3rd Gen iPod, down but not out

My 3rd Gen iPod broke today. I was gutted. The thing had surpassed all expectations, lasting over 4 years with the original battery still going strong. I plugged it into the eMac this morning and it made a horrible whirr flowed by a click, like the hard disk head just gives up.

After trying all the normal soft solutions suggested by Apple, Google came up with this page. It turns out that putting a bit of pressure on the hard disk can get rid of the problem. As suggested in the article I opened the ipod and put a business card inside the case to increase the pressure (I knew those 200 business cards from my old job would come in handy). Unbelievably, this worked. I thought I'd blog this incase anyone else had a similar problem.

Update: This worked for a about a day. I've now given up on the iPod and convinced Jen to buy me a 16GB touch for Christmas. Any one doing the same should take advantage of the iPod trade in programme, saving 10%.

Don't judge a video game by its cover

'Super Smash Brothers Brawl' (Wii) turned up from Lovefilm today, after I spent a good five minutes last weekend saying how much it didn't enjoy any of the previous versions of the game. After playing Smash Brothers for a few minutes I feel like i'm lapsing into premature old age - I don't know who I am, where I am and sudden death is imminent. Jen's excuse was that she wasn't really looking at the names of games she was adding to the rental list, she just went for the ones that had good covers.

Modern video games, with their retina-burning epilepsy-inducing mental graphics can put a pretty reasonable representation of the game on the front cover. This wasn't always the case. Take Jungle Hunt (1982) on the Atari 2600 as an example. Here's the cover:


How good does that look! Look at the detail, the mustache , the baying crocodiles, the cheeky monkey, the elmo watch. This must surely be the most advanced video game experience since that bit in D.A.R.Y.L when the pre-pubescent T2000 managed to get Pole Position running at 200fps. It's 'the arcade hit!' I remember when I first found this game at my aunts, circa 1998. The anticipation of what could only be the greatest game ever was unbearable. I plugged the cartridge into the Atari, switched the TV on and waited what seemed on age for the game to slowly reveal itself while the CRT warmed it self up.


Fucksocks.