Much as we sometimes fear change, some inexplicable part of the human psyche loves unpredictability. Even those among us who crave order in our homes and office spaces sometimes love to throw caution to the wind and lose our organized selves in a whirlwind of spontaneity. While many of us feel that things should have their place, and be in that same place when we go to look for it as were running out the door, still we long for the odd surprise to make life just a little more interesting. Perhaps, then, its little wonder that our favorite iPod tool is the shuffle key.
In the days of the record and tape cassette, our only listening option was a chronological one. And because even our very favorite album usually has a song or two that doesnt quite hit the spot, we always ended up listening to it anyway, skipping the needle over (quite often making horrible scratches in the process that invariably cut through the songs we did like), or pushing blindly on fast forward to get to the tunes other side.
But with the advent of CDs, our options expanded, offering us for the first time a perhaps more playful way of listening. And while CDs undoubtedly offered us greater...