iPod Pergatory

I have gone from iPod heaven to iPod hell.

Now I wait somewhere in between.

You see, my iPod just stopped working a couple of weeks ago. In vain, I tried to fix it. I tried resetting, restoring, banging on the desk. To no end. Finally, I took it into the Apple Store for their diagnosis: S.O.L. (shit out of luck). After a conversation that went pretty much like this, I've decided to take matters into my own hands and try to fix it myself:

"Sorry, you're hard drive is bad," said the large, nerdy man flirting with frightening ineptitude all the while checking out my iPod.

"Is that pretty common? for a $250 item to just break down after little more than a year?" said I, in obvious disgust. "After all, this one was given to me by you guys to replace the original one I bought, which went bad after less than six months. Is there still a warranty left on this one?"

"Oh, well the warranty follows the date of the original purchase not the date you exchanged your iPod."

"So I have a purchase date warranty, not a product warranty?" (how dumb is that?)

"Essentially."

"So what are my options?"

"Well, you can buy a new iPod here at this store and we'll give you 10% off your purchase for the 'exchange' of this bad one."

"So basically, you'll give me $20 for a $250 product that only lasted me a year in order to purchase another $200 item that may not last very long either."

"Well, the Nano has no real moving parts, so the chances of its breaking down are pretty slim."

"... So I'm trading in my $250 20GB iPod for a 2-8 GB nano for practically the same price with no guarantee that it will last beyond a year?"

"Uh, well, it should last longer than a year."

"And so should my original two, right?"

"Ummm, well, yeah."

"Great. Well, believe me, if I buy another one, I'm not going to buy it here. I'll buy it at CostCo where they'll take anything back no matter when you bought it as long as you have a receipt."

Screw them! So I found this site on the web: http://www.notpopular.com/blog/comments.php?blogID=63 and followed his directions and took out the old, bad hard drive. Then I went back to the web, found a new hard drive for $69 plus some shipping and handling, and for about $80 I might be back in business.

Wish me luck! Wouldn't that be SWEET?!