tell you about the shuffle...

This is feature surpasses the hairpin turns and segues in my head. Its apparent randomness has created some of the most eclectic and cool sets of music that create an entirely new - albeit sometimes abstract - perspective on music by thrusting it into entirely different contexts.

I was at the gym yesterday, where typically a little Motorhead for the lifting, some Paladins for the cardio, and some Miles Davis for the cool down worked just fine. But this time the shuffle feature and the anticipation of what could possibly come next wore me out wonderfully. I got re-introduced to some old favorites, rarely spun cuts, and a whole lotta music refined and reiterated. It sounded like this:

The Mooney Suzuki

The Velvet Undergound

Tenderloin

Leonard Cohen

Reverend Horton Heat

The Bell Rays

Zeke

Dexter Gordon

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion

Tom Waits

Southern Culture On The Skids

David Bowie

Ike and Tina Turner

Henry Mancini

The Stooges

And that's just for starters. Top that! What's in your random list?