iBrock: Ludditis Sufferer

Over the past few months, I've had this burning lust for an iPod nano. My current MP3 player (PSP aside) was a 512KB unit that I got for Christmas about 3-4 years ago (at least). It's a decent little unit but it just doesn't have the memory for even a single podcast, plus the interface on the song loader is incredibly clunky and archaic in this day and age.

Anyway, I've been able to quell the urges to get an iPod for a while and slowly socked money away for one. I finally broke down yesterday and picked up a 4GB nano at the pawn shop in Guelph as it was only $90 instead of the usual $145 or so that they go for at Futureshop or Walmart. It was a little scratched up and didn't have headphones, but that's ok... right?

Well, wrong.

I wasn't counting on coming down with a horrible case of Ludditis last night. Oh, sure, I was able to load up a bunch of songs and video podcasts and such on my new toy last night but that's about the easiest thing that I was able to pull off over the past 24 hours.

I was just trying to listen to a podcast when I went to bed and that's when the system started to get a little glitchy on the video side of things. Then it just locked up all together. This led to a lot of (silent) cursing and then a trip back downstairs to plumb the depths of the internet to see if I could figure out how to reset a frozen iPod. Then my computer lost mouse functionality when I restarted it to reinitialize the iTunes software.

Sigh.

At this point it was after 2am and I had to be up at 6 to go to work, so I just said, "Bugger it," and went to bed.

Then today, after I get home from work, I find that the keyboard was somehow locked on my computer so I couldn't get past the BIOS and then, once that was resolved, EVERYTHING RAN SUPER SLOOOOOOW....

I was not amused. Not only was my cheap iPod crapping out on me, my computer looked like it was dying.

The computer is doing just fine now and we took another trip to Guelph so I could get my money back from the Pawn Shop and we hit the WalMart and snagged a brand new 4GB nano. Woo. It kind of sucks that I had to spend the full amount that I'd saved instead of saving $60 or so but I have to say that the new unit looks a lot nicer when it's not looking like it went through a war zone. Plus it hasn't locked up yet!

The saddest part of this whole affair came a little while ago when I was trying to figure out the velcro strap on the armband/case thing I picked up tonight for the Nano. I spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how the velcro could connect without having to twist the band. Julie came over, took one look at it and bent the end of the band over the buckle and voila! The armband was secure.

Sigh.

I'm tired. Leave me alone!