WARNING: spazzy techy fangirling ahead!

Since Tom and I both had today and will have tomorrow off, we decided to get out of town for a day and enjoy the time and go do something. So we went up to the mall for the day, and had a really lovely time. We bought ourselves a darling little sushi dish set, and picked up a copy of Newtype, and smelled all the newest Yankee Candle scents, and looked at video games, and had Japanese food for lunch, and Tom let me go in Hot Topic and Claire's (where I found an adorable little change purse - only $2! and a cute lil star necklace - only $5!), and looked at anime and things everywhere, and went into the Godiva store <3 and got a free sample <33 and I bought this wonderful little tin of little chocolates perfect for toting around in a purse <333, and I looked around places for a new mp3 player, since the play button on mine barely responds at this point (and it makes a bit of a rattley noise when I shake it around).

So we looked in Radio Shack, and they had a few mp3 players and well priced, and we looked at Best Buy, who had a surprisingly small selection, and they cost more than Radio Shack. Tom checked out video cards, because his is finally beginning to get outdated (which says loads, given that the thing is probably two or three years old - and it's still really pretty good, only recently being not top of the line), but again their prices were a bit high.

And then we went into the Apple Store.

Tom has been reeeeaaaaallllly really Applelusting over an iPhone - and understandably. Only the fact that they're locked in to AT&T is a bit of a problem, since AT&T coverage out here is, y'know, barely existant. So, no surprise, all sorts of hacks have come out to get service from other companies onto iPhones - and as of a day or two ago, there's a software hack (as opposed to the hardware hacks, which are much more intimidating) to do so, and it's really quite straightforward, you just swap out the SIM cards and run a little program. Tom checked out what Verizon's cheapest data plans were, and it's a bit less than the AT&T plans (we think). And we went into the Apple store to go paw at the iPhones and let Tom deliberate. So we played with one, and looked at the new fat Nanos. My initial reaction had been that they looked a little silly, so chubby and the screen too big for the device but too small to be useful. But seeing them in person? Totally different, THEY'RE SO CUTE!!! And they're all colorful, the 8gb ones anyway, and such cute colors.
And only $149/$199.

Given that I would've been dropping $70 for a random 2gb mp3 player, just another random little thing like what I've been using...I decided to actually give an ipod a thought. Because, really, it'll last me forever, and I know it'll work fantastically, I won't have to fight with it all the time, AND, hi so much more space! Also - NO MORE BUYING BATTERIES. EVER!!!1!1! I go through them so quickly, if I hang out and listen to a few chapters of a book for an evening I slaughter nearly a whole battery, and that's without the backlight. And even if they're AAAs, it's still like $5 for four of them, y'know?

So, we went off in search of the M&T atm that Tom remembered seeing somewhere, to check our account balances. And we each had enough to swing our potential purchases, SO, back to the Apple store we went. Tom asked the iPhone guy what functionality they have before you activate an AT&T account. "None. None at all."
Well fuck that! Like I'm sure you can turn it on but you can't do a thing with it, not just use the music functionality or anything. And there's no coverage down here. And it's a $60/mo minimum contract, and a TWO YEAR contract at that.
So Tom decided he's going to hold off until more definite hacks have been worked out, and he has everything else in place (i.e., a Verizon SIM card in his hot lil hand).

And I went over to paw at the lil Nanos again, and work up the courage to plunk down a rather large sum of money. (I've been working tons of hours lately, and will continue to be, I already figured I'd have an extra hundred at least this month; plus, Tom's making enough to more than cover all of our bills himself, so there's a bit less stress lately.) And also, to decide which to get. The 4gb ones only come in silver, and, for $50 more, you get TWICE the space. Given that this is a long-term investment for me, it really made sense to do that. So then I was torn between the red one (which is a really lovely multifaceted shade of red) and the blue one (which is an adorable slightly greenish lighter blue that's really quite near my favorite shades). Finally, I decided on the blue, and we went over to the desk, where we were waited on by a very chipper, incredibly friendly, girl about the same age as us.

I asked if there were any sleeves yet for the new Nanos - she said no, the manufacturers haven't had time to make anything besides the arm-band one yet. I said alright, well, I think I wanted one. The blue one. I was very nervous but Tom stood right with me the whole time and the girl was so bubbley and goofy and cute that it helped loads. :) She asked if I'd made my little purse, I said I had (it's my adorable little cartoon-colored one that I love and Tom is terrified by). She said I could make my own iPod sleeve, and I said that's *totally* what I'm planning to do. She suggested making little antenna for it or something, I turned to Tom and said I should make it little kitty ears, and she spazzed and thought that was great. She asked what I was going to name it, and I realised I had noooo idea. She suggested a few, all derivations of "Podlet" and things, which were cute, but not very me. On the way home, Tom arbitrarily called me a tart, and then said that's what I should call my iPod, a tart, and I answered with "blueberry tart", which reminded me of the Strawberry Shortcake character Blueberry Muffin, which would be a darling name for a lil iPodlet, if a bit long. But we'll see what else I come up with.

It came packaged in this tiny little plastic case, no space wasted at all which I thought was wonderful, and as soon as we got out of there we sat down to poke at it. Of course I couldn't do much with it, no music being on it, but I saw what games there were (we played a few while waiting for our dinner to arrive later), and the options, and the first thing I actually changed was to kill the volume limiter (I hate those things). But I was flipping out - I realised that I finally own an iPod, and one that I earned for myself, and it's the first Apple thing I've ever actually owned, and omFg IT IS SO CUTE!!!

It was about 9:30 by the time we got home - we'd had a bit of a late start, got to the mall at like 12:30, 1, and there was a lunch and a dinner and a lot of backtracking in there, as well as a stop at Borders. And I was all set to run to my Kiran and plug in the darling little iPod---

And as I bent down to plug in the usb cable, I spotted a few ants on the floor.

And then we realised it wasn't just a few, it was A FUCKING INVASION. Out of nowhere! We hadn't even been gone a whole day and we'd been overrun! There were, oh god idek, probably a hundred of the damn things, scurrying from the front door clear over to the refrigerator. And Tom had taken out the - well, the major garbage bag, anyway, and I'd been keeping food debris cleared up. There was one empty glass on the floor, which we found like ten ants in, but other than that there was nothing but dust and the random debris that always develops in corners you haven't swept for a bit. And they weren't carrying anything or anything. My only thought is that the chillier weather must've sent them surveying warmer places in force...but good freaking lord! We spent like fifteen minutes running around finding them and squishing them, it was ridiculous.

Finally, we'd nailed everything we could see just then, I was sweeping up a bit, and Tom took the broom from me and shooed me over to my computer to play with my iPod. :) He's been so excited and so happy for me, he knows what a big deal it is for me. Of course, I had to update my iTunes first, it got cranky because I was, what, two-tenths of a version behind. And then I had to decide what song to play on it first.

And I realised it just HAD to be U2's "Vertigo", bwahaha.

I grabbed a random video podcast - and it really is strange, how quickly a small screen can grow on you. Like I won't want to watch a movie on it I know, nothing very detailed and artistic or anything, but animation? Perfect. (Tom gave me the dangerous idea of putting my Jem episodes on it, which would be FREAKING AMAZING, only I'll need to track down some dvd -> mp4 conversion software, which'll be, well, easy to find I'm sure, but poor Kiran's going to be hurting I'm afraid!)

So now I'm flinging my current audiobooks and some of the music I've had in heavy rotation on there, and then I'm going to curl up in bed with it and bliss out until I pass out, which won't be long because I'm freaking exhausted but----

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE OMFG I HAVE AN IPOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


...also of note, Tom bought a new sushi book, and has promised to make me sushi tomorrow. *dances all over the place*