Speaking of stuff we probably should have written about on Friday but found slightly too baffling to discuss even reasonably coherently (trust us, it gets worse as the week drags on), what's up with all the wanton promiscuity among perambulating iPod owners lately? We admit it: down here at the AtAT compound we're actually pretty uptight and strait-laced as far as certain types of, er, "sharing" are concerned. So you can imagine our alarm at hearing that the simple and chaste act of listening to our iPods in public can now be interpreted by a certain lewd subset of the iPod community as an open invitation to come over and... insert things into... certain... um, places. Seriously, we're afraid to leave the house.

If you haven't the foggiest clue what we're rambling on about, here, then clearly you missed the WIRED article that faithful viewer Democratus forwarded us last week. It seems that mild-mannered software executive Steve Crandall was out for his evening walk, listening (as usual) to his iPod, when he was suddenly accosted by another iPod listener who invaded his "comfort field," unplugged her earbuds, and "indicated the jack with her eyes." (We are clearly getting into Harold Robbins territory here, and Basil Fawlty would not approve.)

Crandall was evidently a man of loose enough morals that he couldn't resist the siren song of experiencing a strange woman's iPod, and he plugged his earbuds into her jack, as she plugged 'buds into his. Crandall's ears were greeted by a "rush of techno"; thirty seconds later the exchange was over (the first person who makes a crack about "stamina" is getting sent straight to bed without dinner-- we mean it!), the two uncoupled, and went their separate ways without ever saying a word. Yeesh, it's the seventies all over again. And anonymous thirty-second trysts are probably just the beginning, too; we sense the imminent advent of iPod key parties, where everyone winds up going home with someone else's 'Pod. Before long we'll be hearing about people listening to two iPods at once, and from there it's a slippery slope down to iPod Caligula.

Now, we're not judging anyone, here (much)-- you folks can live whatever sort of "lifestyle" you choose, and it really doesn't affect us in the slightest. Unless, of course, you come loping at us with drool running out of the corners of your mouths, brandishing a naked iPod with its jack exposed and aiming an eager earbud prong at us, in which case-- and consider this fair warning-- you will be Maced. Think of it this way: if there aren't any iPod viruses yet, with this sort of behavior going on, there sure as shootin' soon will be-- especially with all those filthy Windows users carrying 'Pods these days. Who knows where they've been?

So for heaven's sake, if you are going to engage in this sort of behavior, please, in the interest of public health, always use an iPod Skin. They're rubberized, protective, and yes, they even come in different colors. We imagine that people like you actually like that sort of thing.