A TOE-RAG found his way into my car the other weekend and helped himself to my iPod Nano. (Well, it was the wife's but that's another story.)Lucky for me, he didn't look in the boot where my laptop waited, vulnerable and alone. There's not much crime in Copenhagen, but I was dumb enough to hide something away in the glove compartment so serves me right.
Anyway, with no iPod, I was forced to return to my old Creative Zen to listen to podcasts on the drive to work. First, I was incredibly annoyed at how difficult it was to use after getting used to the iPod. Then, when I got to work and hooked it up with iTunes, it sort of / seemed to work - some pods played as normal, others (Stephen Fry's podgram) didn't. Add to this four days out of the office and I just fell out of synchronisation.
Even buying a new Nano didn't help initially. Of course, combining it with iTunes was a step in the right direction. But I had a week or so's worth of pods to catch up on and only limited driving time to hear them in.
It reminded me of serial television and why I generally avoid it - I can't stand missing an episode because I feel like I'm missing something - jokes, references, story - in all subsquent episodes.
It was the same with the podcasts. Hopelessly out of synch, I knew it wouldn't get better. iTunes would just keep getting new material and I would feel compelled to listen to it all or face spiralling confusion and fear that I was somehow missing something.
Then I copped on to myself and just deleted all the stuff I knew I'd never get round to. Still rankles a little. Completism (my term, I think), is a dangerous condition.
I know I will only be happy again when the number of podcasts in iTunes synches exactly with the number on my device. Only then will calm, balance, yin and yang or whatever it is, be restored.
Foul technology, I loathe thee.
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