The iPod returneth

Around this time last week, I checked the Apple web site for the status of my iPod repair. It proclaimed that they’d sent it back to me, and had a link to a rather nifty Australia Post parcel-tracking web site. Which didn’t work.

But no matter, once Easter was out of the way, I got home on Tuesday to find a card from the post office in the mailbox. “Congratulations!” it said. “The moment you’ve been waiting for has arrived! Your iPod has been repaired and is ready and waiting for you right now, just down the street!” Or words to that effect.

I normally work a short day on Tuesday, and as it was about 4pm, I convinced the kids to stroll down to the post office with me to collect it. We triumphantly entered, plonked the card down on the counter and … the woman pointed out that the card said it would be there for collection “after 10am pm Wednesday”, and apologised.

D’oh! Cue complaints from the kids about wasting time and energy to walk down there and back. An icecream from the freezer when we got home placated them, but I continued to grumble for some time about my iPod spending the night in some delivery van.

One of the problems with my local post office is that it’s open strictly business hours: Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. And of course because this is business hours, it happens to co-incide with the times that most people are at work. Because of my short work days on Tuesdays, I can easily get there then, but — pah! — wait an extra week to get my iPod back? Never!

So I took a 9am detour on Thursday morning to pick it up. The note in the package said they’d replaced it, not repaired it… hopefully it’s a brand new unit, not a refurbished one… though how to tell, I don’t know.

Now to get some music loaded onto it. I’ve started with a range of various CDs, and will gradually put all my discs onto it. By the end of the day, the following will be on it, representing perhaps a sample of my possibly elcectic (or some might say “wierd-arse”) taste in music:

• Professor Ratbaggy
• Paul Kelly (best of)
• Simon Fowler and Oscar Harrison: Live on the Riverboat
• Ocean Colour Scene: North Atlantic Drift
• Hunters and Collectors: Cut
• Gorillaz
• Crowded House
• Belle and Sebastian: Dear Catastrophe Waitress
• The Beatles: Let It Be… Naked
• Billy Bragg (best of)
• Corduroy: Dad Man Cat
• Lost In Translation (soundtrack)
• Bob Marley and the Wailers (best of)
• Doug Anthony All Stars: Icon
• Powderfinger: Internationalist

Don’t worry, I’m not going to continually subject with updates about which songs I’ve put on the thing. I just thought listing the first few might be of interest to somebody. No? Okay. I’ll just go and stand in the corner, out of the way then.