I bought Starr an iPod nano for Christmas 2007, in the hopes that she could use it to listen to her music library and crochet podcasts on her work commute (nearly as long as mine). As well, she received a device that played her iPod through her car stereo. This caused a problem: the device plugged into her cigarette lighter, which hadn't worked in years.

Today, I finally found the round tuit for correcting that problem. After some Googling, and removing her car's engine air filter, I found the likely electrical fuse, and learned it was indeed blown. Starr admitted to spilling some liquid in the lighter socket once upon a time, and I had hopes for an easy repair. One trip to Auto Zone later, and the little iPod broadcaster works great.

This just makes me terribly happy. I finally got around to fixing the issue I'd promised to, and fixed it properly with a little skull sweat and some digging under her PT Cruiser's hood. Getting something done is such a good thing.

I have driven to Orlando. I have driven to upstate New York. In neither of those cases was I responsible for the steering wheel the whole time, if at all; so, yes, a five-hour drive can absolutely wear me out!

Since NASA Langley is practically sitting on I-64, I packed the car on Wednesday night and headed right to Blacksburg from work Thursday. 64 and I-81 aren't too unpleasant on a Thursday evening; my CD player may be broken, but the iPod plays through it nicely except for the pauses when it tries to eject nonexistent CDs.

Unfortunately, my transmission started throwing fits around Afton Mountain (who could blame it?) slipping and locking into third gear three times on the trip down. Pulling over for 10 minutes each time seemed to reset things, but that's no way to run a railroad.

I made it safely to the Microtel, where I was informed that the wireless access was a bit spotty on my floor :( Nevertheless, in an effort to adjust my sleep rhythms for the weekend, I stayed up for a couple hours unsuccessfully farming Primals in Zangarmarsh, only getting kicked off the server three times.

Friday I headed down to see my Mom (one of the main reasons for my Thursday travel), which was lovely. We traded Xmas presents and had good conversation over a mildly disappointing lunch. Interestingly, I'm still on a hot-rodded Mac G4 tower, and she's got the latest and greatest iMac Intel Core 2 Duo, which she took great glee in showing me.

Went to the lube place, got the transmission flushed, and had them look at my rear tires, which were making unhappy growly noises. Yep, they needed replacing. Technicon was getting expensive already...

Today, as I drove to work, I plugged the iPod into the car stereo and listened to an episode of Astronomy Cast. (iTunes link)

Astronomy Cast bills itself as "your facts-based journey through the cosmos". There are few surprises in the podcast for a hard-core space geek, but the presentation is good and the content accessible to almost anyone listening. The science expert for the show, Dr. Pamela Gay, becomes excited and passionate when talking about her fields of expertise, but seems ever so slightly impatient any other time. Overall, it's entertaining and informative, and it's usually one of my first listening picks.

Today I heard pretty useful advice about purchasing binoculars and telescopes for casual amateur astronomy - useful because I think there's a telescope in my near future. (Suffolk is a short drive away and has nicely dark skies.) The previous episode, however, made *me* impatient; 30 minutes pointing out that higher dimensions, alternate universes, black holes, and FTL travel really do none of the fun things that science-fiction writers come up with. Hey, kids, human exploration will be over as soon as we land on the remaining solar planets - after that, it's all data analysis! Check out this set of spectra!

I admit, based on what we know right now, all that's probably true. But scientists have thought before that little remained to know, then been forced to change their minds when something new poked though the statistics. I'll acknowledge the validity of thier statements for now, but I'm not yet ready to give up the dream of yearly trips to Alpha Centauri! In the meantime, the "serious scientists" need to stop being such bummers. Carl knew better.

Been away for a while, again. December was a rough month for me; one of the high points was the sinus infection that kept me feverish, nauseated, and flat on my back for all of Christmas weekend. On the other hand, raininva trumped her Valentine's Day gift to me with an even more geeky present: a 30GB iPod video. Dang, but that thing is small. It's full of anime and British SF right now, but even with video-on-the-go I never have time to watch anything right now.

Back in April, I barely resisted a rant about SF fans and reviewers. However, this review of the "Starship Troopers" novel pushed the rant to the surface again.

( Rant follows... )

Sunday night raininva and I celebrated both an early Valentine's Day, and a late anniversary of the day we began a serious relationship. We drove out to one of Rain's favorite restaurants as she told me about the incredible gift she'd got me that would blow me away.

Well, we got settled at the table and she presented me with my gift - the first season of Gargoyles on DVD. Now, that was certainly cool and something I'm pleased to have in my collection, but it didn't quite measure up to the hype she'd been giving me. But I played along, and told her I was very pleased with the gift (not hard to do, since I did like it).

She said, "Yeah, I'm glad you like it; though I did get you a backup gift in case you didn't." And she hands me a 1 GB iPod shuffle.

iPod!

An iPod has spent quite a long stretch on my list of "things I'd like to have but I'm not holding my breath". And I have to admit it's keen to have a device which plays hours and hours of music on a single charge, with no moving parts besides the control switch. And it's tiny, and weighs nothing!

A passing waitress saw me looking at The Precious and said, "You must have been a very good boy lately!"

Not really. But my sweetie loves me :)

*****

Rain got a nail in her Pontiac's right rear tire Friday night, and assuming the tire was unsalvageable, we headed to Wal-Mart on Sunday afternoon for a replacement. There was a five-hour wait there! I swear, I'm going to start boycotting Wal-Marts not because of any political feeling, but because they are always overcrowded and scary. I want to start bringing a machete when I go to the Superstore down here!

So, I was about to admit defeat - Wal-Mart was impossible, and everything else was closed - when I saw a Shell station with a bunch of tires propped outside; I rolled the dice and pulled in. Turns out there was a friendly good-ol-boy in there who wasn't even busy, and had the tire plugged and airtight in 15 minutes, and even re-inflated the spare for us. Only charged about 15 bucks, too!

Here's some karma for you, guy. You deserve it.

So, this morning in Tokyo, Steve Jobs announced a 10 gigabyte iPod for $500. I'm not sure that if added every CD I own to my MP3 collection that I'd have 10 gigs, even if I tossed in a gig of files to use it as an emergency boot drive. Heck, put a color screen on that puppy and you could watch ripped DVDs off of it!

Apple: "Yes, we're expensive. But isn't this cool?"

Apple introduces iPod, a FireWire-equipped digital audio player (MP3, MP2, more) with a 5GB hard drive (1000 songs). iPod is the size of a standard deck of playing cards, and includes: 20 minute skip protection; FireWire connection; a 10 hour lithium-polymer battery which charges in 1 hour; backlit LCD display; playlist support; ID3 tag support; a scroll wheel for fast song access.

iPod will ship November 10 for $399.

Here's a look at it.

I really wanted one of these for about 15 minutes, until the price got posted. I can think of other things to do with $400. If this is the beginning of Apple's move into consumer electronics - well, I have my doubts. It's neat - and I do want one - but I can't afford that price.