MORE FROM THE CULT OF THE IPOD: A reader emails:

In case you’ve missed it, Amazon has a great deal – buy 4 $15 itunes cards – get 5th card free – so in essence you get 75 tracks for $60 bucks. I think it ends 12/31 so hurry.

Being newly inducted into the cult a new iPod owner, I didn’t even realize that Amazon sold iTunes cards; I’m not sure I even realized that there were such cards to begin with. But here it is. And the deal’s good until 1/2. (Yeah, I bought ’em myself. I figure I’m bound to buy that many songs sooner or later, so why not get the discount?)

On the other hand, a heretic doomed to feel Steve Jobs’ wrath another reader says I should have bought the iRiver H320 instead. There are lots of good players (I’ve owned an iRiver flash media player for a while, and it’s pretty good), but I bought the iPod so those suggestions come a bit late. And I’m quite happy with it. One thing I’ve learned about buying consumer electronics is that once you buy the thing, it’s time to quit worrying about what other options were there.