I need my tunes

If there's any question as to why our landfills are filling so rapidly, consider the case of disposable consumer electronics.

My car CD player recently crapped out on me, so I went to a car stereo shop to see what it might cost to get it fixed. Turns out, it's not much cheaper than buying a new one. And when you factor in the amount of time it would take to send the deck back to the manufacturer to get it repaired and sent back, it's pretty much an even swap to buy a new one. No, I really can't live that long without music in the car.

(Also, my old deck died a mere four months after the warranty expired. Convenient, huh?)

So I have a shiny new car CD player now, complete with bells and whistles I don't really need. It does have a port to connect an iPod, which is nice, except for the fact they want $100 for the connecting cable. I don't think so.

It also is ready to receive satellite radio as well as something called HD Radio. As if regular radio were not craptacular enough, I have the option to receive several hundred more stations I won't listen to. Again, I don't think so.

(And I know I seem to be using "crap" a lot in this post. Crap, crap, crappity-crap-crap. Just got off a long day at work, OK?)

Although the saving grace for my day at work was stumbling across this post about a New Zealand badminton team at the ever-entertaining Deadspin.

I'll let that speak for itself.