I didn’t really start out Saturday planning on dumping $500 at the Apple Store, really I didn’t. I planned on spending the day cleaning up around the house and playing with the kids. It’s just that things never work out the way you expect them to.

One thing I discovered a while ago is that I’m much better at cleaning and doing yard work when I have music to listen to. An iPod and a good set of noise-blocking earphones makes it really easy to concentrate on housework while avoiding all of the little distractions in life. The problem is that I’ve been iPodless for months now–my wife appropriated my 15 GB iPod when her original 5 GB model died.

One thing you really, really don’t want to do when you’re suffering from phantom iPod pain is agree to meet your wife at the mall, right next to the Apple store. I’d been successfully fighting the ‘buy a new iPod’ urge for months, but it finally overcame me. So what did I do? I skipped the $99 iPod shuffle, went right past the $199 iPod mini, and grabbed the enormous 60 GB iProduct iPod photo.

I’m such a sucker for color displays. I keep telling myself that a 60 GB iPod is perfect for backing up by 60 GB laptop, but I don’t think I believe myself. It’s just another iProduct.

But it’s such a shiny iProduct.