Monday, September 22, 2008

my ipod's in love with huey lewis

my office is notoriously quiet. so much so, that the other assistant and i are always asking each other if the sound from our ipod docks is too loud. because it is difficult for me to function in dead quiet i always have my ipod with me at work and running, typically on shuffle. among the first things i do when i get in every morning is to plug the ipod into the speaker docking thing i have at my desk.

friday was no different. i got in. plugged the ipod in and settled down to listen to whatever random song out of the 7,826 that are on there that ipod chose for me that moment. i then went on with my morning routine and was going along on auto pilot. after a while, i realize there is no music playing. wtf? i look over at the docking station and the screen on my ipod is still lit up with "now playing" and all the song info. the counter at the bottom though? the one that shows how much time has elapsed on the song and how much is left? is stuck at "0:00". it's not moving. there's no sound. hmmmm.

so i take the ipod off the docking station and try to turn it off. nothing. ok. i hold it up to my ear and can hear it humming. it is also CLICKING. that doesn't sound good. i can't afford a new ipod, so i'm freaking out that this one is broken. (it's a 4th generation ipod classic. a 40gb one that apple doesn't even MAKE anymore. i bought it used on ebay back in 2005 and i LOVE it.) it won't do anything. won't turn off. won't put out any sound. so i let it sit for a bit. finally, in response to all my frantic button pushing it turns off. i let it sit for an hour or so. reset it and try it out again. same thing. no sound. clicking & humming. won't turn off. SHIT!

by this time, i'm looking up online how much a new one is ($225-$250). trying to figure out if we can afford a new one (we can't.) or if i can figure something out to tide me over until christmas, where hopefully i can get my parents/vrock/my brother to go in on a new one for me. (that's a possibility.) in a fit of inspiration i remember that before i got the docking station so that i could use my ipod at work, i had used launchcast radio from yahoo to listen to music at work. so at least i'm covered for the day and am not sitting in complete silence. (i'm extremely spoiled by tivo and satellite/internet radio/ipod listening in that i HATE to listen to/watch commercials anymore.) i get home friday and reset it again. it still won't play. so i plug it into itunes and restore it (which wipes everything off of it). then i try to re-install my entire music library. i had a dear friend over friday night and so i just plugged it in and let it sit.

by saturday morning, itunes said that the ipod had been re-synced. i took it off the docking station and it had 200+ songs on it. um, hello? that's a far cry from the 7,826 songs that SHOULD be on there if, in fact, it had completely re-synced. well crap. but, at least now it's actually playing. i tried a few more times to reload the songs, but it just wasn't working. we were going to the mall anyway later that afternoon, so i took it with us so that i could take it to the apple store and see if they could tell me what was wrong with it. (of course by now it's actually playing just fine. figures.) so after much waiting around, they run some diagnostics on it and can't really find anything wrong with it. it's not clicking anymore (which some suggested sounded like a hard drive in the beginning throes of dying) and it seems to be playing the music just fine.

they told me that i'd done all the correct things and to keep an eye on it. we got home and i was able to reload all of my music onto it and it would still play. yay!

the big test was today when i got to work. (i don't listen to it on the bus, so i don't carry my earphones with it.) i plugged it in, put it on shuffle and held my breath. and? other than a love affair with huey lewis & the news (there are only 21 songs out of 7,826 on there and i've heard at least 3-4 of them in the last 4+ hours!!) it seems to be working just fine. whew!

keep your fingers crossed, k?

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