I CAN Fix It!

Just as the school year was getting underway, I dropped my ipod on its headphone jack. Since then, I've been getting sound out of only my left earbud. This was annoying. But hey, at least I can hear something, right?

Then the audio cut out entirely last week. The day after my desktop computer crashed and burned.

I've become reliant on my little hand-held friend. My daily commute is an hour each way. I love being able to watch an episode of "The Office", listen to "This American Life", or rock out to Quasi after a long day... I realize that this is pretty cliché, but it helps to distract me from the usually filthy subway car that I'm in and the public in general.

So I went to the Apple store to get the thing fixed. Naturally, the warranty had just expired. They couldn't help me out. They don't even fix these things, they just swap them for new ones. Doesn't that seem really wasteful? I think so, and I hate the planet Earth. Always have, always will. Sorry, Gore.

Anywho, I went online and found a place that sells replacement parts for these li'l suckers. I ordered a new headphone jack.

Two nights ago, I pried apart my tiny little friend. It was a scary moment. I didn't want to hurt the poor fella, y'know? I took this thing apart, piece by piece (The screws they use for these things are amazingly miniscule. The screwdriver for my eyeglasses repair kit was way too huge for them... small... incredibly small), replaced the part, hooked everything back up, and held my breath.

I hit the button in the middle of the clickwheel. It powered up! At the very least, I hadn't done any additional harm to this thing. The moment of truth came as I put both earbuds in their respective earholes and selected "Now Playing."

Ahhhhhh... I was greeted with Stevie Wonder's "Ebony Eyes," one of the greatest pop songs ever written by the way, and indeed the sound was flowing into both of my huge ears.

I fixed it.

(Of course moments later I realize that when I broke a string on my guitar earlier, the bridge on said guitar had also broken... I can't win. Ever.)