Sulk, moan, whimper

The superduper fantabulous present that I received as congratulations for making it through eighteen years of life (the occasion was marked last Saturday) was an iPod. You'll understand if I mention such words as "yay!" and "whoohoo!" here, and forgive me for being quite so exuberant.

The iPod is a thing of beauty, wonder and excitement (much excitement - Kevin's already heard me squeaking with excitement over it), and thus far I love it to bits. You may be wondering where this entry is heading, having taken note of the title. Read on.

Due to the fact that the iPod was intended to be a 15GB model, and was apparently (I say apparently - of course, I knew nothing of this, with it being an official Birthday Surprise) ordered just before Apple changed their range from 10GB, 15GB, 30GB to 10GB, 20GB, 40GB, the order was delayed so that they could upgrade my model at no extra cost to the 20GB version. The scum. This naturally meant that it wouldn't be delivered until this week, and in fact it arrived yesterday and was the cause of much joy and squeaking. However, due to my arriving home late from work, I didn't have time to do more than turn it on, fiddle with the settings (most of which I couldn't check because there was no sample music on it), play with the games and install the enclosed software. Oh well, I thought. That's enough for today - I'll move everything onto it tomorrow.

Tomorrow being today (today being yesterday), I got home early, plugged in my iPod - and I still have to get used to saying "my iPod" - to the USB2 port on the computer and waited confidently for MusicMatch to pop up, as my User's Guide says it should. Ah, see the trust I have in my iPod, the faith I've placed in it.

Wrongfully so, as it turns out, since nothing much happened apart from the computer detecting a new unknown hardware device. Hmm, I thought. I went back through the setup now that the iPod was actually connected and got to the part where it says, "Your iPod needs to be configured. Press OK to configure your iPod now, or Cancel to skip the configuration step."

OK.

"Please plug in your iPod to the USB2 or Firewire port, and press OK."

Um. OK.

"Please plug in your iPod to the USB2 or Firewire port, and press OK."

Ooh, that's bad. OK? Pretty please?

"Please plug in your iPod to the USB2 or Firewire port, and press OK."

This is the stage I'm at so far. The computer knows about the iPod, and recognises it as an extra hard drive, but doesn't seem to recognise that it's an iPod - MusicMatch thinks that there aren't any portable devices connected either. The Apple support phone line was surprisingly helpful in the twelve minutes before they closed for the night, and they now have all my details. Not the details of what's happening with the iPod, you understand, just my details. It seems they need a name, email address, postal address and telephone number, but feel no need to ask for the particulars of my problem before passing the matter on to an actual support person. However, I now have a Case Number (which puts me in mind somewhat of clichéd noirish Private Investigators) which simply means that won't take quite as long to reach a support person when I phone tomorrow morning (I didn't quite get that far tonight).

So for now I have a superduper fantabulous iPod, which can still send me into exclamations of delight just from using the touch wheel. But still. That doesn't stop me from being downcast with techie blues at the prospect of technology that doesn't work as it should. Gah.

Sulk, moan, whimper.