Stupid iPod question

[El Chuxter]

I think I know the answer before I ask, but I'll ask anyway.

I somewhat recently got an iPod. I didn't want one, but it came free with the Macbook my wife got. I've been filling it up, very slowly, since we got a mackdaddy one with a lot of memory. We use it exclusively on shuffle mode, replacing the lousy LA-area radio when in the car for a while or jogging or whatever.

Since it's most often used when my daughter's around, I've been trying to keep bad language to a minimum on it. (Obviously, some exceptions slip through, like Pink Floyd's "Money," where it's so brief that you barely notice, or "Jump Around" by House of Pain, which doesn't have anything you can't hear during American Idol.) This means a lot of stuff I like, like anything by Ice Cube and most Guns n Roses, is off-limits.

Is there some arcane way to set it so that you can check songs as "Parental Advisory" and have to specifically give it permission each time you set it to shuffle mode to "see" these songs? This is a 120 gig iPod Classic. I don't think there is, but it doesn't hurt to ask, right?

[A.J.]

Right click the song in question and go to "Get Info" then in the Options tab choose "Skip when shuffling."

[JediTricks]

Seems pretty slow. Might as well just create a playlist of kid-acceptable tunes, it'd go faster than removing them 1 at a time.

[A.J.]

Seems pretty slow.

If it's a particular artist or genre you can sort your library accordingly, highlight all the songs and change the shuffle option on all of them at the same time.

[El Chuxter]

That sounds fairly reasonable, but I only use it on shuffle, and I wouldn't want to have to manually reset the settings on each track if, say, I'm going to be in the car by myself for three hours. I don't keep my iPod and iTune synced because I don't everything on the iPod.

The playlist option might work better. Is there a limit to how long a playlist can be, or do you know how much memory a track on the list takes up? (I'm assuming it'd be a minimal amount, like a line of text in a text file, but I don't like to assume anything when it comes to strange electronics.)

[Darth Jax]

no limit on playlists (that i'm aware of) as long as it fits on your iPod. i have playlists that are several days long.

[El Chuxter]

Good, good. That's probably the best option--I can almost make a list entirely devoid of hip hop and jazz for my wife. :)

[JediTricks]

I am not an ipod man, but on my Sansa Clip, it's just a lightweight line of code for each tune. I have playlists for when my niece is in the car (extremely restrictive, I had no idea how much swearing I had in my music until recently), playlists for specific friends, and playlists for specific types of music. That's the way to do it, else you end up with Aerosmith's Steven Tyler singing about his big 10 inch record... of the band that played the blues, or Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant singing about having his lemon squeezed until the juice runs down his leg, or ZZ Top talking about how they have the six and she's got the nine, or Guns N Roses blaring out a tune about Axl's rubbermaid baby, or Rage Against the Machine's Zack de la Rocha singing about **ck no he won't do what you tell him, or Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor singing about how he wants to **ck you like an animal.

[El Chuxter]

The only "obvious" one I've got (I'm not worried about innuendo quite yet) is "Move Over." Janis Joplin is too damn cool to cut for her rant about some guy expecting her to "f*** like a g****** mule."