Other transpirings

My father, his wife, and my sister, are finally moving. It took what seemed like forever, but their new house is nearly ready. I was over there on Sunday helping to shift some boxes and smaller things that the movers wouldn't be taking. My legs and back are not thanking me for it, but it was a fun day.

My sister's iPod is dying, a little more so every time I ask her about it, so I'd mentioned to her that Futureshop was having a sale Sunday night featuring, among other things, 10% off iPods -- which was reasonably remarkable, as it seems iPods never go on sale. Couple that with there no longer being an educational discount for iPods (which would have been a valid option for Janita as she's at the U of Eh), and I thought it'd be a good time for her to pick up a replacement since her unit is unfortunately out of warranty. Alas, she'd spent the early part of the afternoon at IKEA buying various items and she maxed out her credit card, so an iPod was not in the works for her. Ultimately that might be okay, since the 6th generation, so-called "true video" iPods are quite likely to surface either at MacWorld Expo San Francisco or shortly thereafter. If her iPod lasts another few months then she'd probably be better off with the latest and greatest as a replacement.

That being said, I took the plunge and ordered another iPod for myself. My 4th generation 40GB model is going strong, but even as small as iPods are they can sometimes be cumbersome and seem huge. I've been taking my iPod to poker games and such for a long time now, and I figured that with the Futureshop sale and the sheer size (or lack thereof), it was time to grab an iPod Shuffle. The new version comes out in a week or two, so I preordered one from Futureshop. The upside is it was 10% off; the downside is that you can't elect to pick up preordered items in-store, so I had to spend $2 to have it shipped. Throw the GST in there as well and I've saved all of a buck (versus MSRP) on the unit. Still, with it being so tiny, and with the funky Autofill feature of iTunes, the Shuffle should be a great companion for me when I play poker (be it at the casino or home games), craps at Dave's, whatever. I'll post a mini-review of it when it arrives. I hope I can live with the 1GB capacity, which is very tiny given I'm used to far more space (both now and when I had my original first generation 5GB iPod). I'm thinking that since it's going to be for specialized uses it'll be okay; I doubt I'll need even the 240 (or so) song capacity most times.