Okay, no more fence-sitting from us... at least, not as far as the iPod is concerned. We're still going back and forth on lesser issues, like whether moral absolutes exist in a universal sense, or whether the advent of non-strawberry-flavored Twizzlers is a major contributing factor to the breakdown of society. But on the iPod front, our minds are made up: as far as we're concerned, it's heart-stoppingly cool, it's absolutely worth every penny of its controversial $399 price tag, and we want one. Badly.

How did we progress from our original lukewarm reaction to a state of unadulterated iPod worship? Well, chewing through Apple's posted info contributed a bit, since it soon became apparent that the iPod is more than the sum of its parts. Reading the reviews/previews of those who had actually been present at the big unveiling fanned the flames as well, since we noticed that while there were plenty of people badmouthing the iPod, few if any of those people had actually yet seen one; it seemed that the folks who had physically held one were unanimously in love with it. But the real turning point was finally getting to see one up close and personal-- and getting to use it, however briefly.

See, you may not have heard yet, but every Apple retail store now has an iPod (and we really mean "an iPod"-- as in, one) purely for demo purposes. Some of the staff at the Westfarms Mall on Saturday were so paranoid they wouldn't let go of the thing, but after our limited exposure to the device, we decided that they were right to be so protective-- we ourselves almost made a grab for it and ran. If you're down on the iPod, we recommend that you reserve final judgment until you've tried one yourself.

For one thing, it's smaller than it looks. For another, it's also lighter than it looks. You can read "2.43 by 4.02 by 0.78 inches" and "6.5 ounces" umpteen times, but until you hold an iPod in your hands, you may not grasp just how little this thing really is. For a few glorious seconds, we got to take its interface for a spin-- and we do mean "spin." The scroll wheel is like butter: precise at slow speeds, but with such a balanced acceleration that navigating a list of 800 songs is quick and astonishingly easy. We were surprised at how quickly we could zip between menu options in the column-view interface without overshooting our targets. The scroll wheel makes a task as simple as adjusting the volume a real joy.

Here's the thing-- we didn't even get to listen to the iPod, but even thirty seconds of just holding it was enough to sell us completely. Do you remember the first time you used a Macintosh? The odds are good that, like many Mac people, it was love at first test-drive; the intuitiveness, the elegance, the attention to detail all alighted on your brain in some harmonious way and you were forever changed, because never again could you use a Wintel system without seeing all its warts. Well, after our Brush With iPodness, we poked around at the five other MP3 devices on display at the Apple store... and it was sort of like having to use Windows.

Of course, none of this changes the fact that Apple is still charging $399 for a portable music player in a sluggish economy, so the product may well flop, but them's the risks of greatness. We figure Apple needs to send a couple of iPod-carrying store employees out into the mall to accost rich-looking people in the food court or something; give 'em a taste and then lead 'em back to the store for the sale, because to use it is to love it. Gee, we can hardly wait to get to listen to one someday.