John's Blog

They always say that when one door closes, another opens. But sometimes the sound of one closing door is just followed by another one in an adjoining room. A few days ago I was watching a local TV newscast and the lead story was about the passing of Phil Rizzuto. At that point our dog marches herself between me and the TV and gives me the "I have to go outside" signal. So as we head towards the door I grab my iPod and hit the play button, only to have the song Paradise by the Dashboard Light pop up as the next random song. Although a weird coincidence, I ignored my sometimes tendency to view this as a foreshadowing event, but perhaps I should have.

Later that night, the ol' iPod started to act funky. It would start to play a song then a few seconds into it suddenly stop and skip to another song and then do the same thing again. After reading the troubleshooting tips, I opted reset it to the factory settings and reinstall my music library. Although I've done this once before, for some reason it's not completing the transfer, and everything freezes and crashes. Looks like I need to get a new iPod.

The only problem is that historically, Apple always rolls out new product in the fall and if I buy one now they will introduce a newer model right after I buy one. The most "credible rumors" ( surely an oxymoron if there ever were one ) point to the newest model being a successor to the Nano, adding a larger screen for video with a squarish form factor resembling a Blackberry. Although I'd prefer the wide-screen video iPod (think iPhone lite) it sounds like this won't be out till the end of the year and I can't wait that long.

And since the dog was a peripheral player in this, let me continue this pointless ramble with a funny story about her. We were watching TV the other night, and the dog jumps off the couch to head outside for her final "wee-wee" break of the evening. But when she landed on the floor, she hurt her front leg and when she attempted to put weight on it crumbled to the ground. I tried to get her to walk it out, but when she wouldn't budge, even for her favorite treat, I knew we had a problem. So the wife scoops her up, and it's off to the "doggie emergency room" we go.

As soon as we pull into the parking lot, our dog spies a large Boston terrier in the waiting room that she felt the need to begin a dialogue with while we were still in the car. After getting her calmed down, we pick her up and carry her inside. The guy at the front desk has us put her on the floor, so that they can evaluate the injury and now, suddenly she's walking normally with no hint of discomfort. She probably just didn't want to embarrass herself in front of the other dogs in the waiting room. The fact that she made her owners look like overprotective idiots; not a problem. They say that dogs and owners begin to resemble each other, so maybe this was just her attempt to mimic my hip problems?

Tags: life experiences, pointless rambling, iPod, dogs