the Dalaverse

No good news on the iPod front. I called the Apple service hotline this morning, and the man I spoke to was useless. After I had to repeat four times that no, I had not synced the iPod and that was not what the problem was, and when all he had to offer was the hold-down-menu-and-select reset, I said 'thanks for your help, I'll take it to the store to have it looked at' and hung up. It was either that or scream at him for twenty minutes.

I got an appointment at the Apple store and, after I succumbed to the new gourmet chocolate shop (milk chocolate with orange and chili powder - mind-meltingly good), was AGAIN subjected to a patient explanation of what happens when you sync your iPod to your iTunes. When I explained even more patiently that I was simply adding a legally purchased album manually, he said he had no idea what had happened, then, but the files were definitely gone. I realize now that I probably should have asked more questions and been more pushy American, but instead I left the store while trying not to cry.

My question on the Support message board has no answers, even though every other question from yesterday and today has, which really pisses me off. If I don't have a reply by tomorrow, I'll repost the fucking question at the top of the queue. I did some poking around, and found a link to a program that scans your iPod for any usable files remaining, and can then restore them. However, I have no idea if that poster's problem is analogous to mine. I'm starting to fear that it was caused by a virus (again, something I should've asked the Apple store guy). I've been having problems with my computer for weeks, actually. It freezes quite often, and it refuses to shut down - when I select the 'turn off computer' button from the menu, it just freezes and I have to shut it off with the power button. Um, is that really really bad? Also, after I had to do this unofficial shut-down several times today, it's twice (on restart) given me a message that it can't create some file. I don't know. It's a piece of shit Dell and it's fucked up and I haven't treated it as well as I should. I'll run an Avast scan tonight while I sleep, but it'll probably just freeze.

I hate technology.