Your coworker is wrong...

As are people that admit you can load your cd's onto your computer via itunes, but say you can't have them in mp3 format (i.e. say you must use some "proprietary format").

Seriously...

If I owned 1000 cd's, could a player (or software to load a player) that required me to rebuy everything ever survive, much less have such a stranglehold on the market?

Another possibly dumb question: is the educational discount the same for Apple's B&M store as it is online?

I've decided to buy a 5G iPod, but am now debating whether I want to wait the 1-2 weeks for it to arrive from the webstore (where I'd get the engraving). I don't think I'd lose any sleep by forgoing the engraving if I could pick it up instore for the same price.

You can buy it in the store with the education discount as long as you have a valid student id.

Here's where I got three of them for cds and dvds I had laying around but never listen to.

http://www.millenniummusic.com/trades.html