dPod

Saturday night we dedicated to be our official final flat meal, even though we were going to be having at least one more meal together before we fly out Thursday. We had a great meal cooked by resident expert chef Nick, played Cranium together, and watched a couple of episodes of flat staple Stargate. (We're trying to finish Season Five together before we leave.)

During the evening, Nick and Hayley (unexpectedly) presented us with unbelievably generous leaving gifts. Back for my birthday they'd given me a USB keychain device for storing data. Unfortunately, the plastic had cracked suggesting a manufacturing flaw. I had been led to believe that it was being returned to the manufacturer for repair/replacement.

Unwrapping one of the leaving gifts revealed a major upgrade, however... ai-yi-yi-pod! It's an iPod!

iPod Shuffle, to be exact—the flash memory music player that is the latest addition to the Apple lineup. This one can store four times as much data as that original keychain device, but comes with headphones, a 12 hour battery life, and can store up to 8 hours of music in its memory. It's tiny: slightly larger than the previous keychain device, but still smaller than a packet of chewing gum. It rocks. Walking through the tube station the other night listening to my tunes, it really is like being in a movie with a soundtrack you like. Thank you SO much Nick and Hayley. You rock too! [Currently playing on the iPod: Fade Away, Che Fu.]

Bronwyn and I had been wondering about how we would feed our Stargate cravings once we weren't here any more... I'd been planning on investigating local DVD rental stores for options. Well, Nick and Hayley's second again totally generous gift addresses the issue—a three-month subscription to an as-many-DVDs-as-you-want (2 at a time) service. They have Stargate in their library, and they'll no doubt be getting heavy use from us! [Currently playing on the iPod: One More Cup of Coffee, Bob Dylan, evoking memories of our original departure from New Zealand just over two years ago.]

Thanks so much Nick and Hayley! Totally insane leaving gifts, but totally appreciated! Wow. Ahh.. and there's the dPod... My precioussss...