I haven't updated any profiles that include an entry for "The 6 things I couldn't live without..." or somesuch in a long time, but if I did I would have to include--beyond my normal, smarmy "oxygen, water, etc."--the iPod. It is utterly indispensible for two situations, driving and the gym. Especially long-distance driving, since my 8-year-old car CD player can best be described as moody and sees scratches where there are no scratches. And especially the gyms at school here, in which the administration has decided that any form of music or TV would be too much of a distraction from the task at hand, staring at undergrad girls working out.

Unfortunately, the iPod now has a display that says, "Connect to your computer. Use iTunes to restore," in four different languages and in the old-fashioned Apple IIe-ish Chicago font. If I connect to my computer and use iTures to restore (or connectez a votre ordinateur, or Mit dem Computer verbinden, or something in unidentified Asian characters), I go through a whole rigamarole that works about half the time when iTunes decides to let it, and at the end I am once again instructed to connectez to my ordinateur. Not good.

So within the next 2 days I will have a package from the fine folks at Apple containing a package in which I am to ship them my iPod, which they will then apparently just replace, since iPods are entirely fungible. I'm hoping against hope that I will get said replacement before driving home for Thanksgiving on Wednesday, but I sincerely doubt it. I guess I can now look forward to a lovely couple of weeks of humming while driving and exercising. Grrrrrrrrrrr.