Woo! Steve and I did our gift exchange last night and he got me a WAY cool new toy: The inMotion iMmini sound system for my podling. The early-adopter gadget freak in me is muy pleased. The speakers produce an impressive amount of volume. We cranked some Cake last night and while I had to turn the bass reducer on at the tippy top volumes, the sound was still rich, and it was plenty loud enough to fill the apartment. Joy! Rapture! I have a pair of old portable speakers that I have been using with my portable CD player and my podling for some time now. I took them with us when we spent eight weeks teaching in Switzerland, since we knew we would want the ability to play some music from home without lugging a stereo there and back. They were servicable, but what I wouldn’t have given to have something like this. Those speakers chew through batteries, the sound isn’t all that great, and they buzz and beep horribly whenever anything like a cell phone goes off. It gets quite frustrating. And since the volume for the podling at least is still controlled at least partially from the podling itself, I tend to crank it up and then the podling goes dead faster. But no more! No more! (I actually am a little worried that my podling’s battery is a bit fried, but I’m not sure how to tell, and if it is, there’s not a whole lot to be done about it.)

Yay for Christmas loot.