iThink therefore...

I’m angry – last Monday my iPod deleted itself. I don’t know how. I don’t know why, but it did. Every single song, video, audio-book and podcast removed as if it was never there; my iPod had amnesia. I suppose in i-terms it might as well be senile dementia - I’ve had this iPod for nearly 2 years which in human years must be mid to late 60s. Given my indefinite unemployment and the current Economic climate I’ve become pretty close with my iPod; we go for walks into Ealing and ride the train together, occasionally we’ll go jogging together and now, thanks to the creativity of a Polish builder, we can shower together. On that fateful day I was getting ready to walk into Ealing and reserve a copy of a game that I had little intention of actually buying (seriously I need a job/help).

I take a left out of my drive and click play and wait for the music to hit – soon I’ll be walking down the road listening to {insert appropriate guilty-pleasure band here} pretending I’m in an OC-esque montage as I give a casual, brooding nod to Mischa Barton (elderly woman waiting for the 226 bus). But nothing, just silence – I take my iPod out and press the play button again, and again, and again, each time slightly harder than the previous. I removed it from its jumper (yes I said it, jumper) and take a closer look. Nothing on “Now Playing”. I scroll through...why does it say I have no playlists? What, no songs too?? I’m dumbstruck. I scroll through one more time with the futile hope that I didn’t look properly (hoping that I’m actually a f**k-tard). Nothing. 30 Giga-bytes of music and videos, gone. Whilst I had some of the songs on my computer, I had taken a lot of music from other people’s iTunes and this accounted for about 60% of my iPod.

But the playlists as well, the carefully calculated playlists! “Random Mood” and “Chilled”, whilst almost identical were both brilliant in their own right. And what of “On the Go 4”? The breakthrough playlist which opened the door for the likes of “On the Go 5” and the critically acclaimed “On the Go 6” (basically the “On the Go” family differed by one or two songs that I suddenly thought I’d like to hear again and couldn’t be bothered going through the hassle of plugging my iPod up to my computer, dragging and dropping and then waiting 10 minutes for my computer to disarm my iPod thus making it safe to be removed, just to make sure I remember who’s really in charge...). Seeing as I was on my way into town, I figured I would drop into the Apple Store to seek help.

On the journey there I started reminiscing about my last iPod and how I had similar problems (and then quickly remembered it might have had something to do with the endless times I dropped it and one time when I was thrown into a swimming pool whilst it was in my pocket). Then I went further back, the Land before iPods - Mini-Discs, CD Players, the original cassette walkman. Before I bought my first iPod I used to have a CD player and an array of poorly constructed compilation CDs to go with it (all courtesy of yours truly). None of these CDs made any musical sense; they were all just random songs, thrown together regardless of tone, mood or genre. I believed at that time that the CDs should contain examples of every type of music I liked and as a result there was no flow to it whatsoever; from M.O.P to the Goo Goo Dolls. Just going from lyrics such as “Hunt you down n*gga, run your ass down”, to “I’ll give up forever to touch you,” whilst compatible on paper , just don’t sit well with you when they’re howled by Busta Rhymes or whined by some Bon Jovi wannabe.

I arrived at the Apple Store to find two people next to the Help desk; one was a Chinese guy, probably about mid 20s and the other was a tall brunette guy with glasses and a tattoo on his forearm. I’m not one for stereotypes, but I headed straight for the Chinese guy. Turns out he didn’t work there; I apologise and tell him that I didn’t assume he did. He doesn’t seem convinced and leaves as I start to ask him if he could fix my iPod. Fine. I went over to the other guy and explained my predicament to him. As I was talking to him, I noticed that his glasses were in fact the fake, thick black-framed kind and then lost my train of thought. I have nothing against people who wear fake glasses, it confuses me but it seems quite a common accessory nowadays. The odd thing is that glasses are essentially a corrective measure; certain people HAVE to wear glasses because they struggle to go about their lives without them. Is that an avenue that fashion looks set to go down, disabilities? Give it a couple of years and people may well be walking around with fake hearing-aids.

“Dave, what’s with the new bop?”

“Orthopaedic shoes b*tches!”

I just about shake myself out of that day-dream in time to hear his advice. He points to the scratches on the back and asks if I have repeatedly dropped my iPod on hard surfaces or thrown it against walls (essentially domestic abuse). I assure him that I take good care of my iPod, but admit that occasionally it does “fall” down the stairs. He then tells me to switch it on and off again. After doing so he takes the iPod off me and stares at it for about 2 minutes. He then brings it to his ear and starts shaking it for another 20 seconds, hands it back to me and then tells me I can send it off to people who actually know what they are doing but it will cost me around £100. What a clueless gimp; he knows as much about iPods as Beyonce knows about being a boy.

Since then I’ve let my iPod rest for a bit, charge up and added a few songs back onto it, just to ease it into some sort of normality. But whilst I will be taking extra care of it, it will never be the same again. I’m not sure if it remembers who I am, but every now and again I’ll talk to it about how things used to be and even though it says nothing and strangers avoid me in the street, I think it helps. Since yesterday it’s started stuttering during songs and even skipping some altogether. The end is nigh for my Mass Storage soul-mate, but when it does eventually pop its i-Clogs, it won’t be a surprise and chances are, like Mick Jagger, I’d already have my sights set on a slender, younger model to replace it.