December 30th, 2007
Instead of “Capitalistic iPod Garbage,” Girl Receives Bizarre Note
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Here comes another tech grinch. There seems to be an abundance of them this year. In this case a Maryland girl received a strange note rather than an iPod.
“Reclaim your mind from the media shackles. Read a book and resurrect yourself. To claim your capitalistic garbage go to your nearest Apple Store.”
While the writer has it right: a National Endowment for the Arts report released last month said there has been a major decline in reading in general — he could have left the iPod and slid an paperback in with the note. 
At any rate, Jay Ellis, the girls father, returned the ipod to the Germantown, MD store where he purchased it. Get this: it was Wal-Mart again, the same retailer (though not the same location) where a young girl received a porn-laden video MP3 player for Christmas.
Interestingly, the store manager said they had another report of the same type of “surprise” at that store.
We Say: This brings up a question, though: perhaps parents need to start opening up shrink-wrapped presents now. There have been far too many incidents of this type and it would prevent an unhappy Christmas day.
Erik says:
It could have been worse, it could have been a bomb. But still, the message they are trying to convey is lost in the irritation they’ve induced. Now, about that porn-filled iPod, can that be ordered direct from Apple?
December 30th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Gomu says:
http://www.shopdropping.net
December 30th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Eric says:
I’m anti-iPod anyhow so this story just makes me smile.
December 31st, 2007 at 7:09 am
Alex says:
@Eric–You’re a loser.
December 31st, 2007 at 7:36 am
Doyle says:
Personal attacks are childish. I use my Iphone to listen to Audio Books almost exclusively. I have “consumed” over 30 books this year alone. So dont poo-poo a product just because it is popular. If you have a specific beef about something dont hide behind “bandwagon hatred” i.e. hating Ipod just becuase, or hating Microsoft becasue they are succesful.
December 31st, 2007 at 7:54 am
TJ says:
As someone who comments on a number of sites, including ABCNEWS.com, I find it terrifying how poorly written the majority of comments are. I make the occasional omission or misspelling (most often correctly spelling the wrong word), but most of these people are adults who’ve graduated from high school and write at no better than a second or third grade level. It just blows my mind that they were able get a diploma. That said, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that they don’t read.
December 31st, 2007 at 7:56 am
Steven of AU says:
I’m smiling too, Ipods are crap anything apple makes.
Well TJ those comments are made by Apple Product users.
Ipods make u stupid.
George W bush must have one!
December 31st, 2007 at 8:50 am
Wilko says:
Or perhaps it has to do with this being a comment section, and not part of an academic essay. People want to reply and speak their mind quickly, not spend time forming a perfectly grammatical response. It’s ridiculous to judge someone on a hundred words or less of written material.
Anyway, so I don’t spend an entire comment whinging about how others can’t reply properly, I’ll actually contribute to the article.
I’m glad someone along the line of Apple production and distribution had the balls to do something like this. If anything, it has all made us step back and evaluate this ‘issue’, whatever it is. There are numerous legitimate and beneficial uses for the IPod and most other Mp3 players, beyond the personal satisfaction. I quite enjoy my Mp4/Mp3 player that I bought off Ebay. At the same time, I don’t really feel that Apple’s dominance in this market is justified. It seems sometimes that a third of the price of their devices is just to get that Apple logo, and wear it proud.
December 31st, 2007 at 8:57 am
Ed3 says:
> This brings up a question,
> though: perhaps parents
> need to start opening up
> shrink-wrapped presents
> now.
Standard operating procedure in my family since the 1970’s. Not only because of incidents like this, but of incidents like missing or broken parts. It’s a whole lot easier to get replacements before [Xmas, birthday, anniversary, etc] than after, especially with gifts ordered on the Internet where extra time is needed to get in touch with the retailer, prove you actually bought from them, RMA the item, receive the replacement, check it out, blah blah blah.
Pr0n and activist messages aside, it’s disappointing to open a broken gift.
December 31st, 2007 at 9:32 am