I weep thinking we can't eat fresh greens.
The news this morning said the e-coli tainting of California spinach has been traced to cattle manure. Now, there's warnings about lettuce.
How long must I eat chocolate as a vitamin replacement? How long can we suffer like this? ;-D

The death of my iPod
(I told you Rust Nver Sleeps)

In the great scheme of things, some entity exits just to smite me every time I think I know something.
This is not to be confused with being smitten. Far from it.
I am smote every time I try to use a piece of technology. Cursed.
I thought (my first mistake) I could master an iPod. No more fast forwarding through cassettes, skipping through CDs, and yes, repositioning the needle on the record player.
Now a person, like me, even at my advanced age, could just purchase one song at a time, the song that sticks in your mind so you can't sleep at night, but that's another story (There is a level of hell in which Abba sings "Take a Chance on Me" over and over again, without end).

It was a seven-month love affair. It was worth the partial hearing loss to blast Harry Nilsson's "Jump into the Fire (thanks T) ;" "Conquistador" by Procol Harem; The Byrd's "Eight Miles High;" "Warrior" by Wishbone Ash; John Mayall's incredible "Room to Move," the Dead's sing-a-long "Uncle John's Band;" Bruce's ode "Candy's Room;" and the haunting, slow version of Neil's "Mr. Soul," to name just a few.

I swear I didn't break it. It just stopped working. It died in my hands.

What ensued in trying to get the damn thing fixed by Apple was a nightmare that still haunts me. The first step was a hellish visit to the iPod on-line diagnostic center (Mordor) where this already traumatized iPod owner was tortured through a series of maniacal manipulations. Do this, do that, try this, press that, unload it, then load it again, change stuff on your own computer while chanting unintelligible computer geek jargon words, like "power source," "battery," "power up," "on switch" and "plug."

It took what seemed like hours to find out nothing, which then allowed me to move on to the next step: sending it to the Apple iPod place where technicians with names like "Igor" and "Damien" laugh hideously as they grab the special shipping box I had to order for $30 from the heaping mountain of dead iPods.

There was some gnashing of teeth for a few days. I was terrified of the warning on the diagnostic site that stated if they find out there is really nothing wrong with your iPod, like you were just trying to mess with their minds for the fun of it, they can charge you a whopping $200, or the cost of a new one. If and when they deem your iPod worthy of fixing, they will send you back a refurbished one, not your own. Anyone's. Someone like Jeffrey Dahmer could have had it in their ear.

In the end, they refused to fix my iPod under warranty. They claim, and there's no disputing their claim, believe it, I tried, that there is a dent in the casing. I could pay to get it fixed, an estimate which totaled the original cost of the item.

There is no dent and my dead iPod sits in my top right desk drawer, with the lost souls of songs trapped inside it.

Are you in there Neil?
"Helpless, helpless, helpless."

Anyone have a transister radio?