iPods

So one of my pet peeves is people who can't walk a couple blocks or drive 10 minutes or anything without having their iPod buds in their ears.   Like, is real life honestly that boring that you can't stand to just listen to the sounds around you?  It seems so pointless to me to spend time to get out your iPod, put the buds in, pick a song, and stuff, when you're just going to work or school or something.  Just give it a rest and sit there and actually interact with the world around you.  Would it kill you if you didn't have music blasting in your ears for your 20 minute commute or whatever?  The reason this annoys me is because when I'm walking in downtown Philly to work, there's always kiosks or flower stands or something that impede the flow of pedestrians on the sidewalk.  So we kind of have to scrunch together, have the fast people past the slow ones and stuff.  But when I'm trying to pass the people with their iPods on, they (obviously) can't hear you coming up from behind them, so when you're just walking besides them, kind of close b/c you're trying to avoid the kiosk or whatever, they give you this weird look, like "where in the world did you come from?".  And sometimes I just want to be like "I was here all along, maybe you would have noticed if you didn't have some weird need to block out all the normal sounds around you."  So yes, people, take the iPod out of your ears and enjoy the sounds of everyday life, interact with your surroundings and be aware of stuff going on.