Technology Run Amok

You know that children's book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. The basic idea is that if you give a mouse a cookie, it will want other stuff, which will lead it to want more other stuff, and so on, until it wants a cookie.

My life is feeling like that a bit.

Before I came here, I got an ipod thingy so that I could listen to books on tape at night and stuff. I got it only a few weeks before I came, so I didn't try it out under lots of circumstances. But it works great for the audio books part, and I can check my email and such sometimes, and I can pre-load maps and such on to help me not get as lost, and I can look up birds and so on. Which is to say, if you give a Bardiac a way to listen to audio books, she'll soon want something more, and something more. Let's say I've become pretty dependent on it. And it's very handy when I travel.

But (you knew there'd a "but," didn't you? If I were Spenser, there'd be a big old trochee there, right in the middle of a bunch of iambic lines!) if you use it to listen and check email and stuff, the battery only lasts up to say, 48 hours. Usually, 10 hours would be plenty, because I can just plug it into my computer.

But I'm traveling this weekend, from Wednesday night (a LONG busride) until Sunday (another LONG busride) with a long Friday busride in between. (Another time we'll talk about my aparent propensity for self-abuse re certain forms of travel.) And there's not much better for a long busride than a good book on tape, right? (I'm listening to a series of lectures on medieval European history right now. I didn't even know anything other than England existed back then!)

But that's going to run down the battery.

Now, if I had had the ipod for a good long time before I came, I would have realized that having a plug into the wall recharger thing would be useful, and I probably would have gotten one. But I didn't.

So now, IF I really want to listen to audio books on the busrides (and I do), I'm going to have to pack my computer so that I can recharge my little ipod. And if I pack my computer so that I can recharge my little ipod, I'm going to have to pack the charger cord to recharge the computer. And if I pack my computer so that I can recharge my little ipod and pack the charger cord to recharge the computer, I'm going to have to pack the clunky converter adaptor thing so that I can plug the cord into the wall.

In other words, because I wasn't a very good planner when I came, I'm going to take a whole laptop computer (thankfully, it's small) and electronic stuff so that I can recharge my ipod, which is itself little bigger than a few bills folded together.

But just think, that way I can blog, too, if I want! And if I pack another cord, I'll even be able to upload pictures! And if I take a cord to upload pictures, then I should probably take...