So long Smacky, hello Bucky

I never even saw it coming. It was like being hit by a speeding truck, that drove off in the night. Every day we had been together; mostly when I was on my way somewhere, but also occasionally while killing time waiting for something. Always there with a pick-me-up, when I was feeling down. Ready to rock when I was in a good mood. And who could forget all those classes spent energizing the kids with holiday jingles and Super Mario?

I'm talking, of course, about my iPod. Smacky.


We'd been together since 2005, sharing many travel adventures and boring commutes, occasionally doing a tv program here and there. Everything was going fine until last Friday, when I disconnected him from my car adapter and put him in my bag. The next time I tried to play him... nothing.

At first, I thought it was just one of those silly "reset" situations. We've had those before, they're not a big deal. But try as I might, no matter how many times I reset him, Smacky refused to turn on. Then I thought it might be the battery, so I hooked him up to my computer for a full night, hoping he would be recognized in the morning. But nothing T_T

It was at this point I realized that at some time on Friday night, while I was wandering around the Takayama Festival eating snacks and talking with former students, Smacky passed silently into the great iPod "beyond".

I looked up on the internet what it would take to get him fixed. We'd been together for 4 years, I figured I at least owed him that much. And then I found to my horror, that if I did send him in for refurbishment, he'd come back with his memory erased. He might not even be the same iPod, I could end up with someone else's former friend. And it would likely cost me 100 bucks at least.

I mulled my options. Send Smacky in? Drive music-free for who-knows-how-long, only to get back an empty shell of my former friend? Or do I go get a new one? I decided my only real option. It was time to let Smacky go.

The next issue was deciding which new one to go with. There's the shuffle, the nano, the classic, and the touch. Not to mention the iPhone, which I was actually kicking myself for turning my nose up at only a few months earlier. At the time I thought, I've got an ipod already. Why would I want one for my phone? Ha ha ha, oh irony.

I already have a shuffle that I received as a gift a few years ago. Satchel, as he's known, doesn't have a lot of memory, but works just fine as my faithful running partner. So that removed the shuffles from the list automatically.

Then we have the nano, which comes with a video display and has more memory than the shuffle. They also come in an array of colors and the new ones can take video. Which is like, who thought of that? "hmmmm, what do people look for in a portable music player? I know! Let's put a video camera in it!" :S

The classic is what I had originally had, except now they come with way more capacity than Smacky, who, at 30GB was apparently a relic model. The new ones come with 160GB. If I'm honest with myself, I never came close to filling the space on Smacky, even with videos. And the few times I watched videos on him it killed the battery, so I didn't do it very often. 160 GB is probably way too much storage for me, esp when it's almost twice as expensive as the nano. And a lot bigger physically too. So I decided the classic was out.

That left the touch, which intrigued me. It's got the touchscreen interface, and wifi capability. You can play games on it and and it's basically an iPhone without the phone part. It's also quite expensive.

In the end, I decided that for me, an iPod is a music player. I don't need it to play games, and I can get internet access through my phone when I'm out and about. I'm probably not going to watch videos on it. For the same amount of storage and half the price, not to mention a fraction of the physical size, the nano was the way to go. And I could pick my favorite color too ^^



Getting an iPod in Japan is the same as getting one anywhere. The only difference is all the documentation that comes with it is in Japanese

Other than that, they're exactly the same as any other model. It's been so long since I even contemplated getting one of these that I was really surprised by the size of it. Compared to the classic, it's tiny!


And it's greeeeeeeeeeen!

So now I face the arduous task of loading the music I want (as opposed to everything in my library) onto it. I'll always remember Smacky, my first portable music player. But I'm looking forward to new awesome adventures with Bucky ^_^