Cool Stuff Is My Heroin

I try very hard not to get sucked along by the rip tide of consumerism and greed as the human race veers ever further from the animal kingdom in its behaviour but it's not easy. I have a persistent, fuzzy, bassy feeling that the key to happiness is closer to the Buddhist, Lennonist, sitting-on-a-mountain, drinking-green-tea, no-possessions, inane-smiling school of thought than the widely accepted mantra of looking out for number one whilst watching programs about the property market with one eye and surfing the net with the other. Don't worry, I'm not trying to be political or philosophical or anything; I'm merely painting a picture to make sure you understand that I'm a hypocrite. Oh yes, the point. Despite my anti-consumerist leanings, I confess that I think stuff is cool. You know, cool stuff - technology and that. I tend to put up a half-decent resistance against technology, at least for someone who is so fascinated by it (thought this may be because I'm so tight with money). I have not, for instance, ever bought an MP3 player. Well, until recently. After a fashion. I have bought the mother of all musical gadgets - the Boss Micro BR.
Imagine that the iPod (i feel conflicted, being a corporate tool by typing that with the capital in the middle as proscribed by Apple, but I'm such a pedant that I couldn't sleep if I didn't)...sometimes I feel comments in brackets are too long and can distract the reader from what came before them. Again. Imagine that the iPod (this is more acceptable) had been re-designed by yours truly and then imagine that you are, in fact, me. You are fundamentally a singer-songwriter but don't want to be restricted by that. You want to be able to record your songs anywhere, with good sound quality from a built-in microphone, and you want to be able to piss about with weird effects and overdubs. You want more sockets and dials than you can shake a jack lead at and yet you want this thing to fit in your pocket - literally. Oh, and you like shiny things. That light up blue. I realise that this post is probably not interesting to anybody except myself and possibly the odd passing musician, so I'll summarise: if you write songs and have access to £130, buy a Boss Micro BR. It rocks.