I’m tooling around the lazy lanes of my Long Island hometown in the ol’ Acura. Inside the car, a sing-songy woman’s voice is bouncing around —

"The parties took place on the front lawn of 4347 Wisteria Lane every Sunday afternoon ..."

Err ... well, actually, it’s Lee Avenue I’m driving down, and it’s Saturday afternoon.

"Chloe Pendergast would bring the tea set ..."

True, there are a few festive-looking people strolling the streets, but their garb leans more toward brontosaurus than tea party. (Did I mention it's Halloween weekend?)

"Of course, it never occurred to the young girls that while they were busy playing out their fantasy, one of the older girls in the neighborhood was engaging in a fantasy of her own."

Now that's more like it. An undercurrent of lust and deviance, complete with a plucky, tongue-in-cheek musical soundtrack, all pumping through my car stereo courtesy of my patched-in iPod — Apple’s new video iPod. Loaded with a recent episode of Desperate Housewives, this now-multimedia player has helped me see my boyhood home for the two-faced burg of sin it really is.

Okay, okay — videos downloaded onto the new iPod (official name, still simply "iPod") are meant to be watched, not listened to at 30 miles per hour. But then, when it comes to the iPod, who’s to say how the players should be used? After all, you never quite know what new features it will have or what you might be able to do with it. This new one — aside from still playing music — displays TV shows, home movies, music videos, and video podcasts. And video was never even supposed to be part of the iPod equation — Apple's Steve Jobs had long pooh-poohed the idea.

So, as we check out what's so great about the latest resident of 'Pod land, keep in mind that the video iPod might not be around long in its present form. Apple has been known to change course in less time than it takes to send an iChat.

Desperate for Video?
If you take a virtual stroll through Apple's iTunes Music Store, you'll see some new departments like the Music Videos section. There you'll find (as of this writing) some 2,000 major-label offerings (as opposed to two million songs back in the audio-only area), including classics like Michael Jackson's Thriller — the No. 1 video download on November 4. Click on "Pixar," and the company responsible for The Incredibles and Toy Story offers you half a dozen computer-animated shorts.

Finally, over in TV Shows, you can choose from five Disney series available the day after the first broadcast. From ABC, there are the hits Lost and Desperate Housewives, and the less-celebrated Night Stalker; from the Disney Channel, there's That's So Raven and The Suite Life. You can see a 30-second preview of each episode and download your selections for $1.99 each (or you can buy an entire season for $34.99). And the TV shows come commercial-free.

True, the MPEG-4 pickings right now are as slim as the new iPod itself (less than half an inch thick!). But within three weeks of the iTunes/iPod October relaunch, Apple sold one million videos. A bona fide iSuccess? "Yeah — that was a pretty strong statement," says Van Baker, a research VP specializing in consumer electronics at the Gartner Group, a consulting and analysis firm.

So just why did so many people plunk down two bucks to watch video on a 2.5-inch iPod screen that some might need reading glasses to see — especially since the ABC shows are broadcast free? Apple wasn't offering any explanations (it can be a little sour that way), but Baker has a streaming thought.