Back in the middle of 2007 McBec decided that she wanted an iPod to jog with so we went down to Myer where McBec strode purposefully to the counter and ordered “one iPod Nano please. Black.” After signing the credit card docket McBec received a shiny iPod box from the shop assistant which she promptly passed to me. “Make this work,” she said. “I don’t know what to do with it.”

Over the next two days I charged the iPod and started ripping all of McBec’s CDs onto my hard drive in preparation for transfer onto her Nano. On the third day McBec called me from work and said, “I don’t want the iPod any more. Put it back in the box; I’m going to return it.” But it was already out of the box and charged, I argued. It was three days old, I argued. There’s no way Myer is going to refund a clearly-used iPod, I argued. “Don’t care,” declared McBec. “I’m taking it back.”

For the next two weeks the crudely re-boxed iPod sat on the kitchen table. “When are you taking that thing back?” I asked each day. “Soon,” McBec would reply.

Eventually McBec got around to dropping into Myer with the slightly-used iPod. She approached the pimply shop assistant. “I’d like to return this iPod,” she said.
“What’s wrong with it?” inquired pimple boy.
“Nothing.”
“So why are you returning it?”
“Don’t want it any more.”
“The box has been opened.”
“I know.”
“When did you buy it?”
“About a fortnight ago.”
Pimple man was stumped. “I’ll have to talk to my manager.”
“You do that,” said McBec, asserting her consumer rights.

Long story short, McBec got her refund after the manager simply gave in to get her out of the store.

Fast forward to mid-December and McBec is perusing a weekend newspaper magazine insert. “Oooh! Those new iPod Nanos are sexy. Especially the green ones.” I put my head in my hands and groaned. One week ago McBec gave me money and instructions to buy her a green Nano during my trip to the city. After purchasing the iPod I safely stored the receipt and decided to give her a 24 hour cooling-off period before opening the box. But this time it looks like McBec is for real and I have just started loading 7GB of music onto her second ever iPod.

Picked up a copy of the New Zealand south island’s main newspaper, The Press, to read at the airport yesterday. On page two the paper reproduced the widely reported recent story about the Canadian man who was injured after his iPod’s earphones channeled a lightning bolt.

Wired for sound? You could be wired for death.

Wearing an iPod or other portable device could increase your chance of being struck by lightning.

A Canadian man suffered wishbone-shaped burns across his neck and chest, ruptured eardrums and a broken jaw when lightning travelled through his music player’s wires.

Bam! What an opening sentence. That’s four years of journalism degree right there.

However, the article continues. In order to spice up the wire story and pass it off as fresh journalism The Press sourced some useless statistics from the NZ government:

An ACC spokeswoman said although there had been 34 recorded cases of lightning strike in New Zealand over the past five years, none had involved portable electronic devices.

Whew, that’s a relief. Oops — spoke too soon.

Other types of injuries had been linked to straggling wires.

There were claims for tripping over Nintendo cords, one sibling assault with a games console and one boy had suffered an injury when his brother tripped over a wire, pulling a DVD player onto him.

Jumpin’ Jesus! New Zealand sure is a dangerous place.

But the best part of the hysterical article (page two, remember) is a desperate attempt by The Press to find a local angle by sending a journalist with the world’s most awesome name — Beck Eleven — out to Christchurch mall to rustle up some vox pops.

Melissa Bloxham, 18, listening to the new Nickleback album on her iPod Shuffle, said the prospect of attracting lightning through her device was a bit scary.

“I never thought of it before and I’m not sure it would really happen but if it’s true — oh my God.”

Leo Beckett, 18, said he had not been troubled by lightning but had once caught his headphone wires as he got out of a car, jerking his neck.”

You can’t make this shit up.

The Press shares the same masthead design as The Age, with the Royal Arms and the latin motto Nihil utile quod non honestum. I think there’s something in that for all of us.

I remember reading somewhere that after winning the Adelaide test the Australian team partied into the wee hours in the hotel bar. At some point during the night Shane Warne ducked up to his room and retrieved his iPod to drop some funky beats for the party’s sake.

This begs the obvious (and slightly disturbing) question: What’s on Shane Warne’s iPod?

Let’s try and put together his playlist in comments.