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!!!