VARIOUS QUESTIONS FROM THE CULT OF THE IPOD, ANSWERED: Did I buy the wireless transmitter that I mentioned but said I wasn’t going to buy just yet? Yes (how well some people know me!). How is it? It’s . . . okay. If you get into the car and just turn it on, it sounds pretty good. If you switch to it after either listening to the iPod on headphones or the CD player in the car, though, you can hear the difference. It’s probably best to think of it as a car charger with additional wireless capabilities — OK for occasional use, but not high fidelity. And though it’s not cheap, it’s not really very expensive, either.

How do I like iTunes? I like it a lot, and I’ve bought a few songs (Paul Oakenfold’s “Ready, Steady, Go!” is a winner, and I’m not usually a huge fan of his) and even the latest Thievery Corporation remix EP. It’s cool, but there are strange omissions. For example, the latest Joey Kingpin album, Stereo Thriller, is available on iTunes, but the (to my mind superior) predecessor, A Beat Down in Hell Town, isn’t. (You can listen here for samples from Beat Down (I recommend “Transylvania A-Go-Go) but strangely there are no samples online for Stereo Thriller. It’s not bad, you know, I just like the earlier album better.) It’s still not an Amazon.com for online music, but it’s quite cool, and it’s easy to imagine spending a lot more on music than I spent on the iPod.

Various non-iPod-cult members have told me that I should have bought other players (the Creative Zen Micro seems a favorite) but all I can say is Foolish doubters, you will be cast into the lake of fire!!! that having heard so much about the iPod from so many readers, and having observed the strong devotion it inspires in its owners, I wanted to check it out and I’m quite pleased so far.

UPDATE: Reader and cult-member Dave Whidden says that this armband is a must-have (picture here). And Brannon Denning says he’s had trouble finding open stations for the tuner above, but he lives in a bigger city than I do.