Resurrecting your dead iPod: Whack-a-mole theory

Posted on February 16, 2006. Thursday by supa

The Last Gasp Solution

Right. So my 4th-generation 20GB clickwheel iPod died yesterday morning. I figured, when I saw the dead ipod face, that I’d just reset it and restore it later.

No dice.

Then I figured I’d have my buddy Bryan look at it.

Even he was stumped.

So I thought, well, my the good folks over at an area Genius Bar will have something to say.

Nada, except buy a new one [pffft! ha.] or spend $250 to have it replaced.

So a quick troll of the apple support pages, discussion forums, and the internet at large revealed a few tidbits of information:

1. The 5 R’s
2. The dead iPod epidemic
3. Apple Customer Service blows monkey chunks
4. The firm-slap repair method [which I have redubbed Whack-a-Mole].

Since neither I, Bryan, nor the Apple Geniuses could get the iPod functional by using Apple-recommended tips, and since even third-party repair was quickly looking to be cost-prohibitive [or downright untrustworthy], I decided to try beating it into submission.

Whack-a-mole: How to bring your dead iPod back from the grave

Only recommended if you’ve done everything under the sun and want to see what happens to your pretty white paperweight. I will not be responsible for damage to your ‘pod if you undertake this advice, dumbass.

1. Plug it in.
2. Whack the hell out of it.

You could hold it firmly and whack it bottom-side down on a flat surface. Since my flat surface was also supporting my laptop, I decided to hit the iPod on an angle on the stiff arm of my crappy loveseat, instead. I gave it a few very firm whacks and then set it down gently on the coffee table, made sure it was connected to my mac, and did a reset [hold down the Select and Menu buttons simultaneously for 10 seconds or so].

Boom: it powered up. Then I made sure the software was up to date [it is] and restored the whole motherfucker.

Now I’m reloading all my music onto it.

So far, it works like a dream.

Let this be a lesson to you: If at first you don’t succeed, resort to violence and cross your fingers.

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Posted on February 15, 2006. Wednesday by supa

Supafine was nominated for best site design in the blog awards going on at One Woman’s World.
Thanks, mystery nominator! That’s pretty cool! Cool of One Woman’s World to create these awards, too.

For the record, and for people who will be reading these archives in the future, this is the design I’ve got going right now. I’m thinking about changing it soon, because I have REDESIGN FEVER, but I’m not changing it just yet.

Okay! Now go vote, or look at the rules, or see the other nominees.

Thanks for the tip-off, suburban misfit!

On to more pressing matters

Posted on February 15, 2006. Wednesday by supa

Wow, it’s like a record: I’m already sick of taking myself so seriously.

You know what I do need to take seriously? The fact that my iPod DIED today. Dead iPod face and everything. Jesus. And it’s six months out of its warranty. Fuck.

And you know what else I need to take seriously? The scuttlebutt at daycare, which is that the motherfucking stomach virus is going around.

Somebody shoot me now.

Blogging: What’s it all about?

Posted on February 15, 2006. Wednesday by supa

I just realized Sweetney’s post from earlier in the week is the same thing that caught my eye on Romanesko today: New York Magazine’s big Blog Establishment issue.

Blogging: What’s it all about, anyway? For someone who updates sporadically and doesn’t have a niche — that’d be me — NYM is making it seem like I might as well give up now. My traffic is laughably small: 150-200 hits a day, according to sitemeter. I have made six cents with google ads, which is forcing me to rethink the blog as a revenue generator thing.

As a rule, I don’t blog from work and I try not to touch the computer during Owen Hours, which are before daycare and after I get home from work until bedtime. Which leaves a three hour window at night to do blogging, web design, Flickr obsession, e-mail checking and chatting, and which makes prolific blog posting pretty much impossible. This article, which mentions in passing an 80-hour blogweek [like a workweek, but for blogging], seems to reinforce the point. Eighty hours a week? Jesus Lord. Then who would watch all my TV?

I fear the personal blog as a medium is reaching its zenith, and within a few years won’t even be a blip on the culture’s collective radar. Instead, we’ll be reading This Blog Brought To You By Coke, or some such corporate nonsense. So much attention is placed on the high A-listers, ad rate cards, linking games and gatekeeping, and that evil mirror, Technorati, that Regular Joe and Jane Schmoe can never possibly compete — especially if they started their blogs after 2002 but are not owned by Nick Denton.

I admit that I have considered scrapping Supafine and starting up a high-energy niche blog myself. But I had a hard time finding a subject so interesting to me that I could obsess about it multiple times a day yet was narrow enough to be a good moneymaker. The only thing I can count on at this point in my life is my own interest in telling my story: What I did today, how many teeth Owen has now, whether it sucked or not that Apollo Anton Ohno got knocked out of speedskating finals the other day [hint: yes it did]. It seems like a pointless venture these days to start a blog with the intention of making it big or striking it rich. I won’t deny that it’s possible, but I certainly don’t think it’s probable.

So what’s the point? Why keep going? Is there anybody out there, and if not, should that matter? I could take the high road and say, “I do this for myself, nobody else.” I could take the low road and say, “Let’s blow this popsicle stand, the blogosphere is set to self-implode.” Neither one is the full truth.

I do love this hobby. It satisfies a primal, cave-painting-type need in me to express myself. It’s allowed me to meet new and interesting people. Through blogging, I’ve developed an entirely new and marketable skillset for the future.

But I’ll never be rich, famous or popular because of it, even though at some level I do wish that were the case. I think it’ll always be an internal struggle between doing what I know will increase traffic and make Supafine a better site [more linking, commenting, a better design, different content], and my unrelenting defiance of that in favor of living my actual life.

Snow day

Posted on February 12, 2006. Sunday by supa

Baltimore got crushed by about 15 inches of snow last night. Which was cool, but didn’t do much to improve my mood, seeing as how Owen decided to start the day at FOUR THIRTY in the morning. Argh.

So as payback I bundled him up and took him outside to play:

But he was not impressed.

So I shot some video for posterity:

View this clip on Vimeo
And he was still not impressed.

In fact, he remained steadfastly not impressed throughout the day, with forays into Cranky, Pissy, Tired, Sad, Frustrated and Squawking.

Meanwhile, Iain shoveled the walk and the drive and uncovered our cars. It took about seventy hundred hours and a case of Tylenol. Then he took some of the cast-off shoveled snow and made Owen a slide:

View this clip on Vimeo

and during Owen’s barely-50-minute nap [kill me please], I took some silly self-portraits.

Which turned out to be a waste of the only 50 minutes I would have. If only I had known.

Iain cooked up a couple mouthwatering steak filets and I fed Owen his kiddie Motrin and we all sat down to a tasty dinner, followed by more of These Olympic Games. God, I love the Olympics. We kept Owen up a half-hour later than normal, hoping to avoid what has become a daily habit this week — the 4:30 a.m. thing — and the evening ended on a high note, with tickles and giggles and happiness.

School’s been canceled for the boys tomorrow, so the Sunday night ready-for-the-week pressure is off, thankfully, and I’m ready to settle in for some men’s short-track speedskating. Happy “Blizzard” ‘06 to you all.

Baltimore, this quiet girl’s all up in your shit

Posted on February 11, 2006. Saturday by supa

Pick-a-Mix: A bulleted post would be best, don’t you think?

Last Sunday was a really long time ago, wasn’t it! I know. It totally was. But I remember it like it was yesterday: Brunch with mama c-ta and some of the Charm City Roller Girls at Golden West [mmm, french toast]. And who could forget the Superbowl, and how very kickass it was that the Steelers won? I miss Pittsburgh. Even though I’ve never lived there.
Wednesday night I got to hang out with my friend Heather, this fabulous creature, and a bunch of other cool girls. We soaked our feet and got as girly as I have gotten in a long time, and lo, it was awesome. Even though I’m horribly quiet and shy and awkward in person, I had an awful lot of fun.
Friday we got a royalty check for the gas wells we own up in PA. I’m not really clear on these wells, or even where they are, but they send us money, so I don’t ask. So anyway, we cashed the check and blew it on groceries. Woo hoo! But we splurged, too, on ice cream and junk food and many pounds of steak, so it’s not completely lame.
This evening, Iain and I were trying to figure out how often These Olympic Games take place. And while I was fondly thinking back to Apolo Anton Ohno *drool* and his speedskating performance of the ‘02 Winter Games, I remembered that the last time they were on, I was working nights on the copy desk of the Sandusky Register. The Register is a little Ohio paper that was recently in the news for — ha ha! — violating US labor laws. Hilariously not surprising. But then Iain gnarked the remote control and switched to UPN’s Saturday Night Movie, which is some stupid flick with Harrison Ford and whatsizname, Willem Dafoe. Blurgh. You know I would much rather watch people zooming around, dangerously, on skates, and in Lycra.

Elevenpachi

Posted on February 9, 2006. Thursday by supa

So today was Haircut Day.

I loathe Haircut Day.

I’m always chasing down a new salon, trying to find the perfect fit, getting lost on the way and making miserably awkward small talk with the stylist. I always have high hopes that this time, I’ll get the haircut of my dreams, and this time, I won’t begrudge that 20 percent tip.

But every time the experience starts out bad and drops off the precipice of Way Worse.

Look. I want my haircut to be edgy and easy-to-care-for and serve as the physical manifestation of my political beliefs. I want it to be the perfect accessory. I want it to be obsequious, obedient, obliging. I want my hair to reassure me in the mornings, to lie down when I ask it to and fly around lustrously when the occasion demands.

Instead, I have “special” hair. Remedial hair. Hair that needs extra time after class, and possibly detention. It’s surly, curly, wavy, and straight, at the same time, just not in the same place. Many different colors. It’s moody. It’s temperamental. It sasses back. My hair, to be honest, doesn’t give a shit.

So what do I do? I take it to the authorities. But even the experts are stumped. I’ve gone pricy, deep-discount, avant-garde, and national chain, and nobody knows what to do with this untameable, inexplainable mop.

So this morning I decided to check another salon off the list, the CityPaper favorite Tenpachi. I walk in and my first thought is, “Duuuuude. This is a dude salon. … And I’m not a dude.” But I saw someone with pink socks, and figured if gay men can get their hair cut here then I can too.

So the girl cuts. She chops. She razors. I stare at myself in the mirror, like always, shooting mopey Eeyore daggers of hatred back at myself, until she’s done. And I pay the unbelievably worth-it price of eleven bucks and haul ass back home, where I can assess the damage and determine whether or not I look like a Republican.

I went to the library and all I got were these lousy magazines

Posted on February 7, 2006. Tuesday by supa

Uhh … and some “lad lit.” Sue me. I like fluff.

So I was reading this article in People magazine about Jennifer Aniston — I’m sorry, “Jen” — and I noticed in one of the photos of her at Sundance that her next movie, Friends With Money, is directed by Nicole Holofcener, whom I adore. Ah. Dore. She’s the one did Lovely and Amazing and Walking and Talking, both featuring the stellar Catherine Keener.

So suddenly I’m paying a lot more attention to “Jen“‘s new movie.

Oooh! And Jon Stewart [who I would totally marry if bigamy weren’t such a no-no] had a baby! With his actual wife. Awww.

OK. Now I’m going to go read Scientific American. Did you know they have a blog? I need to offset all this shiny celebrity with … *reading* … new theories on relativity. Spacetime as a liquid? Sweet!

Rules: Baby Einstein Drinking Game

Posted on February 6, 2006. Monday by supa

Allow me to present the currently Official Rules and Regulations of the Baby Einstein Drinking Game, the rules I so longed for whilst imbibing my Yuengling the other evening, the rules for which the genius masterminding credit goes to Matt, who has no blog for me to link to, and instead will be linked to his last comment, in which he presented to me the aformentioned Rules.

You might want to wait until your children are grown and out of the house to play this.

Without much further ado — really, only a tinky winky bit of ado — here goes —

THE RULES

Phrase spoken in any language you know firsthand: 1 drink

Phrase spoken in a language you SAID you understand but cannot translate: 2 drinks (requires challenge from the gallery)

Phrase spoken in any language known by any of your current sexual partner(s): skip next drink

Lying about sleeping with women speaking French or Japanese: 2 drinks, or Midori shooters if you have them you lying poseur.

Toy train: drink

Wind-up toy: drink

Name-that-symphony correct answer: saves from next drink

Name-that-symphony incorrect answer (gallery): two drinks ‘cause you thought you were so smart, smartypants

Wind up toy crawling backward on ceiling to sounds of Underworld: switch back to beer

Presentation of idea
Also debuted on Supafine: Official Rules to the NUMB3RS drinking game.