Steve Jobs is the co-founder and CEO of Apple. He is 50 today. He also co-founded Pixar which is responsible for Toy Story and Finding Nemo. In related news, I am an immature little kid with poor taste in movies who is also easily entertained by cartoons.

I haven’t had an Apple computer since like my Apple IIc in second grade when I played “One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird,” which, by the way, was amazing.

However, one 21^st century Apple product that I do own is their recent pop-culture phenomenon – the iPod. I’ve had mine for like 6 or 7 months and I must say, I am in love with it. Sadly, if you put a gun to my head, there are only a handful of people in my life that I would pick first in a “if you had to choose between your iPod and ever seeing this person again” test.

I bought my 40gig iPod in a moment of weakness last summer, fully knowing that it would cost me a week’s worth of painting wages and that I could never fill it up in my lifetime, even if I loaded up my entire Rush boxed-set collection and my New Kids on the Block’s Greatest Hits.

Sure, it’s nice to be able to have thousands of songs at your beck and call, but the best part about the iPod is that it totally releases you from any sort of social civility. Besides the fact that I can now carry the English, French and Spanish versions of every song that I’ve ever heard in the palm of my hand, the iPod gives me the freedom to never have to talk to anyone I don’t want to in public ever again.

When walking to class, you can totally snub everyone you see. When those white headphones are in, you’re listening to music and are WAY too important to discuss last week’s Calculus test with anyone, let alone what classes you’re taking next quarter or what bars they were planning on hitting up that evening.

Here’s a conversation that I had with a guy one time while I was listening to Wilson Phillips on my iPod while waiting for class to begin:

Guy: “Hey, didn’t we have PolySci together last year?”

Me: “I don’t know, dipshit. I’m rocking out to ‘Hold On’ and am clearly too important to converse with your fratboy ass. Later.”

Don’t get me wrong, you can still acknowledge people that you like, but now all you need to do is give the “approving head nod” to your boys and the “charming wink” to any female that you might find attractive. It’s just that easy.

The only bad part about owning an iPod is that they’re becoming so mainstream that even seventh-grade O-Town fans are starting to buy them. I guess that comes with the territory when you have a product that is one of the best things since sliced bread, Rock ‘n Jock sports, and nudity.

Anyway, thank you Steve Jobs for being alive for 50 years and being a lot smarter than me for most of that time. Keep up the good work and if you could, hook me up w/ Mandy Moore sometime. Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go listen to the rest of Yanni: Live at the Acropolis. Bye.

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