so just yesterday apple announced the new 80 gig ipod & i speculated that, when my rio finally dies, i'll take best buy up on the extended warranty & use the $270-ish i paid for the rio against a new ipod.

well, this morning the rio wouldn't shut down. it took a second attempt with the reset button. when i try to start it it clicks, like the hd head is trying to seek where it left off & can't (4 times) then it shuts down. "eventually" seems to be today.

unfortunately the 80 gig won't be in stores in time for me. according to their web page lookup, my local best buy carries the 60gig (black) still, so that'll have to be the way to go if it's still there in a week when they determine they'd rather put my $ to a new player than fix this one (which i'm guessing will be the case given the rio karma's history).

Question about the ipod -- if i buy the 60 gig version, will i be able to install the new software (i think itunes 7) onto it ?? i ask because it seems they made a couple of improvements, gapless playback and shuffle, that i'd definitely want.

When IS the 80 GB going to be in stores? I thought the in-store dates always coincided with the unveilings.

well, the rio did indeed die this morning. hard-drive keeps seeking, tries 4 times & shuts itself down.

so i went to bestbuy. geeksquad guy looked up my purchase (from 03/2004) and were going to send it to their service outlet until he found best buy doesn't service rio karmas. (oh, because they were discontinued last year??)

so he walked me out to the mp3 display and looked for a 20 gigger. (for some damn reason, they were going to stick me with a 20gig machine.) none there. there were 2 30 giggers: creative labs & ipod. the labs one was $20 more than i paid, so that was ruled out for a "base comparison". the ipod was $249. there's our basis.

since the 80 giggers weren't in yet, i chose the 60. i paid the diff between the 30 & the 60 ($50 bucks) plus another extended warranty ($60 bucks!). and i walked out with a brand new 60 gig ipod.

i'm taking a break from loading it now. loading all my 2006 purchases (etc). hope to have it ready for my drive to work & back tomorrow.

years-worth entered into itunes. downloading artwork now.

so can we update all that iTunes 7 shit onto our 60gb iPod Videos?

I'm tentative, especially with how fucked up this new iTunes is.

i'v done it. i just haven't used the ipod yet. will do on my way to work (in less than an hour).