Month: March 2004

Tubular Bells

I’m going slowly mad from the constant thumping. I have no idea where it’s coming from, but it shakes the floor under me. Sometimes I don’t notice it for hours, and then I’ll feel dozens of them over the course of 5-10 minutes. I have no idea the times when I don’t notice is because it isn’t there, or just because I’ve managed to block it out.

I suppose if one has to go mad, slowly is the way to go. You wouldn’t want to rush going mad, you might miss some of the good bits.
Continue reading “Tubular Bells”

The advertisers have me where they want me.

Diet Coke is better than Diet Pepsi. But Diet Pepsi plus a free iTunes music download is better than Diet Coke. So every day I’m gambling with my pleasure – will I get a less satisfying Diet Pepsi alone, or a more satisfying Diet Pepsi + music?

Too bad there isn’t more of the stuff I like to listen to on iTunes Music Store. Hey, Apple, how about getting some Rawlins Cross, Rare Air or Bulgarian Women’s Choir? Or some more Great Big Sea and Ashley MacIsaac? Hey, I wonder if I save up 9 or 10 of these things I can buy something that’s only available as a whole album?

My iPod is dead…

I was walking through a shopping mall with my new Great Big Sea CD in my
hand and an old Great Big Sea CD playing on my iPod. As it changed from
one song to another, the song didn’t start. I pulled it out of my pocket
and looked, and the display seemed frozen – it wouldn’t react to any of
the buttons. So I did a full reset, and got the icon showing a folder
with an exclamation point. So I did another full reset – and this time I
got an icon showing a disk and a magnifying glass, and then a while later
I got the “sad ipod” icon.

While messing around to see if I could fix it, I noticed some strange
noises while it was booting. And afterwards I was trying to take it take
it out of the Marware case it lives in and something is rattling around
inside it.

This is so strange – you’d expect rattly noises if I’d dropped it and it
immediately stopped working, but I’d been listening to it.

Oh, and just to make sure this day is perfect, the Apple web site where you order a repair tells me that I’m giving an invalid serial number, so I can’t even have the privilege of paying $260 to fix it.

iPod saves lives!

Once again the guy three cubes down is using his speaker phone to carry on a long conversation even though he’s the only one listening to this end of the conversation. And rather than giving in to the temptation to stab him 400 or 500 times with a mechanical pencil, I’m just shoving the ear buds of my iPod deeper into my ears and turning up the volume.

Ah, tranquility.

Now if only the cubicle shaking thumps that happen about 10-20 times an hour would stop.