Wednesday, August 20, 2003
After finally meeting the producer at CNN (I turned up 15 minutes early this time), he's confirmed that I do have the job... as long as they can get funding for it. So I'm waiting on that now and should know by the end of the week. It seems quite likely, but I'm still somewhat nervous that it'll fall through at the last so I'm not quite taking it for granted just yet.
Having had and used the 3G iPod extensively over the last few days, I've got a fair amount of thoughts about the device. The new slimmer design is great, for a start. Rounded edges make a huge difference because now I don't have to worry about chipping the edges, and it just feels better in your pocket. Another advantage comes from the "touch buttons" (think elevator buttons, you don't have to push them, just touch), which means that it's much harder for anything else to touch any of the iPod's buttons, since it's really designed for the touch of a human finger. The old iPod's mechanical buttons used to go off all the time. The scroll wheel on the old iPod used to move (and thus turn the volume up/down) just by the motion of my walk. That doesn't happen anymore... but the flipside is the design on the old iPods was much more intuitive. it doesn't take long to learn that up is menu, down is pause, etc. With the new ones, all the buttons are lined up, and it's much harder to instinctively peck at them through your shirt pocket... and much easier to hit the wrong button. I've done that far too often lately. On the other hand, the On-The-Go playlist creation feature is great. I rarely use the remote now because I tend to know what I want to listen to next, and then seek and queue it up on the iPod itself. Incidentally, I HAVE noticed that the battery life is lower on this model than the other, but given that I haven't gone below three (out of four) bars yet, I'm not too concerned.
Other than that, not too much going on. I got the Season 3 set of the Simpsons (best. show. ever.), but with Season 2 of 24 still waiting for me (and Knights of the Old Republic, and F-Zero GX, and Viewtiful Joe, and WINNING ELEVEN 7) I have no idea when I'll be able to start watching! I guess one solution is to not go to Dragon-i as often as I do, but then I'd miss the glory of Wednesday's legendary Models Night!
Posted at 9:32 PM
