A tale of three ipods
This is sort of a MetaFilter story.
MetaFilter has a jobs section. I had a job I needed doing -- some code repair on a site that Greg had built and wasn't interested in maintaining. Dano made this post and I followed up. He wrote some code that added categories to my booklist, and I prepared to send off my old 2g 20GB ipod to him. I never used it anyhow, and it seemed like it might be good to send it someplace where someone would enjoy it. In the course of swapping "what's your mailing address?" emails with Dan, it became clear that my firewire-only ipod wouldn't work with any system he currently had. No problem I said, I have this old Vaio in a drawer that isn't doing anything, I'll send it along. Of course this is easier said than done; finding a box for a heavy heavy laptop and wrangling up the cords and accessories were delaying me. Plus, I had a two week trip to go on Real Soon Now. (on which I am, currently)
I was IMing about this to my friend Stan who had been using Ask MetaFilter to figure out what sort of MP3 player to buy. He had decided to get rid of his old ipod and was looking for something new. He made me a sweet deal on his 4g 20GB ipod (USB 2 compatible) that included shipping. I said great and we arranged to have him pick up a check at my place while I was out swimming and leave the ipod on the table in that grand country arrangement way "come on in, the door's open."
Meanwhile Matt had been asking me what my home address and phone number were, saying he was going to send me something from Amazon. Having recently endured a lot of bad Amazon interactions -- no I never did get that cell phone, I just cancelled the whole deal -- I set my expectations low.
I went to the pool and left a check on the table. I came home to a box on the table and a box on the porch. The table box had Stan's old ipod and a pre-printed Fedex shipping label -- only 12 miles to drive to get to a Fedex box, I guess that isn't too bad. The other box had a new nano, one of those little green jobbers, and a "thanks for the work you do on Ask MetaFilter" note from Matt. Total suprise. So I mailed off the 4g ipod from the quickie mart in Sharon -- all the tyvek envelopes in the Fedex kiosk were we from the recent rainstorms, I sure hope this isn't a problem. Then I came home to try to make friends with my new ipod and see if I can't learn to become a joyous, if somewhat reluctant, convert to the Ipod Nation.
I still have this old 2g 20GB ipod in a drawer and the brickish but functional Vaio, if anyone wants to make a trade....
MetaFilter has a jobs section. I had a job I needed doing -- some code repair on a site that Greg had built and wasn't interested in maintaining. Dano made this post and I followed up. He wrote some code that added categories to my booklist, and I prepared to send off my old 2g 20GB ipod to him. I never used it anyhow, and it seemed like it might be good to send it someplace where someone would enjoy it. In the course of swapping "what's your mailing address?" emails with Dan, it became clear that my firewire-only ipod wouldn't work with any system he currently had. No problem I said, I have this old Vaio in a drawer that isn't doing anything, I'll send it along. Of course this is easier said than done; finding a box for a heavy heavy laptop and wrangling up the cords and accessories were delaying me. Plus, I had a two week trip to go on Real Soon Now. (on which I am, currently)
I was IMing about this to my friend Stan who had been using Ask MetaFilter to figure out what sort of MP3 player to buy. He had decided to get rid of his old ipod and was looking for something new. He made me a sweet deal on his 4g 20GB ipod (USB 2 compatible) that included shipping. I said great and we arranged to have him pick up a check at my place while I was out swimming and leave the ipod on the table in that grand country arrangement way "come on in, the door's open."
Meanwhile Matt had been asking me what my home address and phone number were, saying he was going to send me something from Amazon. Having recently endured a lot of bad Amazon interactions -- no I never did get that cell phone, I just cancelled the whole deal -- I set my expectations low.
I went to the pool and left a check on the table. I came home to a box on the table and a box on the porch. The table box had Stan's old ipod and a pre-printed Fedex shipping label -- only 12 miles to drive to get to a Fedex box, I guess that isn't too bad. The other box had a new nano, one of those little green jobbers, and a "thanks for the work you do on Ask MetaFilter" note from Matt. Total suprise. So I mailed off the 4g ipod from the quickie mart in Sharon -- all the tyvek envelopes in the Fedex kiosk were we from the recent rainstorms, I sure hope this isn't a problem. Then I came home to try to make friends with my new ipod and see if I can't learn to become a joyous, if somewhat reluctant, convert to the Ipod Nation.
I still have this old 2g 20GB ipod in a drawer and the brickish but functional Vaio, if anyone wants to make a trade....
Comments
I wish you better luck with your iPod adventures than I've had! Great story.
Bummer that Vox makes you join their network to leave a comment (luckily I already had an account). I r-e-a-l-l-y dislike that "feature" of Six Apart sites.
I checked "this is good," even though I have no idea what it refers to. Hopefully this post.