I’ve always liked the James Bond series, which i think makes me pretty much a normal western male. How anyone - in my demographic or otherwise - could not get a huge kick out of the fast cars, impossible gadgets, insane locations and beautiful women that Fleming’s character has defined the superspy-movie genre with is beyond me. The dry one-liners, the martinis… all of it such good fun. Some people gripe about some of the past Bond actors, but i honestly see merit in all of them and their own unique approach to the character.

Until now. This Daniel Craig guy, i’m not so sure about. To be brutal, he doesn’t look the part; not nearly suave enough. I can’t buy him seducing every woman in a 25ft radius with only a smile. And now i find out he can’t even drive stick. Soooo not bonus point for him.

I don’t think i’m looking forward to Casino Royale. A shame, to be sure, because i’ve previously never met a Bond movie i didn’t like.

Calling the mTUNE’s headphones is only half of the story; they’re also a little fort for your iPod Shuffle to play in, or at least hide its head in while its tail end hangs out. That’s the beauty of them and the reason I thought they were worth a try.

My shuffle is primarily a workout partner, as my old-school 3rd gen 15G iPod is still clicking along and has the flexibility to match my (various, swinging) moods with its range of playlists. I’ve found the one-playlist capacity of the shuffle to be well-suited to the gym, as 512MB is plenty to keep a solid collection of iron-pumping tunage that avoids excessive frequency and mid-workout track skipping. It’s also a sweet skiing buddy, weighing nearly nothing and being much less susceptible to death by crushing. Because it’s small and steals electricity from more places (USB ports are easier to spot in the wild than Firewire) it’s almost always tucked in a bag or pocket nearby, and so the mTUNE’s seemed like a great way to get more use out of something I’m carrying around anyway.

Macally ships these babies in a smaller box than I expected, but I found that’s because they travel folded-up which is handy, although it leaves smoosh-marks from the headband in the leather earcups. The box features a typical iPod hipster dude demonstrating how to properly rock out wearing the mTUNE’s, which I appreciated since the “Quick User’s Guide” is only a single-sided sheet of paper and there is no “non-Quick User’s Guide” to which I can refer when the 4-step usage instructions fail to clear up all my operating questions.

The manual does spell out some specs, such as the 180g weight (excluding Shuffle, which would add 22g more) and the 105dB sensitivity across a frequency range of 20Hz ~ 23KHz. Not fantastic specs as earcup-style headphones go, but at the price point and considering the specialty use I felt they were acceptable. The sound is crisp with decent bass response, especially considering the Shuffle has no EQ adjustment.

Even without reading the manual, I expect all but the most dunderheaded Shuffle owners to figure the mTUNE’s out. When empty the headphones look funny until you add the Shuffle, even though they do operate as regular headphones that way thanks to the thoughtfully-included removable cord. As you can see by the USB port sticking out, the Shuffle slides in, uh, headfirst to mate up with the protuding headphone jack inside the mTUNE’s and clicks into place, exposing the control buttons. The first downside of operation is that the Shuffle’s power switch is inaccessible, which means a remove-and-reinstall game before and after each session of use to prevent wasted juice. Second - and more significantly - the status LED is obscured, as well, so avoiding a dead-battery surprise requires some diligence with the power button.

Fit is comfortable and firm, athough I’m surprised the clamping force isn’t greater considering how much mobility a cord-free system allows, and how much the packaging seems to encourage headbanging. The headband sizes across a large range, but the whole setup starts out geared to large heads (or big hair?) as I needed barely one or two clicks of adjustment to span my average-sized melon (and non-flock of seagulls hairstyle). People with small heads - or no hair - might have trouble getting a snug fit. I wore them around the house a bit, making extra effort to bounce down the stairs and white-guy-head-shake-dance more vigorously than usual, and the mTUNE’s kept both the Shuffle and my head in their grip throughout. I have yet to put them through a more rigorous test - washing the car, or something where I’m leaning upside down a lot, such as picking up loose change under the monorail platform - but initial analysis is promising.

As stylish as those white wires are, going completely wireless is gratifying enough to earn the mTUNE’s my recommendation as a quality Shuffle accessory. No batteries, a relatively-compact travel size, light weight and a generally sturdy build - accompanied by a 1-year warranty - mean Macally expects these to bounce around in your backpack and survive all the places you take your Shuffle that you’d never take a full-size iPod. The sound quality is satisfying, with the earcups providing the extra privacy, comfort, noise reduction and bass response you’d expect, and with the included 3.5mm headphone jack cable they’d serve double-duty for your computer, too.

The self-contained nature of this setup really is the kicker, though. Taking full advantage of an mp3 player that’s light enough to wear on your head, Macally has engineered a solid product whose shortcomings are easily forgettable considering the unique form factor and clever implementation.

• Purchased from: Buy.com for $23 (with coupon, free shipping)

• A product of Macally
• Find one at: Froogle or NexTag
• Compatible with: iPod Shuffle (all capacities), any standard 3.5mm headphone jack
• Recommendation: get more use out of your shuffle and free yourself from the tangle of wires, unless you have a small, bald head.

Some days just start off poorly and never recover, and based on how today is going i’d be tempted to claim i’m suffering from “a case of the Mondays” but in truth i actually feel pretty good. Awaking before my alarm clock, at 5.45 because the furnace kicked on, was a much less jarring transition out of slumber than the mind-wrenching beeping of the clock, although it was largely a result of crashing into bed around 9.30 the night before, completely exhausted from a long, six-and-a-half-day work week. I was temporarily on the verge of furious this morning, trying in vain to find downtown parking when every garage was closed (president’s day) and every street space was taken (because it’s free today - again with the day of the presidents). After finally settling on a surface lot near the waterfront for $14 - because i was certainly not going to pay Seattle Muni Tower $24 for the priviledge, even if they are an elevator ride away from the gym - i realized their “full-day” expires at 5.30pm, and as i’ll most certainly be downtown later than that today i’ll be moving and re-parking again this evening. Somehow, though, i’m numb to the annoyance, perhaps because traffic was ridiculously light with the holiday and because driving meant i didn’t have to spend 30 minutes in the cold waiting for a bus that refuses to adhere it its own posted schedule.

Sure, yet another day in the Allstar Fitness locker room without hot water is material enough to begin building a sour mood, but by the time i reached the office where it was 1) quiet, 2) dark and 3) approximately 104 degrees F, i felt cozy and relaxed, and 16oz of sweet nectar from the Starbucks fairy melted the sourness away. So amiable is my current mood that i’m not even bitter about my coworkers who are “so tired” from skiing in Whistler all weekend while i spent 16 hours saturday hunched over a laptop. Even though i probably should be, i’m not dreading and stressing about the upcoming week, where staff absences, further software rollouts and what i’m sure will be countless menial, tedious tasks associated with said rollouts will doubtlessly build into a hurricane work week of epic purportions. Perhaps because i had a solid breakfast today, and a good (albiet chillingly-concluded) workout. A sunday afternoon spent tinkering with electrical projects and playing video games with Clint, followed by an evening curled up by the fireplace with the latest full post with comments.....

Sick of my coworkers' chatter about their VD plans for the night, i dialed the punk playlist and turned my ipod up to drown them out. First song it plays on shuffle: "My Bloody Valentine" by Good Charlotte. Miss Cleo could not have done better.