31.03.2007
So... I'm a man full of prejudice against random things, but the few things I am actually wrong about my prejudices I'm honest enough to admit it. I thought the iPod was a thing lazy people and trend-whores bought because they prefer to do things the easy way. I guess I was wrong.
So I will actually be needing a mp3-player soon, and seeing as I had a light hangover, day will most likely be useless anyway and that I was too lazy to research what other mp3-players out there are actually decent, I decided that I will get one of these iPods too.
My plan? 7 minutes bus to Expert Storo, buy iPod, 7 minutes home, done. This is the easy way. It would have been nice if things worked out that way.
So... I head to the bus-stop. Bus usually passes by every fifth minute, but today there is some special holiday crap going on, so it was only every fifteenth minute. Right. So I wait. And wait. And there is some other bus going by, but not the one I need. And there is nr 54 going by which will only take me halfway there. This bus, for the record goes every twentieth minute today. So I wait some more. And more. And after a lot more waiting the 54 bus passes again. My bus, which should have supposedly passed twice now is nowhere to be seen.
I jump on the 54 bus, and walks the rest of the way up to Storo. Up there I get really shoddy service and people saying "aha" when I tell them I want to buy stuff. In the end it turned out they didn't have any 80GB iPods in stock, but he suggest that I might be interested in a 4GB Nano. He also suggests I should check out Expert, Sandvika. For reference, Oslo is the city on the right-side of that map. Fuck off and stop advertising the 80GB iPods already.
So I decide I should check out Elkjøp at Carl Berner instead. I walk to the nearest bus-stop but none of the busses actually there go to Carl Berner. One of the drivers says I could hang along to Lilleborg Kirke, as the 20 bus goes to Carl Berner from there. When I arrive at Lilleborg kirke I see two transit-busses leave right in front of me. And they are also on a 20-minute schedule today. I walk the rest of the way to Carl Berner.
Finally at Elkjøp ,Carl Berner, I poke around, get much better service, but they are also out of 80GB iPods. The guy politely asks if I wouldn't like a 30GB iPod instead, and comments on how "noone really needs 80GB or has even close to that much music". Right. The guy there makes one good suggestion though, which is to check out the Apple-store downtown. So I do that.
I walk over to the closest subway, wait a little more, get on the 5-line downtown and has to stand up the entire trip, because it's absolutely full and crowded. I walk from Jernbanetorget to over to the Apple-store in storgata, and there they actually have one in stock. But that's really all I need, and it means I didn't have to decide on what colour I wanted myself. I got a black one. Also, I had to buy a separate 220V charger. How gay is that?
So, I finally have this mp3-player thing, and I see the 37-bus (the one supposedly on a 15 minute schedule) which should bring me right home leave right in front of my eyes. Fuck that. I'm taking a cab home.
Now... All should be fine and dandy, except the cab-driver has the radio turned on. And they are playing some god-awful whiny feminist-bitch remix of "Tainted love". Well to be exact a remix of Marilyn Manson's cover of said song. Jesus Christ. Also is something sounding like a female alien which may or may not have been Michael Jackson.
I'm finally home, and to look on the bright side I did get me a mp3-player and I did encounter one green light trough this whole incident, so it's not all red I suppose.
I open the iPod packeging and what do I see? I see an iPod wrapped in lots of plastic and crap, with the nice, friendly message saying "Do not steal music". Oh come on! At least the japanese text there is a tad more polite and says "Do not steal music, please". Fuck off. I'm downloading a mp3 now just for the hell of it.
So lets seeeeee... I hook this thing up to my Windows XP PC and I guess I have to install iTunes. Did I mention I hate iTunes? After building a library, my guess is I must then sync my music over to the iPod, instead of a simply copying files over. Time will tell.
This piece of shit better be worth it. Anyway: Being a trend-whore was a whole lot more work than I thought it could ever possibly be.