i love my ipod. sincerely, openly, and fully. i get in the car and shuffle the whole thing, and even though i have one of the older models that only holds 5GB, that’s still around 1100 songs to randomize for driving music. it’s wonderful.

however, and perhaps others have also noticed this, the bri-pod (as it is named) seems to have some ‘favorite’ songs that no matter how often i turn on shuffle, always seem to come on more than others for some reason. conversely, i am fairly confident there are some tracks in the thing i have never once heard come up on shuffle (where are you, texas is the reason song i first heard on a high school friend’s mix tape, called “if it’s here when we get back it’s ours?”).

anyway, i wonder what it says about me or my ipod that these seem to be its most preferred tracks:

— smoking popes – ‘do something’

(far and away favorite. i hear this like every three days, it’s creepy.)

— dismemberment plan – ‘do the standing still’

— promise ring – ‘a broken tenor’

(my favorite song of theirs, luckily.)

— modest mouse – ‘ohio’

(my least favorite song of theirs that made it on the ipod, which is unfair. i almost want to cut it just to break the curse.)

— jay-z – ‘encore’ remix from the grey album

— rancid – ‘radio’

(and i never skip this one, out of all these)

— neutral milk hotel – ‘king of carrot flowers pt 1’

(amazing song, and now i know all the words.)

— that song off the first streets album, where an intelligent pothead and stupid beer-drunk hooligan debate the merits of their respecitve drugs of choice

— the instrumental interlude tracks from minus the bear’s highly refined pirates album, much more than the actual songs

(which i only put on for the rare instances i want to listen to the whole cd at once. rip off.)

— bon jovi – ‘livin’ on a prayer’

(which, i swear, is on there for road trip purposes only — the sole acceptable situation in which it is okay to both blast and sing along to this track, aside from maybe a biker bar.)

now there’d be a weird mix cd, don’t you think?

but am i the only one who has noticed this phenomenon? i mean, if other people’s ipods have a top ten i’d like to know what they were — and make sure they weren’t cooler than mine.