So I went out got a portable music player. I just had to take my MP3s with me.

I walked down College St. checking all the little computer shops. First place offers me an iPod. Ha. I just said "no thanks."

Next place has a host of little gadgets. But I'm not looking for a portable HD, at least not now. I want something with removable media, something that can recording the field, and something from a manufacturer I can trust. The little gadgets are all from really dangerous companies. I keep looking.

But I reach the last place on College (ok, the last one in sight) and nothing catches my eye. The salesperson offers me a cd player with MP3 capabilities. "It's cheap," he says. I consider it. "Nah," I answer, as ambition gets the best of me.

So I stand outside on the sidewalk, looking up and asking for some divine intervention. I'm going to the beach tomorrow, and I need something to listen to music. And although the laptop goes with me, I not getting into the lugging...

No answer from above, but I notice an approaching streetcar. I jump in and ask if he goes to Yonge St. (yes, I'm still a newbie here). He does. I jump in, getting off in electronics land.

On Yonge it's a whole other ballgame: no computer shops, but a whole mess of audio/video/photo shops, like the cheesy places that line Broadway around 56th Street. This is where Flavio got his Fuji digital camera.

So, once again, I hit the road. Soon, I'm turned on to the MiniDisc walkman, the NetMD thingees. The MZNE410 looks cool, but it apparently doesn't do analog recording. The next model they had was more expensive than my camcorder. I keep looking.

The very last place I go to is the same place the Fuji camera was bought at. The owners are Middle Eastern, so I give them my negotiating face and tell them what I want. They pull out an MZN505. "It's last years model, and it does everything the 410 does, but it records analog."

I'm now hugging the device, which didn't help my negotiating very much. But I'm happy to hear this NetMD is very cheap. They're trying to get rid of it in fact.

So I'm the happy owner of a very tiny, very cool Minidisc Recorder. And it sounds good, because I fully expected the ATRAC (and, yes, the horrid MDLP) compression.

So I'm listening to my Sinatra collection, basking in his amazing singing. Along with Frank, my first MD is going to include some Tom (Jobim), Joao (Gilberto) and his groovy ex-wife, a little Sergio (Mendez) and a touch of the King.