Naughty iPod? Give it a spanking!!

Still insanely frustrated by my iPod refusal to connect to my computer and the Apple store's confirmation that there was no fix other than restoring it and losing all of my music, I decided to poke around on my newfound love, LifeHacker.com.

Browsing all posts tagged with iPod, I came across a random one from 2007 that instructed you how to do your own surgery on your pod. However, this of course would erase all your music.

I thought I'd check the comments though and Voila!

• by kneemoe at 11:44 AM on 03/06/07

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  Sounds crazy, but this worked on my 4th G iPod when the HD started clicking after a drop. I'd read some articles about taking it apart, but as i started doing that i skipped to the end of the article... long story short, often the clicking is made by some little arm or spacer thats wiggled loose and is now somewhere it shouldn't be making the disk unreadable and creating the click every time the disk tries to spin
  here comes the crazy - smack your iPod hard against your hand. didn't work? try it again, and again, in differnet directions, different orientations. eventually that little spacer do-hicky will pop out of the spot it was in. i've been using my iPod for well over 6 months since i did this.
  and hey, if it didn't work before, what's the harm in trying this method when all else has failed?

Yup, that's right, just a little spanking. AND IT WORKED!!!

Woohoo!!!

back to the gym

As my friend Lisa's wedding in Portland is a little over a month away, and since Oregonians don't really appreciate the random pouches added on to one's body by 10 years of cheese and beer, I returned to the Wisconsin Athletic Club in earnest after work with a resolution to go everyday until I fly home on June 4.

I was doing really well with going to the WAC, but the false Spring enticed me to start biking through Southeastern Wisconsin instead. Unfortunately with the weather back to chilly and my bike getting tweaked at Cory's, I need to get back in my routine. I cancelled my trainer in mid-April, but that doesn't mean I can't push myself.

And I actually ran three laps today! (Don't laugh, I'm a biker, not a runner).

The only event of note was some jackass lurking while I finished my lat pull. Dude, I get that you need to use this machine but don't stand six fucking inches from me while I yank these weights toward my chest. And if you were standing that close because the exercise causes my chest to stick out, well then you're not just annoying me, but you're a perv as well.

iPod kaput

I meant to post this yesterday.

My iPod is officially non-connectible. I can still charge it on my dock, but it doesn't play well with computers.

Apparently Apple's only solution (I stopped into the Apple Store at Bayshore to confirm yesterday) is restoring.

That means you lose all your music.

Screw that.

I'll wait until prices drop and then just buy a new one AND keep my current tunes.

The whole thing SUCKS though.

when life gives you lemons...go bowling?

Tonight was an interesting one for sure.

After work I took the Route 31 out to Tosa and met the YNPN Book Club at Firefly for a discussion of Myla Goldberg's Bee Season. Our theme for the first quarter is Education, and this was our fiction book. It's pretty cool how it's set up. We pick a quarterly theme and then read three genres -- non-fiction, fiction and memoir/biography.

Discussion was good and food was excellent. Had a chicken sandwich topped with avocado, white cheddar and gorgonzola. MMM. Picked chive mashed potatoes and crispy bok salad as my sides. Delish! A glass of wine would have been more tasty than my Coca-Cola, but I'm still refraining.

Cut out a bit early as Brooke and I had plans to go see Post-Secret at Marquette. Craig decided to come along too, which was a nice surprise.

Now, when I went to Marquette I never took advantage of the plethora of speakers, etc. that they brought to campus. I think I went to a few things, but they were never crowded. Granted, the Internet was fledgling then. There were no blogs and no Internet celebrities. There was no Facebook or MySpace to meet other nerds who may be interested in attending an event with you.

No, I didn't go to campus events. I drank. But actually, my only true friends left from college ARE my fellow nerds. Hmm.

Well, apparently campus involvement is IN and we were extremely disappointed that when we reached the Weasler Auditorium there was a sign that the event was At Capacity.

Crap.

We were stuck on a college campus with me not drinking and my newlywed friends on a tight budget.

What to do?

The neon lights from across Wells beckoned.

"Let's go bowling!" I suggested.

Well, why not?

Luckily we were there an hour before League Night began. The student workers told us we could only have one game. Fine. Whatever.

They assigned us to Lane 7, which apparently didn't work. After waiting 10 minutes for them to reset the system, it still didn't work, so they agonized a bit and moved us to Lane 9. Keep in mind the Annex, with the exception of workers, was completely empty at this time. But apparently those leagues were about to fill the place!

My goal for bowling was to beat Barack Obama, which I barely did, with a 53. I did have a rally in the last frame and got a spare. That sure made up for all my gutterballs. Brooke handily won the game with like a 84,000 or something. I forgot she was in a bowling league in Law School, so we should've allowed for a handicap. Of course she had to go off-campus for the league there though, as apparently Notre Dame has no bowling alley on campus. Which, as Craig pointed out, makes it a second-rate Catholic school.

Go Gold!

tapas party

Unfortunately blogger's photo app is not cooperating with me at the moment, so I will refrain from posting more photos and describe my evening last night.

Jason and Larissa decided to co-host a Saturday night tapas party and it was delicious. I ended up going overboard with my dishes to pass and in addition to making humanitarian garlic shrimp (amazingly when you have to peel and devein shrimp yourself they cost MORE...but hey, at least getting wild Gulf of Mexico shrimp, I did not kill any Thai children), I made an egg bake, buffalo celery sticks, and goat cheese toasts with mango chutney.

There was loads of sangria at the fête courtesy of Jason and Adam, as well as an amazing chicken paella made by Jason, potatoes brava from Ben, green beans from Lars and a delicious strawberry cake that Bridgit found at Metro Market.

Jason's friends Sara(h) and Glen(n) also joined in on the fun.

It really was a fun party, and totally one of those "oh hey, I am a grown up" experiences. I drank a wee bit too much sangria and red wine though, and then thought it would be a good idea to go to Buckley's with Adam on the way home for some Trois Pistoles.

Too bad sangria doesn't magically wear off overnight though, as it was not a fun morning.

Random Photos from Last Week

Here's what I was up to last week:

4/23: Cool wall in Walker's Point on our trek to Transfer Pizzeria.

4/25: Christy and me at the Brewers Game Friday night, after the torrential downpour.


4/20: Fields in Grafton -- I've never ridden my bike to such a rural wilderness!


4/20: Pulling into home after the epic bike ride.

4/23: Terrible man crocs on our pizza pilgrimage.

pouring

Can't type too much as must crawl into bed with tea.

Got caught in torrential downpour along with 40,000 other sad Brewers fans today, only to rush into a stadium where we all witnessed 10 innings of crap.

Running in was like being in an action movie. Full tailgates abandoned to the elements, throngs of people screaming and pushing.

Leaving the game was a post-apocalyptic scene with trash scattering in the wind and rivers of beer cans flowing out of the lot.

The temperature also dropped 30 degrees and our clothes were not yet dry.

Hence the tea and bed on a Friday night.