A few months ago, my 5GB iPod mysteriously stopped working. First order of business was to complain about this to anyone in my office who happened to be seated in front of a Macintosh computer. After repeatedly being informed of the “reset” key combo and attempting said combo several times to no avail, I decided to move on to Plan B, aka despair. I left the “Pod” on the bookshelf in my bedroom, and pretty well forgot about it. There it sat for several weeks gathering dust and occasionally being shifted around to accomodate new comic books and/or glasses of water. Once in a while, I’d notice it, plug it in and attempt the key combo. Still no dice. One day, boingboing.net made mention of a short film created by some other disappointed iPod owners. For awhile, I was excited. Perhaps my problem was not unique? Could this be solved with a simple, 3rd-party battery replacement? After looking at some support boards, I decided this was not the case. My Pod had been working ok (not _great_ battery life, but passable) before the “incident.” and was now being completely unresponsive. No menu, no “charging” indicator, nothing. So I sprung back into inaction, pursuing my other interests (eat… sleep… poop…) as the iPod slumbered peacefully. Finally, today during a large-scale desk cleaning effort, I came across the Pod. It looked to be in pretty bad shape. Weeks of disuse had left the screen covered with a thick layer of dust. The gleaming metallic case was riddled with scratches and smudges, but truth be told, these had probably been incurred prior to the initial dysfunction. I’ve never taken particularly good care of the Pod’s surface, working as I do under the assumption that the purpose of a digital music player is to play music, not skip and be as small as possible, and not, as some have suggested, to look “cool.” But I digress… Seeing the Pod again brought a flurry of thoughts to mind. First, I thought, “Oh… there it is.” Next, I was reminded of how pissed I had been when it stopped working. Finally, I decided, “What the fuck… Let’s give it a try!” I tracked down the AC adapter (floor of my bedroom… also quite dusty) and plugged it into the socket. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but the Apple logo, followed by the Menu Screen! My iPod had been resurrected! For a moment, I thought about plugging in the earbuds to test it’s ability to play audio, but then I thought better of it. The Pod must be tired after it’s long journey back from the Undying Lands of the West. Best to let it sleep a bit longer and gaze upon it’s once more luminous face.