It’s dead, Jim.

I was on the bus when it happened. I was listening to Scanalyzer at the time. All of a sudden, there was only the silence of the diesel bus running itself down the hill. The track position indicators had stopped moving, but there were still active controls. Within a moment, even that had stopped. Failure was complete.

Holding select and menu force a reboot of the device. Sad iPod icon.

The first question: replacement or repair. If replacement, the second question: with what? I really should try to have it repaired. I’ve got all my music on my computer anyway, so nothing important was lost. I’m a CD junkie, not an iTunes junkie, so I don’t have a truckload of DRM‘d music that only existed on my iPod.

I guess this is only the first part of a journey. I need my music player back, but I hate being dependent on gadgets. Oh, the conundrum.