Flashes of Panic

I used to work with a guy whose annual Christmas tradition was exchanging “Homer gifts” with his wife. The name comes from a Simpsons episode where Homer buys Marge a bowling ball (with “Homer” engraved in it) for her birthday. In this case, he and his wife each went out, bought something for themselves, then wrapped it and gave it to the other.

Honestly, I didn’t have that in mind.

I ordered a “normal” iPod for A. before she mentioned that she was thinking of getting a Mini. It happens that she probably won’t even fill the 4 GB the Mini has, but the smallest regular iPod is 20 GB. Meanwhile, I use a “3G” model (actually 10 GB) which I have packed to the gills. The battery is toast, but since the two contexts where I use it the most (hooked to a machine running iTunes, or in the car) provide direct power, that hasn’t bothered me too much.

Anyway, for some reason a trade was negotiated whereby I get the new 20 GB unit (which has already been named “Twenty”) in exchange for my 10 GB unit (retroactively named “Ten,”) but only after I perform another round of iPod surgery to install a newer, longer-lived battery in “Ten,” making it better-suited to use on a treadmill. That process will probably also hard-reset the unit to factory settings, so aside from the scuffs of time, it will be “like new” but with a better battery than the ones Apple uses.

That was not, honestly, what I had in mind when I bought the gift… actually, I had mentioned just buying myself one and handing down “Ten,” but I didn’t think it would work with Windows. Now, having seen how “Twenty” works, I think it probably will.

Now Playing: Sweet Adeline from XO by Elliott Smith