A Eulogy For My 80G iPod Classic. A Friend To Me Since 2006.

“This eulogy is in preparation for the eventual sad departure of my iPod.  He is nearly seven years old, and in Apple years, he is 113. The screen is smudged and his rubber case is battered and worn. There is a sticky film on the outer shell, comprised of God-knows-what.  He survived half a dozen falls and four system restores.  But this guy…this guy saved my ass so many times, I don’t know what I would have done without him.

Years ago I had a job.  This job was one of those soul-crushing gigs where you doubt every decision you’ve ever made upon walking through the front door every day.  It was less of a job than a prison sentence; a certain hell for people prone to depression and low self-esteem.   I sat there among the cubes, along with about 100 other suckers, trying to fill in the intellectual void and pass the time.  At first, I was only armed with a tiny Mp3 player, my first purchase of such a device.  It held half a gigabyte of memory.  Yikes.  I could listen to about 100 songs, and luckily it picked up the radio. 

That just was not enough to keep the tedium demons at bay.

My mother apparently heard my pleas and bought me an 80g iPod Classic for Christmas.  Slick, black, with 160 times the amount of storage space as that pack of Tic-Tacs I was using.  I quickly loaded about 3000 songs or so. I made playlists, I threw on a bunch of comedy albums.  I had plenty of tracks to listen to, but just like a fat American, it wasn’t enough.  That’s when I stumbled across podcasts.

I listened to the Adam Carolla radio show on my tiny mp3 player, and I wanted to continue on my new iPod.  I discovered that some nerdball maniac recorded the radio show and cut it into commercial-free mp3 chunks to download as a podcast.  Eventually, I found other (and better) shows to listen to over the next few months and soon I had free content that was updated every single day. I listened to interview shows, improvised comedy, idle chit chat, political talk, sports talk, and Bill Burr. I had interesting people to listen to while I droned away at my uninteresting job.

Sure it’s a little sad.  I managed to meet a few human beings in the same situation, each with their own escape technology at their desks.  But for the most part I needed the voices of other humans, particularly funny ones, to keep me company while I figured out what the hell I wanted to do with my life.  I took this iPod on daily walks, both at work and home.  He’s the main reason I didn’t gain 80 pounds of office-job weight.  He was with me for boring chores; like washing pans or weeding the backyard.  Never a complaint.  Always with something new to share.

I’ll have to replace him, but with what?  Do they make those anymore?  And for how long?  My phone can’t hold 900 podcasts at once.  Do I have to seriously learn about using the cloud? 

I’ll have to break down and get something new.  Some shinier new device with new features and some new fonts that nobody really gives a crap about.  But somehow it will never be the same.  There was really only one guy by my side during those dark, dark days. Only one little black rectangle of technology that made my days bearable. Once an inseparable part of my daily life; now, he’s an unrecyclable paperweight.”