one bad apple....

I'm having a bad Apple day.

You might remember that I thought my much loved 60gb iPod was going to die back in May this year. The screen went all funny and it started behaving a bit unpredictably. The old boy seemed basically okay though, so we carried on regardless. I therefore wasn't expecting any problems when I reached for my trusty MP3 player to maybe shut out the office with a bit of Rage Against the Machine as I tried to concentrate on some tedious document or other. Imagine my surprise and annoyance, then, when I turned the thing on only to find that it was completely empty. The menu structure was there alright, but there appeared to be not a single piece of usable content. Given that I synced it only a couple of days before, I was a little bemused.

Nevermind..... I had a plan b: my iPhone. I picked up my phone and started to think if I had any RATM on there or perhaps some Audioslave. I pressed the 'home' button, and nothing happened: the screen remained resolutely blank. Now, this has happened to me once before, about a month ago, when the phone has gone from registering an almost full battery to shutting itself down without warning with a completely flat battery. Annoying, certainly, but not catastrophic. Except, of course, the charging cable that I take everywhere with me was in my other jacket. Luckily for me, enough people now have iPhones that I was able to plug in at someone else's desk. It's not really very good though, is it? I've only had the bloody thing 13 months, and the least you'd hope is that you can rely on it.

Grrr.

I can charge my phone, but what am I going to do about the iPod though? Several attempts to reset and sync it have failed, and I think it's dead. Not having an iPod at all is clearly not an option, but should I buy a new iPod immediately? There's only one hard drive iPod with a decent capacity left now: the 120gb Classic. Should I just buy that? Apple are secretive about their product launches at the best of times, but the iPod range is probably due an upgrade and there's a Mac Expo next month. Should I hang on and see what they have to say? There's apparently a chance they may just can the classic range entirely and force everyone to buy a new iPod Touch. Given that I already have an iPhone, and I like to carry my whole music library around with me, that's not all that appealing an option for me.

Dilemmas, dilemmas.

To be fair to apples though, I did have a very nice Granny Smith with my lunch, so it's not all bad news....

the old king is dead, long live the king....

There was very nearly a crisis today at work. No one died of swine flu or anything, and the business still appears to be in one piece.... but bugger all of that: my iPod nearly died. In fact, it may still die. It's looking a little touch and go at the moment, to be honest.

It's my own stupid fault. When I was unpacking my bag last night, in the act of pulling out my lunchbox, I flicked my iPod across the kitchen. It flew through the air, as if in slow motion, and then landed, face down, next to the cat's bowl of kibbles with a resounding and somewhat disconcerting SMACK.

I stared at it for a second or two, and then slowly, almost reluctantly I bent down to pick it up. The screen hadn't cracked, which was something, and a quick look told me that it seemed to be loading up okay. I heaved a sigh of relief and put it to one side.

Me and that iPod go back a long way. Well, three years, anyway. It was the replacement for the original 3G iPod - the first that was compatible with PCs - that was stolen back in January 2006. A number of other things were taken at the same time, but that was the one that really hurt and wa replaced as quickly as possible. Apple products are famous for breaking down just outside of their warranty, so three and a half years lifespan on a product with an initial twelve month warranty isn't too bad. I own several other iPods, but this is my main man - my 60GB iPod that holds every single bit of music I've ever ripped. Even though I always have my iPhone on me, and it has a small selection of tunes on it, I still almost always carry my big iPod with me. Who knows when you're going to want to listen to that Soulwax album? Or that Sleeper single? Or that piece of Cuban jazz? Or that Kia Ora advert ("too orangey for crows....")?

Exactly.

Anyway. I was struggling to concentrate on a document in the office this morning, and I reached for my iPod to try and shut out any ephemeral noise. I plugged in, selected the new Bat For Lashes album, and was then horrified to see what looked like a large watermark across my screen. It was only visible when the backlight was on, but it looked very much like the fall had damaged the screen. Never mind.... as long as the music works. Which it did. Until the penultimate song, when it just stopped dead and made some minor clicking noises. A couple of hard reboots and a change of album later (Scott I), and everything seemed okay again.

Hmm.

I was concerned; concerned enough that I popped across to the Apple website to see what repairs cost. Nearly £140. Okay. So how much is a new one? My first surprise was that Apple now only make a single iPod with a hard drive. Perhaps not surprisingly given how hard they're pushing video content, Apple think that the iTouch is the future. Perhaps it is, but with a maximum capacity of 32GB, that just isn't going to cut it for the kind of user who wants to carry their entire electronic record collection around with them, and doesn't want to spend their time mucking about with playlists. Still, they do make a 120GB "classic" iPod, double the capacity of my existing one and quite a lot smaller and sleeker. How much? £175. It's as though they want you to buy a new one rather than have your old one repaired or something.....

I went to check out the reviews on iLounge.

.....Hang on a minute. Am I mourning the possible demise of my old iPod, or am I getting excited about the opportunity of doing a bit of gadget shopping? Well, let's not be hasty - my old, much travelled and much loved iPod is not actually dead yet.

If you'll forgive me imagining my old iPod in the role of Shakespeare's Henry IV, finding that the new iPod (Prince Hal) has taken his crown as he slept:

"I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.
Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair
That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours
Before thy hour be ripe?
O foolish youth! "

The king isn't dead yet. He may be unwell, but he's hanging on in there. In fact, he played me some Ruby Suns and a bit of Rage Against the Machine as I finished that dreary bloody document off before heading home...... So let's give the old boy a chance, eh?

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, eh?

...yeah, you're right. I'm going window-shopping at the weekend and everyone knows it.

oh, the shark has pretty teeth dear....

I went to the dentist today.

My teeth have been worrying me for the last week or so, and I decided it was better to be safe than sorry. Who wants to be caught with toothache in South America?

Is it secret? Is it safe?

So I went to the dentist. After about 5 minutes in the waiting room, I was summoned upstairs to the chair. I sat down and waited as the dentist pottered about and asked me a few questions. After a moment or so, I tuned into the fact that there was music in the room. That's not so remarkable in itself: there's often music in the room and it's usually Heart FM or something like that. It was The Strokes, but I didn't really think too much more about it. It would probably be something unspeakable next. It wasn't. It was The Editors. I looked over to the source of the music and saw an iPod Nano perched on a set of Altec Lansing speakers (similar to the ones I have in the kitchen at home).

I looked at the dentist again. He was actually pretty young.

"I think this is the first time I've been to the dentist when they've had an iPod"
"Yeah, I have a playlist of about 1000 songs that I reckon are suitable for patients"
I imagine that some of the old ladies really dig The Editors. I looked over at the nurse.
"Do you get a say in the playlist?"
She shook her head and shot me a long-suffering look. "Nope"
"Are you at least allowed to skip the odd song on?"
She smiled at me. "I've pretty much learned to tune it out"
At this, the dentist grinned at me. Nice.

We talked a bit about iPods in general and about the speakers in particular (he thought they were okay, but found them a bit trebly, especially on Beatles tracks. He wanted some Bose speakers. I thought they were fine for what they were and suggested that if he was after better sound quality, he should try running his iPod through a proper stereo system). We both agreed that I should definitely try to take mine to Ecuador.

As visits to the dentist go, it was a pretty good one. I just can't shake the feeling that it's wrong that I can have this conversation with my dentist. Since I was five years old and Mr. Kingham used to look after my teeth at Earls Barton, my dentist has always been a middle-aged guy. Wherever I have been, and whoever I have been seeing, they have always been middle-aged.

This guy was young. He might well have been younger than me.

I'm not sure I'm ready for dentists to be young. I'm certainly not ready for the thought that dentists have actually stayed the same age and it's just me that got middle-aged.

My teeth are fine, incidentally.