the awesome/terrifying freedom

30 is a big year.

which means the party can't end so quickly.

i'm going to la for 5 days tomorrow. the adventure will be fully documented.

thanks to the housemates and their incredible generosity of apple gift cards, i'm also the proud owner of a brand new ipod. the first thing i did was upload my short films to it - and they look fantastic. also downloaded the coldplay video for 'fix you,' which is fantastic.

i only have very minor grumbles about the device:

* when watching a video, it does not bookmark your spot so that it picks up where you left off, which is fine for music videos and shorts, but if i download an episode of lost, i'll have to fast forward every time i go back to it.

* the center button is the same height as the rest of the click wheel, reducing the tactile sensation of finding it while navigating. it's a tiny thing, but makes a big difference - similarly, if someone smoothed off the tiny ridges on your 'j' and 'f' keys on your keyboard, it would be an annoyance, minor, but an annoyance.

* the device just barely fits into the soft stretchy case it comes with, and has to be inched out.

now the nice things:

* compared to the photo ipod (which had a smaller screen than the original, the video screen is -huge- and the resolution is amazing. the text of the credits in my short films is fully legible.

* it's so markedly slimmer than past iterations, that the word 'pod' no longer seems appropriate. the rounded, friendly corners of the previous designs have been truncated in this model, making it feel more like a slab. there is something so surreal to see such brightly backlit, sharp video come out of it - it looks like it's been bluescreened into your hand, like a tricorder on star trek the next generation.

* a plus and minus together - the ipod no longer supports firewire, which had me severely worried. my 4G ipod updated considerably slower with the usb cable than it did with the firewire, so i would use the usb cable at work, just to charge the battery. is it really worth the sacrifice in weight and thickness to lose firewire support? and i gotta say yes. it does update slower than with firewire, but not by the same considerable amount as the previous model. it's noticable, but it managed to upload my 1500 songs in about 7 minutes.

i haven't tried outputting to tv yet, which looks very fun, but other than that, what you're really getting is 10 extra gigs in a slimmer model that happens to play gorgeous gorgeous video. for the same damn price. i really don't understand what the grumblers are complaining about.

apple just announced that they're replacing the new ipod for almost any reason, including damage that might be considered abuse. the fear is that there is some newly revealed hardware failure and apple is trying to avoid a class action lawsuit over - similar to the one claiming the nano cracks and scratches easily (apple is liable because you scratched it? whateva). as i did for my last one, i created my own form fitting protective film with clear packing tape, a transparency, and a clear mailing label (one day i will be macguyver) - ensuring that the surface will be blemish free when i sell this baby off to trade up for the next model.