This boom box needs batteries

I have not really embraced the whole return-to-running thing lately. In fact, I have been doing anything to avoid exercising, however after spending more time than I am going to admit looking at celebrity train wreck photos of cellulite-ridden thighs, I decided it was more than past time to head out for a run. I located my iPod shuffle and stopped by our computer on the way out the door in order to see what was on it, and possibly load some new music.

The computer was off…which seemed odd, since we hardly ever re-boot it. I turned it on and waited while Vista (slowest OS to boot EVER) loaded. I then opened iTunes, only to have it scream at me that the iTunes library could not be located. I glanced at the external hard drive, which was on and the little green blinky light appeared to be blinking. That is the extend of my knowledge of all things technical anymore. So I proceeded to close and open iTunes 20 billion times, because it may *just start working* at any moment.

I tried rebooting. I tried disconnecting and reconnecting the hard drive. I tried relocating the library. I opened iTunes with the shift key down so it would keep asking me where the damn music files were. And then, it started working. Sort of. I got it pointed to the library, and the music showed up. That was MILES ahead of where I started. I then plugged in the shuffle and cleared the old music off. Stupid move, by the way. Don’t ever remove the old music until you are sure that you are really looking at music files on your hard drive, and not just little ghosts of music files…empty husks which used to hold real music…because then you will be left with NOTHING ON YOUR SHUFFLE AND YOU WILL HAVE TO GO RUNNING WITH AN IPOD THE SIZE OF NEW YORK. You might even pull your shoulder from the weight of it.

After rendering my shuffle useless, I tried to put more music on it, only to have each of the damn files in iTunes show up with an exclamation point! beside them. This roughly translates to “yo, dude…you done fucked iTunes up but good!” After staring at the screen for a while, willing it to spontaneously combust, I grabbed the worlds biggest iPod and went running. Sort of.

I think by the time I actually made it out the door, I had expended any extra energy that I had. As I headed out, a leaf blew off of our tree..and I swear that I saw that same leaf blow right on past me ½ way through my run. While a squirrel laughed at me. It was that wonderful. I ran about 25 minutes in the 96 degree heat and then promptly wanted to die. It was neither fun, nor energizing. And? iTunes is still freaking broken.

I will bet you that Todd will take one look at it, punch a total of 4 buttons on the keyboard, roll his eyes at me and declare it fixed. God, I hate technology. And running. A lot.