How to cheer up a sad iPod

A few months ago when I returned from my travels in Central America, the first time I tried to turn my iPod on it wouldn't work. It gave me the sad face! I had heard stories about the sad face and it being the final blow to ones iPod ensuring certain death. I tried rebooting my iPod, restoring it, I even tried giving it CPR but nothing seemed to work. After a month or two of being disappointed from such a terrible loss, my spirits were uplifted with the purchase of an iPhone! I thought, "Well, my iPod mini has a total capacity of 4GB and my iPhone itself has a total capacity of 8GB so addition by addition I dont need my stupid broken iPod anymore!" And with that, I chucked my iPod and all the accessories I had accumulated over time into a drawer which I never expected to check until the next spring cleaning date.

What a blow to little iPod mini's self esteem that must have been. No less than 3 months of solitary confinement would break the very soul of almost every other mp3 player there is. Yet the iPod mini is not just ANY mp3 player. Unbeknownst to little "miniPod for monsterPod", there was yet a sliver of life left in its resilient heart that would show its colors soon enough...

...For the past couple of weeks I have been getting things together to either take with me to my apartment in SF or pack away in storage for a while. I made my way to the drawer in which little iPod has been sleeping for so long and suddenly, I felt my heart drop. For all the miles I could not have run if not for my iPod, for all the canvassers I could not have ignored while walking up Bruinwalk, for all the songs I would have never listened to if not for the shuffling of its tiny-but-mighty 4GB library...

I couldn't just let it go from dark drawer to dark box, or worse. So I took it out one last time to see if I couldn't get it to work. Once again, I went to Apple to troubleshoot there for a while to no avail. Once again, it didn't work. It was then time to digg a little deeper. I searched the blogosphere for revival techniques and what I uncovered is nothing short of a conspiracy! Nearly all the websites suggested the same solution: BANG YOU iPOD ON THE GROUND. And then Lil' Jon appeared in my room and said, "WHAAAAT!?" to which I responded, "OOKAY!". And in an instant I took my iPod and tossed it across the room. It landed some 10 feet away from me on the carpet with a thud and rolled a couple feet further. Then it just lay there, on its stomach, motionless. As I walked over to pick it up the thought that I might have really killed it was front and center.

I picked it up, and turned it over. No sad face, no apple icon, nothing. I turned it on and to my amazement the little guy woke up!! Pretty much the happiest moment this month!







keep it fresh...like miniPod for monsterPod

- Neil

Who owns you?

I have heard, "It is very difficult for the poor to practice charity." Because one must have him/herself for one to share. You cannot share that which you do not have. Really, material things are not important in this post. It is things like respect, kindness, love that I am interested in. Why is it that we feel we must be given these very things before we can ourselves give back? You do not need someone else to give you respect before you are able to give respect yourself. Sit in a room, be loving. In our world, to practice love you need another being to share it with. No, share love with yourself. Fill an empty room with love, joy, thoughtfulness and see how the atmosphere in the room changes.

There are many things, material and immaterial, that we feel we own. We pay a price for a pair of jeans, or pay our time for a check at the end of the week, or pay with our experience for respect. We simply assume that we own, and thereby control, anything that we pay for or are given. Many of these things we have trouble sharing. Why is it that we do not share our money? The money, yes, is physically in your possession but if in your heart you want to give it to someone else but do not do so then who is in control and who is being controlled? Many times it is us who are possessed by the very things we "own." Free yourself from that which you think you own. Do not be held back by that which you have to give.