Oh the bombs

Jump to menu

28 November 2003

The library dug up a copy of Voyager in Night for me. The original UK edition, no less. I’d actually given it up as a lost cause and ordered Alternate Realities — containing Voyager in Night, Port Eternity, and Wave Without a Shore, all by CJ Cherryh — from Waterstone’s. This order I have now cancelled, with no small amount of glee, as every time I go there I seem to order another book. No retailer — not of electrical goods, or of DVDs, or of books, or of games, or of CDs — ever has anything I want. Fopp is the best, through, in terms of selection and prices.

King is a much-underrated album, by the way. Are you super-connected? While I’m at it, if you don’t own Big Star’s #1 Record, Radio City, and Third/Sister Lovers…well, you should. The intro to ST 100-6 is reminiscent of Neil Young’s Heart of Gold, too.

Speaking of electrical goods, I’m having to remind myself very vigorously that not only is Christmas coming up, but a ridiculous amount of friends’ birthdays (including three in three days over Christmas), so I must not, will not, can not buy myself a portable MP3 playing device.

There is one benefit to this, in that I really can’t decide between an iPod and an iRiver iHP-120.

Device Pros Cons
iPod
  • Looks nicer. Just.
  • Can have a bigger HDD.
  • Nice TV ads.
  • Large userbase, therefore things like Anapod appear.
  • In fact, let’s just say it has more add-ons.
  • Also related, it’s been around longer, so hopefully less bugs.
  • Battery life issues.
  • Combine with anti-tech-support.
  • iTunes for Windows is still asstacular.
  • Apple want me to buy a FireWire card.
  • Something about Mac zealots creeps me out. By extension, iPod zealots creep me out. I want to think different.
iHP-120
  • Supports WMA and Vorbis.
  • Windows Explorer integration out of the box — no need to piss about with clunky custom software interfaces.
  • Can display text files and play music at the same time. Great for long journeys (although I’ll probably stick with dead trees).
  • Looks better than its predecessor.
  • Remote has a decent screen.
  • Great battery life.
  • Bit of an unknown quantity.
  • Some people have had problems with build quality, and iRiver’s a much smaller company than Apple.
  • ‘Only’ 20GB, although this is somewhat negated by multi-format support.
  • Doesn’t support pls playlists (I prefer these for some reason).
  • Can’t be used as a web server, etc.

A friend of mine saw Love, Actually the other day. That’s quite sad, but not as sad as him complaining about the poorly-connected stories, then praising Snatch . I haven’t made plans to see it, but if I am forced to (which is eminently possible), I have a pre-made rationalisation: I just want to confirm to myself that Keira Knightley has never been in a good film.

Actually, what’s sadder is the LOTR fanboyism (and fangirlism; members of both sexes are equally capable of being complete fucking tools) that is going to be inflicted upon the world by a great many individuals over the next few weeks.