Caffeine-fried Anna

[annathepiper]

No walk for me this morning, since I needed an extra half-hour of sleep more than I needed to go walking. Not that I was actually sleeping, since I've started waking up in the middle of the night again--but at least I was horizontal and had my eyes closed! (I find it vastly unfair that I have more trouble sleeping when I'm exhausted, I can tell you. It's got to be the extra caffeine I'm having to chug to make it through these insane work hours, though.)

And we're not out of the woods yet; I hear tell now that the big milestone we were supposed to hit today has slipped. No word yet on whether this means work this coming weekend, or whether we'll be looking at more late hours for the rest of this week. Don't get me wrong, I'll be grateful for the overtime pay, but I need to actually maintain enough consciousness to spend it! And it'll be chancy getting Chapter 14 finished off by Surgery Day, too.

Tried to slog through the morning with caffeine and Carbon Leaf. Carbon Leaf didn't cut it, so I had to break out the big guns and fire up Great Big Sea as long as my iPod held out. Which was not long. Sniff. Elf needs new iPod battery badly!

Elf also needs nap. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Tuesday morning miles: 1.0
Miles out of Hobbiton: 299.15
Miles to Rivendell: 158.85

Comments

[caligogreywings.livejournal.com]

I love the icon.

I'm thinking of getting an ipod sometime soon... maybe the blue mini. Tips? Suggestions?

[annathepiper]

Thank you! That's a picture of my actual cat, taken by spazzkat ages ago. solarbird cropped it down into an icon for me today at my request--it felt just absolutely appropriate for the week I've been having.

Re: iPods... I have a 30-gigger non-mini iPod myself, and don't have any direct experience with the mini models. Me, I like having my entire collection with me on one device, but if cost is a factor and/or you just want to have a certain number of songs depending on your mood, then a mini or a Shuffle is probably the way to go.

The biggest tip I can think of for dealing with iPods is, be sure to make frequent use of the lock lever to make sure that you don't hit buttons on it by accident when you're carrying it around. I have found my iPod to be quite jostle-resistant, which is cool when I'm walking, but it's not resistant to having its buttons bumped. This has sometimes caused me to skip songs when I don't want to. So I have gotten into the habit of locking and unlocking the thing every time I change playlists.

Also, when I take it with me somewhere and don't intend to play it immediately, I hold down the Play button to put it into Sleep mode. This conserves power.

[caligogreywings.livejournal.com]

So are the batteries decent? Is it really a nice investment? I don't want to spend $129 on a toy that I might toss to the side... like my palm zire... >.>

[annathepiper]

Here's the thing about the battery on my iPod... for about a year and a half I got fantastic performance out of it, and could usually get a good workday's worth of music out of it.

Then the performance of the battery sharply tanked. For a while I was only getting four or five hours of play time out of it, and then it started varying wildly.

There's actually a lawsuit against Apple about the performance of iPod batteries--since Apple had been claiming that you're supposed to get 8-12 hours of battery life out of the device for the lifetime of the device, and that just hasn't been happening. I am in fact one of the people who got a class action lawsuit form in the mail because of this, and I'm waiting to see what comes of it... a possible settlement will be a free replacement battery.

Now, all this said... the battery is the only issue I've had with this device. At all. If Apple fixes the problem with the batteries crapping out too fast, I'll be totally cool with the device in general.
Caveat #2, I don't know if this class action suit is applicable to the mini models, since they're newer than the base iPods.

Some folks have gotten all hysterical online about iPod battery problems, claiming that if the battery dies you have to get a whole new iPod; this isn't true. It's possible to buy replacement batteries from third-party providers online, so as long as you're comfortable taking your iPod apart (which I am), then you can replace the battery reasonably cheaply.

Bottom line... don't know if the mini batteries are as problematic as the batteries in the older base model iPods. (I've got a third-generation one.) You might ask around your Friends list or elsewhere and see if you can get any input from any owners of minis, to compare their experiences with the battery against mine.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

That is the most awesome icon ever. :)

[annathepiper]

Thank you! spazzkat took the picture. It's my actual kitty! ^_^

[firni.livejournal.com]

That icon gave me a much-needed smile after a day in the cancer ward.

niiiice kitty, that's a goooood kitty.

[annathepiper]

I'm glad! For the smile, that is. spazzkat did very well snapping that pic of Polly. ^_^

[firni.livejournal.com]

Polly just plain rules, that's all there is to it.

Well, that and spazzkat has talent. ;)

[annathepiper]

Indeed, on both counts. ^_^