Sitting near me in the coffee shop where I routinely spend my days working–or, if not working, at least pretending to–there’s a young man cycling through tracks on his portable CD player. An honest-to-God., straight from the ’90s, portable CD player. It’s an odd thing to see in the iGeneration, where media is infinitely easier to store and play in digital format than in something as substantial as a compact disc, but it’s there in front of me just the same.

Why does he refuse to accept the evolution of portable media players?

It rests on his knee, with a tightly-stretched power cord tethering it to a not-so-nearby power outlet practically screaming, “Hey! Eyes this way!.”

The size of the thing strikes me. It seems odd that something that can’t fit into a pocket was the latest rage in portable, but I suppose that might account for the bluejean styles of the decade.

There are explanations, of course. It’s possible he’s one of the 30 or so people under 25 that don’t own an ipod. It makes the ipod headphones he’s using difficult to explain…but still. He’s working in a steno notebook with various notes and measures scribled randomly on the pages, so it’s possible he’s a student, but I still don’t think that explains things.

If you have an explanation, let me know.