My Treacherous iPod

As I contemplated my perfectly planned weekend, (organise the delivery of the rest of my bedroom furniture, do some grocery shopping, buy 'Notes on a Scandal') my iPod decided to muzzle its way to the top of my agenda. Actually it started giving me warning signs Thursday evening. I recently bought a Des'ree cd (I Ain't Movin') and I ripped and copied it onto the iPod. When I was done I ejected the iPod and noticed that the battery charging icon was still flashing. Hmmm ... I reset it and connected it again to charge then I went to bed. Next day, I check it, power meter hasn't moved. Hmmm ... I take it to work planning to monitor it. I am thinking perhaps the battery is bad. I plug it in and promptly forgot about it. By end of day when I looked at it the battery was completely dead. Why is this thing not charging? Is the battery bad? Is there a problem with the comms interface? Is the charger bad? Of course by now I had whipped myself up into a real frenzy, If I were a souffle I would have been floating! I am hardly coherent, going mad with dispair, what does this mean? Is that it, 4 months of a fantastic relationship and then just like that its over? Silence? How will I cope in the gym? In the car? At night? Especially at night? Oh! It hurts just thinking about all that silence. I get online and find the nearest apple store. Thankfully its like down the road from the office. I hop in the car and arrive at the store without incident.

25min after I set foot in the store, I finally got to talk to someone. After carefully explaining myself the guy plugs the iPod into his laptop and can you imagine the treacherous thing? The backlight comes on, the yeye thing is charging?! I could see the tech mentally filling me under the 'dumb' category in his support call list. Although I was glad it mean't I wouldn't be forking over $100 for a new battery I was a bit confused, why wouldn't it charge at home? I ask the technician and suggested perhaps my charger was bad. We switched to my charger and my iPod continued chugging up juice! After like 10 mins the tech disconnected my iPod and asked me to just let it charge over night and all should be well. 'Let me just turn it off' he says as he clicks and holds the play/pause ... button. 'Hold on' he says after like 5 secs, 'there is something wrong with this iPod, when did you buy it?' he asks. Phew! 'December' I reply with relief, so I am not a dumb user after all. 'I will have to replace it for you' he replies as he readies himself to initiate the required paper work. 'Ehm what will happen to all my stuff on the harddrive'? I ask. 'Not to worry, its all synched with what you have on your computer' OhOh! When I just got the iPod in an uncharachteristic move I didn't read the manual and so was unaware that you can only synch an iPod with one computer. Shaky shaky me, I had gone and synched my iPod with my friends laptop and as a result I had no backup of ALL the cool albums I got from Seattle. Bummer! I remembered copying off the entire IPod_Control folder sometime ago but I wasn't sure if what I did would be viable. Come o, shebi the thing don dey charge? Maybe I can go home and mess around a bit more and see if I can rescue my music. 'I actually have stuff I haven't synched yet, could I take this home and synch it then come for the replacement tomorrow?' 'Sure' he replies handing over my iPod. I wanted to shake it like the naughty child it is. However I need to keep it 'alive' until I got my precious music off it so I restrain myself and carry my high behind off to my house, thankful for the warranty, hopeful that I will be able to rescue my precious albums. You know how your car makes one strange noise for like 6 months which disappears the minute you drive into the garage and reappears the minute you drive out of the garage? substitute 'car' for 'iPod', I wanted to swallow a bottle of sleeping pills and just lie down! Hold that thought, not before 'real Time with Bill Maher'. An hour later I was no longer suicidal just hungry. I go online and make an appointment at the apple store for saturday, thank God for bmgmusic.com, I should be able to replace most of those albums, the ones that I can't find I will beg/toast my friend to burn to dvd and mail to me.

My 'Singing' Purse

I love gadgets and I am one of a dying breed of people who read actually read the VCR manual and try out all the features. When my IPod was new and shacking me a lot more than it is shacking me now I must have set like 50 different clocks for different time zones (okay I set 3; Nija, Jand and Dallas) I noticed I could also set an alarm. How will I 'hear' the alarm I wondered as I set the sound to 'beep', the IPod comes with headphones and the yeye thing will not play if the headphones are not connected. I promptly forgot about the whole thing until like a month ago when out of curiosity I changed the alarm sound from beep to one of the playlists I have set up with the intention of watching the thing at the appointed time. I must have gotten caught up watching HGTV or something cos I forgot all about my experiment. The other day I was napping when I was roused by - Corrine Bailey Rae? 'I dey heaven?' I wondered as I opened my eyes. My laptop wasn't on and I do not have a cd player or anything like that. The sound seemed to be coming from my purse. My heart started beating double time as I backed away from the said purse, believing it to be possessed then my sleep addled brain finally figured it out - it was the alarm on my IPod! But how come I hadn't heard it before I wondered as I reached for my purse and retrieved the culprit. Usually about this time I am listening to my IPod at work which is why I hadn't heard it up till now and on weekends when I am not at work I am either at the gym or the headphones are not connected. I was shocked at the volume coming out of the headphones, I could hear the song clearly, lyrics, intruments and all. Not bad at all coming from such tiny headphones. Usually when I am in the gym I have the volume turned all the way up so I guess that was another reason I could hear it so clearly from so far away and immediately feared for my poor ears. Dummy thats what the 5 holes on the other side of the ear piece are for!