Soooo true!!! I recently implented the “no Ipod in the car for trips under an hour rule.” We were going to the grocery strore and all my kids would put themsleves into their individual Ipod bubbles. The radio is fine, and we take turns picking the station, though I have to do a quick switch when certain songs play. Even though the radio gets annoying (I swear they play the same five songs every hour), atleast everyone is together in the same bubble.

Oh, I thought you were serious about Hootie Blowfish — I didn’t catch the sarcasm.

It’s not like my musical universe is tiny — I like anything from the beginning of time until around the 1990s. In succession I could listen to Led Zeppelin to ABBA to John Denver to the Beatles to J.S. Bach to Shania Twain to Cab Calloway to Stevie Wonder to Frank Sinatra to Simon and Garfunkel to Hildegard of Bingen to Glenn Miller to Pink Floyd to Johnny Cash to the Bee Gees to Pagliacci to Evita to Godspell, from rock to folk to jazz to classical to country to opera to r&b to show tunes. But contemporary music? Fuhgeddaboudit.

And Katherine, I can appreciate you liking music from Europe, but as they say, if it’s not Scottish . . . well, you know the rest. (Actually, I don’t know that there is any good Scottish music — a couple of bagpipe pieces, I guess, but anything else?)

But Monsignor is right — today there really is no more music radio to speak of, music is marketed more for download than album sales, MTV quit showing music videos years ago in favor of stupid reality shows, and everyone listens to their music on MP3 players with their own personal earplugs, rather than people gathered around the record player or listening in the car while cruising around town.

edging toward old fogey that I am – I hit ‘old fogey’ on the 20th. It’s not so bad…

Bender, what you shakin’ your head for?