Tag Archives: iPod

A little too quiet

Posted on April 14, 2015 | 2 comments

I get in my car this morning and start ‘er up. I hear the engine.

Wait, what?

I hear the engine.

No, no, I’m supposed to hear the stereo. My iPod, to be precise, with music that I personally have chosen.

I hear the engine.

I punch a few buttons. I fiddle with a few controls. I remove the iPod from its pocket, muck a bit with it, put it back.

I hear the engine.

So I turn the engine off.

Then I start the car again.

I hear the engine.

Something is wrong, I finally admit to myself. My stereo is not working this morning. I have no music, no talk radio, no sound at all. I resign myself to a music-less drive to work. I’m not super-concerned, because this has happened before. I don’t know what the problem is, but every now and then, my car stereo just doesn’t work. I can’t even change the track on the iPod or switch the radio on. The controls don’t do anything at all. But the issue always resolves itself the next time I start the car, as long as there is an hour or so in between starts.

And that’s exactly what happens this time.

After work, I get in my car and start ‘er up. I hear the engine.

I press the audio button on the dash. I press the iPod button. I hear my music.

To be precise, I hear the Rolling Stones “Start Me Up”.

You’d almost think my car planned all this today, wouldn’t you?

2 Comments

Posted in Cars

Tagged car stereo not working, iPod

Foggy music

Posted on September 29, 2011 | 11 comments

I was on merry way to work the other morning, singing along with my iPod – you know, as you do. I usually have mine on shuffle so that I never know which song will be playing next. It’s always a surprise that way.

I should mention here that it’s now autumn, my least favourite season of the year. It’s kind of a nothing season to me: not sunny and hot like summer, not cold and Christmassy like winter, not full of new life and freshness like spring. Not to belabour the point, but I dislike the fact that in autumn, all the plants are in the process of dying or preparing for winter, I can’t stand knowing that winter’s colder and rainier weather is on its way, and I really hate that it’s cool most mornings but still quite hot in the afternoons so I never know what to wear (sandals or boots? capris or corduroys? sleeveless cotton or long-sleeved wool?).

And this changing temperature is quite apparent in spots on one of my routes to work. The road dips down into a sort of hollow for a couple of blocks, and on autumn mornings, it’s frequently foggy there. I’m not exactly sure what causes fog, and I’m too lazy to google it at the moment, but I do think it has something to do with warmer earth meeting cooler air. (And that would be pretty much the extent of the science unit on meteorology that I remember from Grade 12 … that and also that the weather patterns have a tendency to move from west to east … or maybe it’s east to west? Crap! Now I’ve gotten myself all mixed up!)

Anyway, back to my drive to work. One song had just finished and there was that few seconds of delay till the next song started. At that moment, I crested the hill and started down into that hollow I just mentioned, and into the patch of fog that was sitting in it.

The next song started up. It was “I can see for miles” by The Who.

I giggled at the irony. Wouldn’t that just make the perfect soundtrack for the movie of my life at that very moment?

11 Comments

Posted in Cars

Tagged driving to work, fog, iPod

The no-tech man

Posted on December 15, 2010 | 11 comments

PG informed me a week or so ago that he thought he might like an iPod for Christmas.

I just about fell over, I was so astonished!

Okay, I was a little late getting to the MP3 party myself (like only two or three years ago, I think), but once I arrived, I embraced it fully and now own two iPods, an iPod dock, and have a built-in system in my car so that I can completely control the iPod through my car stereo buttons. I download free music with the best of them (this is legal in Canada, although not in a few other jurisdictions, I understand). I have packed away my CD player and CDs, to be brought out at my next eighties party, if I ever have one. I am digital, people!

But PG? Not so much.

This is a man who still uses his humongous speakers (and I do mean humongous. These suckers are the size of end tables. Remember when that’s what you had to buy to get good sound? Or maybe you don’t …) with his turntable and receiver from the eighties. Now, I know that it’s cool and retro to listen to records nowadays, but certainly not when said records and sound system are twenty-five-year-old originals and don’t actually work very well, if at all.

This is also a man who purchased a car stereo a few years ago, and when his significant other (hello!) suggested that he choose one with MP3 capabilities, dismissed such an idea as ridiculous. I have CDs, he proclaimed proudly. I do not have an iPod. I will use what I, in fact, own.

And again, this is a man who bought his first computer less than a year ago, from his significant other’s daughter, who was upgrading from an iBook G4 to a MacBook Pro. So he’s got the laptop, but no wireless router, so he can only use it at the table close to the cable outlet to which it is permanently tethered. He also has no printer, so if he is researching, say, something for his Porsche, he still must put pen to paper to record the information. How archaic! He has an email account, set up by his young niece, but he isn’t too sure how it all works, and has only ever sent about three emails in his life. He says he’d rather use the phone.

And the only reason he even has a mobile phone is that it was given to him ten years ago. (To give him credit, he has replaced that original mobile. Once.) He has no idea how to text, and when he has received texts, he doesn’t know how to access them anyway. Voice mail? Nope, he doesn’t have that either.

He still goes to the bank and stands in line for a teller in order to pay his bills. He has no interest in setting up billing online, or access to his bank accounts online. His significant other has offered to walk him through this, saying how much easier it is to function online, that it is possible to do your banking at 3 in the morning, in your jammies, if you so desire. He has declined this kind offer, saying that he would prefer to keep people working by using their services in person.