Dying
It used to play all day long, practically, but these days, even on a good day, it only stays awake for maybe three hours at a time before sleeping again.
Sometimes it even passes out without warning, giving all other indications of still being full of energy, no matter whether it had just rested or not.
Its behavior is erratic. It might be playing and then seem to totally forget what it's doing and begin something else instead.
It's definitely not young anymore. Its skin has deep scars here and there. Most times its expression seems dull and lifeless, especially if the temperature is colder.
Luckily it's not a pet I'm talking about; rather, my trusty iPod, which has served me faithfully on a near daily basis for the last 20 months or so, is now starting to show signs of dying. The battery life is the worst symptom (especially the new trick where it dies when still around two-thirds of the way charged sometimes), but it has started doing other weird things as well like skipping or repeating songs, and the display has gotten pretty weak.
The allure of the new 60GB iPods had been tugging at me for a while (especially when I played with one in the store and it was so much lighter, and its interface so much more responsive than my sluggish 3G one seems in comparison), but I had so far successfully convinced myself that my old one is still perfectly good, and there's no sense throwing away good money on a replacement I don't need. Now it appears I may need it after all (only by that self-indulgent first-world country consumerism definition of "need" of course), so I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to hold out.
If the damn thing dies one more time on the SkyTrain before I even make it home, however, a trip to FutureShop may immediately follow.
Sometimes it even passes out without warning, giving all other indications of still being full of energy, no matter whether it had just rested or not.
Its behavior is erratic. It might be playing and then seem to totally forget what it's doing and begin something else instead.
It's definitely not young anymore. Its skin has deep scars here and there. Most times its expression seems dull and lifeless, especially if the temperature is colder.
Luckily it's not a pet I'm talking about; rather, my trusty iPod, which has served me faithfully on a near daily basis for the last 20 months or so, is now starting to show signs of dying. The battery life is the worst symptom (especially the new trick where it dies when still around two-thirds of the way charged sometimes), but it has started doing other weird things as well like skipping or repeating songs, and the display has gotten pretty weak.
The allure of the new 60GB iPods had been tugging at me for a while (especially when I played with one in the store and it was so much lighter, and its interface so much more responsive than my sluggish 3G one seems in comparison), but I had so far successfully convinced myself that my old one is still perfectly good, and there's no sense throwing away good money on a replacement I don't need. Now it appears I may need it after all (only by that self-indulgent first-world country consumerism definition of "need" of course), so I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to hold out.
If the damn thing dies one more time on the SkyTrain before I even make it home, however, a trip to FutureShop may immediately follow.