Never Say Never

Well, I've gone and done something I swore I'd never do - I bought myself an iPod. I shunned the iPod for years mainly because of iTunes. I've never liked iTunes. Then, there's the whole thing of the iPod being overpriced, at least in my mind.

However, I was recently scanning the local Craigslist ads and saw one for a "broken" 4th generation, 20GB iPod for $40. It was described as not being able to boot or anything. Well, I started researching the various problems encountered by iPod users and made the determination that I could fix the iPod, so I offered the guy $30 and he accepted it.

Sure enough, the iPod had the infamous "sad face" icon on starting. Mostly everything I tried didn't work. At one point, I needed to stand up to turn on a light as it was a little too dark to see the iPod screen. The iPod was jerked out of my left hand by the attached USB cable as I stood up and bounced on the floor.

Would you look at that! I'm getting the "Do Not Disconnect" message! Looks like dropping it brought it back to life. I was then able to restore the system with XPlay - much better and way easier than iTunes. I also went ahead and bought an extra battery off eBay for $4.99.

Altogether, I probably have $45 invested in my "new" iPod with some other accoutrements that I purchased. Never say never.