1. The Lakers fought a pitched battle against the Jazz, despite their captain and MVP being injured early in the game. Twice they closed a ≥10 pt gap, only to fall behind again due to some bad breaks and insanely lucky shots on the part of the Jazz, and the fact that Kobe’s game was totally whack because of that back injury. I think it would’ve been less disappointing if they had gotten blown out instead. Then I would’ve just turned it off in the second quarter

2. My iPod died a horrible death. Just after I’ve gotten done extolling its virtues, too.

So I should’ve known badness would soon make its visit upon my 5G iPod.

When I was driving up to Harrah’s Rincon a couple of weeks ago, it was already hiccuping and locking up every two or three songs, and giving me the sad Mac iPod icon every once in a while.

I had initially blamed it on the latest iPod software upgrade, since this seems to be when my woes started. But I should’ve known better. It seems like the hard drive eventually breathed its last. Crunching noises and hard drives are not a good mix.

In despair, I took a nail cutter and filleted the dead iPod open. This particular thread seems to implicate something screwy with the actual hard drive itself, or one of the connecting ribbons. However, on inspection, it looked like everything was where it was supposed to be. It’s just that the hard drive sounded like there was something loose inside it. Probably the read/write head. And when I tried to close it all up again, the ribbon connecting to the battery got dislodged.

Even after putting it back where it should be, the thing refused to light up even once. It was over. Done for. And only after 14 months. Bah.

Technically my 2G iPod from 2003 still works, it’s just that the Firewire connector is completely destroyed, and there’s no way to put new songs on it, nor anyway to charge it.

So I end up going to Target at 8:30 pm and making a beeline for the electronics section. While the loss of my iPod was distressing, particularly since I had to drive 2 hours to S.D. still, I couldn’t find it in my heart to throw down $499 for a new iPod Touch. As for the iPhone, I’m still waiting for the release of the 2G version before buying in.

While the $249 for the iPod Classic (essentially identical to the 5G iPod) was more in my price range, I figured I’d done enough stimulation of the economy as it was. Besides, who really needs to listen to more than 5,000 songs in a row? I mean, I don’t think I’m ever going to drive for more than 12 hours a day, ever, much less 12 days in a row. It’s not like I shouldn’t be able to re-sync with my iTunes Library every so often. And if I do decide to go on a sojourn to a foreign country one of these days where carrying around a notebook and an external hard drive would be a liability, I’m just going to have to deal.

I finally settled on a 8GB 3G blue iPod Nano. I figure I’ll do better with something that doesn’t have any moving parts.