Friday 20 April 2012

Ode To A Gadget


The other week tragedy struck.

My mp3 player, my beloved iRiver ihP-140 mp3 jukebox, containing my entire CD collection shuffled off this mortal coil and made its way to silicon heaven, taking all of my music with it.

This was a double tragedy because it meant that I had to listen to the inane drivel of Radio DJ’s to and from work and then had to decide on a replacement, and knowing how utterly indecisive I am, this was a major problem.

My iRiver mp3 jukebox was my favourite gadget, surpassed only recently my android smartphone.

My work colleagues constantly hurled abuse at me for owning, what they called, a giant brick that played music.

But I defended it, dear reader, because it gave me hours of pleasure, listening to my favourite music over and over again.

With a 40 gigabyte hard drive, it held thousands of songs, all organised in folders by genre, artist and album and with a couple of clicks I could find any song in my collection or play all of my songs in random order for hours on end.

We were one together, dear reader.

And then tragedy struck.

I was walking to my car, carrying my rucksack and mp3 player, trying to get my car keys out of my pocket, when the iRiver decided to make a bid for freedom. It was catapulted out of my hand and slowly rotated into the air before succumbing to the force of gravity and plummeting towards the ground.

It was like slow motion, dear reader. As it fell, I screamed

“NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

And then it crashed to earth and lay silent and still.

I picked it up, jumped in the car and pressed the ON button. At first, everything seemed to be fine until two things happened. First, the display told me that there were NO SONGS on the device. Second, the hard disk within started grinding and cranking – and then it died, there in my hand.

“NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” I screamed.

And as I drove to work listening to the wittering DJ’s all I did was cry “PHARK!!” over and over again, like a demented gargoyle.

My work colleagues had no sympathy.

“I thought I felt an earth tremor – must have been when you dropped your brick.”


“Why don’t you take it to the Science Museum? It will be the star attraction.”


“HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA”

I’ve written an ode to my beloved gadget. Coincidentally, it scans almost exactly with a little ditty written by the Beatles, called “Yesterday”. Here it is:

Yesterday,
I had 7000 songs to play.
Now it looks as though they’ve gone away
Oh, I believe in yesterday

Suddenly,
My mp3 player became slippery
and fell to the ground so tragically
Oh, death, it came so suddenly

Why the hard disk froze
I don’t know,
It wouldn’t play
Not a single song,
Now I long for yesterday ay ay ay

Yesterday,
Heavy metal songs were there to play
Now I sit in silence, cast away
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Mm mm mm mm mm mm mm.

Thankfully, I now have a replacement. Mrs PM kindly lent me her spare iPod shuffle, which she won at work, so the vacuum created by the death of my iRiver was filled. I thank her and the iPod shuffle for that.

Now though, I have something MUCH BETTER – an iPod classic with (wait for it) a capacity of 160 gigabytes.

And it can accommodate everything my iRiver could – AND three times more.

So I am over the worst.

I can listen to music without fear of screaming “SHUT THE PHARK UP!” to DJ’s.

Farewell, dear iRiver. I shall cherish you. I hope the other gadgets in silicon heaven are enjoying my Rammstein and Rush songs.

I will move on.

Long Live My iPOD!!!

16 comments:

Anji said...

I hope that you manage to find all of your songs again.

My son lost all his beloved music when the tide came in very quickly one day and carried everything away...

Jackie K said...

I'm So sorry for laughing as I read this... But I do understand.
It came to me suddenly yesterday that I love my iPhone and iPad so much that I have forgotten to listen to many of my old favourite, favourite songs because I haven't yet got round to adding them to iTunes. I have hundreds of songs but not most of the stuff I played on my CD player which up until about 2 years ago was in pride of place (and constant use) on my kitchen bench. Funny how these things creep up on us.

River said...

Sad about the Iriver, but hooray for the IPod.
Did it take you long to reload all your music? 7000 is a lot of songs.
My hand-me-down x3 IPod is only 30GB, which is plenty for me, I have only 700+ songs on it, but I also have several episodes of several TV shows and a movie.

Darrell B. Nelson said...

People pick on me about my 40gig 3rd generation iPod. I just point at their iPhones and say, "You drop yours and you break the screen." Pull out my 'brick', "I drop this and I break the floor."

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi Anji,

Thankfully, being an IT geek, I religiously back things up so all songs exist on my desktop PC AND a spare USB disk drive we have.

My collection is intact and now enjoying life on a brand new device. I would still be in tears had I lost it all completely.

:0)

Cheers

PM

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi Jackie,

That's OK - Mrs PM laughed too.

It is still the best gadget I have bought - though technically speaking it has been surpassed.

:0)

Cheers

PM

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi River (iRiver :-) ),

It took a while, but with USB 2 it is pretty quick.

Actually, 7000 was the number I used for my rip off of Yesterday - the exact number is closer to 6000.

:0)

Cheers

PM

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi Darrell,

I almost bought the 3rd generation iPod but the iRiver was cheaper.

I am delighted with my new iPod though;; it has a screen but too small to play videos - so I guess I could survive a cracked screen.

:0)

Cheers

PM

drb said...

Phew! I am relieved to learn that you have backups. I was imagining you in tears losing 7000 songs!

RIP iRiver.

Pandora Behr said...

Feel your pain, but glad that all is well now - and that you have everything backed up - even better.

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi drb,

I alos have the original CDs but it would takes ages to rip them all again.

If somebody were to steal my CDs that would be the worst tragedy of all.

:0)

Cheers

PM

Plastic Mancunian said...

Hi Pand,

The pain has gone now I have a new gadget.

Don't tell the iRiver, but I actually prefer my new iPod. I trust you.

:0)

Cheers

PM

MedicatedMoo said...

I *knew* you'd have your songs backed up at home and wondered if the iPod classic might be what you need.

I certainly love mine and it was the best way to bring over our entire CD collection when we shifted countries.

MedicatedMoo said...

Me again - being a self-proclaimed IT geek can you please please please remove the double-word verification thingy - it's in weirdo font that I often can't see and get wrong....

please...?

Plastic Mancunian said...

Bonjour Kath,

I remember the days before mp3 players when I had to haul a mountain of CDs with me on trips abroad. The iRiver solved that problem but the capacity of the iPod classic is immense.

Yes - those word verification things are a right royal pain the in the arse.

So for you and everybody else - I have removed them - I hope.

:0)

Cheers

PM

River said...

Dave; I have an award for you over at my place, come on over and collect it when you're ready.