ipod/stroller digressions

fuck all you people and your ipods. there is enough white noise drifting through my world today that i really really don't need your trebled dissonance permeating my consciousness during our shared 18-flight ascension of the elevator shaft. i'm sure it sounds quite lovely way back there in your ambivalent eardrums i'm sure, but out here in the other 99.99999999% of the world it's quite obnoxious. i don't mean to be too utilitarian here, but we of the rather vast majority would appreciate if you might sacrifice whatever joy it causes you to pass the volume meter beyond what can be contained to your own audibility so that we can catch a break.
now that i've got that little bit of nuisance out of the way, let me turn to the truly evil consequence of the small white menace: complete social and spatial ignorance, where i place particular selfish emphasis on the latter. i've had just about enough of having to bump into someone because said someone is mindlessly drifting in and out of the reasonable or expected flow of pedestrain traffic.
do you know how some people think it ought to be illegal to drive while talking on the cell phone? ipods are only very slightly less malevolent devices. it's been proven that drivers have less awareness when talking on a cell phone, not to mention that it usually means the person is using only one hand to drive. i've always been annoyed by the inconvenience it would cause to ban cell phones while driving but resigned to complete agreement with the reasons for and the effects of such a law. for me, it seems like anytime there is a car accident, three questions arise when wondering how it happened: was he speeding? was he drinking and driving? and was he on the phone? any of these three questions answered affirmatively will cease any investigation because they are accepted as severe hindrances to safe driving.
before you call me a prude, just stop and think about what it means to live in a crowded place such as nyc. we all learn very early on that one of the important sacrfices we must make is to always share at least a little consideration for those around us. if we all walked around the city with utter self-determination, then the violence levels would be off the charts.
now let me make another car-related example. imagine a smaller city with no traffic lights. what would happen, or what would drivers be forced to do? after an intial period of accidents, of course, drivers would learn that they can't go careening through intersections, that they must stop and consider other drivers going the other way, and eventually a simple kind of truce will be formed wherein every driver understands that he has a responsibility to every other driver not to crash into them. cars running into each other can kill, people doing the same usually do not. this is no excuse for people to behave differently than cars (controlled by people, yes i understand).
pedestrians learn at least one basic rule of high-traffic movement early on: always stay to the right. if this rule were not followed, there would literally be chaos in the streets of new york. allow me to suggest another extremely important rule: when a large group of people is approaching a single person on the sidewalk, it's the responsibility of the group to partially give way to allow the single to continue along unabated. basically, if you are taking up more space that you should reasonably be expected to, then you must move. if you're carrying a wide load of groceries, i'm sorry if it's heavy but you don't get the whole sidewalk. this rule is especially important if you're carrying an umbrella: if you're one of those dicks who uses a giant golf umbrella to navigate the city, then you sure as shit better be the one who's constantly raising it up above everyone elses so you don't knock into them, and you also better be a passive walker, never cutting in front of people or making unnecessary passes.
now, i suppose it was inevitable, but this whole thing has led me to baby strollers. i hate baby strollers. they serve a need, and i accept that. but if you think that because you happen to be pushing a stroller, then you are entitled to whatever path you choose as you walk down an extremely crowded steet, well you're sadly mistaken. you and your giant stroller are taking up much more than the expected amount of space, so it's you who should be patient and try to accommodate everyone else walking down the street. instead, because of little precious sitting in the stroller, these people pushing them have the highest sense of entitlement. get this through to yourself: you are not more important than me simply because you have a child. it was your choice to burden yourself, do not take that shit out on me.
even a bit more on the strollers:
1. i'd like to take a swing at the genius designer who decided that these damnable things needed to be so big. there are cars in europe smaller than some baby strollers. a kid is maybe 2.5 feet tall and weighs maybe 40-50 pounds. think of a sack of concrete. do you need something so massive to push around a sack of concrete? if what you have is bigger than what you need to move on bag of concrete, it's too big.
2. people pushing strollers have a harder time navigating crowded streets, obviously. this can cause the pusher of the stroller to get agitated, obviously. when standing behind theses behemoths, these pushers can also tend to get a sense of invincibility (call it the SUV principle). what happens is, people use the fronts of their strollers as plows. this is not only unnessarily aggresive and rude, but also extremely selfish on behalf of the pusher at the expense of the presumably precious cargo just inches away from the parts being used as plows. sometimes, it is ok to tell other people how to raise their kids, that's all i've got to say about that.
3. if i am ever stricken with a case of fatherhood, i can assure you that i will do all that's in my power to avoid adding to the scourge of the city. i've seen people who tie a sheet or some other large garment around their back/neck so that it forms a pouch in front into which you can easily and comfortably fit a child too small to walk on its own. this is a superb solution to the problem and i salute these people. it's not hard to be reasonable toward others. it doesn't take a huge sacrifice. just a small one, or a tiny amount of thought.