the ipod saga

the american heritage dictionary defines a fanatic as a person marked or motivated by extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm. i am a music fanatic. and when i say fanatic, i mean it in big, bold, underlined terms. FANATIC. this year has been hard for me, and often my only solace is the music i carry with me everywhere. i literally cannot do without it. the comfort of familiar and unfamiliar songs, lyrics, chords, guitar solos - it's a balm for my soul like no other. that said, it's probably fairly obvious that i own some sort of current mp3 device. and i do - sort of. hmm. where to begin this ridiculous story?

about 2 years ago, i bought a 20gb 4th generation ipod color. i loved it instantly, developing a sort of symbiotic relationship in which it was permanently attached to me. it did well for the first year, as i recall. at the time, i also purchased the extended best buy warranty (3 year). sometime after that 1st year, the hard drive crapped out. no problem, right? i took it to BB, they shipped it to apple, and then back to me. less than 2 months after getting it back, the hard drive died again. again, it was sent off. and again, it broke shortly after returning to me. on the 4th malfunction that requires repair, best buy replaces it with a comparable product. chyeah. right. amazed at the incompetency that led to 4 hard drive failures in a row, resulting in my being without my player for 3-4 weeks at a time, i had little faith in their ability to fulfill the policy. sure enough, instead of taking the allotted week and a half to 'officially' junk-out the ipod and replace it, they screwed something up - and it's going to take another week and a half, at least. i was prepared this time though - when the pod broke the 4th time, i decided to turn it in, hope for the best (that they would actually eventually replace it, per the policy - then i could resell the replacement product), and i went to circuit city and bought myself a microsoft zune. after some difficulty installing the software and an extremely long sync time, i had a working mp3 player again. but after 2 weeks of using it, i was unimpressed with microsoft's technology. i took it back yesterday. i decided, based on all the reviews i'd read, to try a 30gb creative zen - supposedly a comparable product to the ipod. excited, i brought it home, installed the software, and waited. and waited. and waited. the zen never came on, even after 7 hours of charging - nothing. the software also crashed my computer 3 or 4 times. i finally gave up this morning, when - after charging all night - it still wouldn't turn on. so, i took it back. again. i think they know me by name now - and probably suspect me of perpetuating some weird scam based on buying electronics and returning them shortly after purchase...

after all this - i decided - stay simple! i bought an 8gb nano (flash drive = no moving parts = not as easy to damage - yay!). we'll see how this works out. i'm delighted that it only holds a fraction of my library. *note heavy sarcasm* but it's the smartest thing to do. obviously, if you give me a hard drive, i'll just break the damned thing. it's that special alien-given ability i have to destroy electronics by just balefully staring at them...

anyway. open house is tomorrow. all our hard work as exotics chairs (me and sharon) will finally pay off. i hope it all goes well. everything, remarkably, seems to be finished and ready. our people have been helpful, we've lined up several community groups to come and do public education - including the american eagle foundation and the knoxville zoo. so, it should be exciting. we're even having the african grey (from the knoxville zoo) of david letterman and leno fame (einstein) at OH, doing a bird show.

the weather here is absolutely beautiful. the windows are open, a breeze is blowing through the house - stirring up masses of cat hair and bird dander. i love spring. i also love that i am without any exams for the next week and a half - then 5 finals - then -- yes, i'm going to say it. then then then I'm a FOURTH year vet student. for real...*Sigh* scary thought...