Doctor Feelgood...

or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned To Fix My Own Damn MP3 Player.

First off, let me say, "Screw You, Steve Jobs!"

The man is rich. Really rich. Really filthy, stinking rich. Billionaire rich. He controls Apple, Pixar and now Disney-which includes ABC and ESPN. He invented the MP3 player like Al Gore invented the internet. He doesn't need my money. Yes, iPods are cool looking, but they're expensive, have a horrible battery life and are no longer cool.

There, I said it. The iPod is un-hip.

How can I make such a bold statement? Well, how can something possibly be cool and hip if there are millions upon millions of them in existence and nearly everyone owns one? They're beyond cool, beyond hip, beyond a fad or a trend. They are ubiquitous. The fact that they are sold out of a vending machine like candy bars at my local grocery story proves this. (I'm not making that up!) Apple keeps the iPod in the limelight by introducing a new model every 9 months, making the previous iteration obsolete and forcing uber-consumers into purchasing new ones to maintain their inflated and false sense of "cool."

I really wanted an mp3 player but couldn't afford an iPod (this is really the source of my hatred), so I purchased a Dell Jukebox, or dellPod as Johnny Mohawk calls 'em. It was great, for nearly $150 less than an equivalent iPod I got myself a magical music machine. I don't care if most people think my dellPod is ugly. I love it.

All was good with the world.And then my hard-drive crashed. Just over a year of constant use and wouldn't you know it, it broke just outside of the extended service coverage.

What would I do? Buy the new nano iPod? Pssshhht! Go from 20 gigabytes to 4, are you kidding me?

Buy the video iPod? Yeah, watching matchbook-sized, lo-res TV is really awesome. And so is the price.

No, I refused to bite from the apple that Jobs tempts me with. I took it upon myself to succeed where Dell tech service failed me.

I WILL FIX MY MP3 PLAYER MYSELF IN 5 EASY STEPS!














1. Carefully open the casing of your mp3 player with a metric sledge-hammer. If you can't find one, a small, Phillips screwdriver will work in a pinch. Take apart all the components, maintain confidence that you know what you're doing and that you can re-assemble everything when the time comes. Small electronic gizmos can sense fear--be brave.











2. Remove and set aside the disobedient and malfunctioning hard drive. Give it a good scolding. "Bad hard drive! Go to your room. No supper for you!"











3. Go to eBay to purchase a replacement hard drive. Be very careful to purchase the right one and don't get caught up in the bidding and pay too much. If you paid $130, you got hosed and should have ponied up a little more for a new player. I got mine for $75. Not too shabby.

4. Install the hard drive. Put all the other parts and components back together. If you forgot what went where just do what I did. Cram it all together and keep squishing the halves together until you hear a "click." That means you got it and you should be good to go.













5. Push the power button. IT LIVES! IT LIVES! BUWAAHAHAHAH!!!

Pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for a job well done. DIY kicks ass!

As a bonus, the used hard drive I purchased hadn't been re-formatted and contained the previous owner's music. I got over 5 gigabytes of free music, that's 1,100 songs!!! YIPPEEE!!!

Let's take a gander at the free music on my mp3 player:

Aaron Tippin, Alabama, Alan Jackson, Diamond Rio, Kenny Rogers, Sawyer Brown, The Bellamy Brothers, The Statler Brothers, Toby Keith, Trace Adkins and Tracy Lawrence.

uhhhhhoooohhhhhoooww. I don't feel so good. Is this some kind of sick joke? How can one person have so much bad Country music and nothing else? Why do I suddenly not feel so lucky?