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Ever since I started sewing more regularly (re: several hours every month), the sewing genes that I inherited through my mother have made me start jonesing for a small TV attached to a DVD player / TiVo to keep me entertained through more tedious tasks, like making pleats or--as happens more frequently--carefully picking apart wrongly-sewn seams. So, Pete had to listen to me gripe fairly consistently about how I would love a flat-panel TV and a way to attach it to our TiVo, though it's a complete waste of money to buy something like that when I'd only use it for less than ten hours a month. Whine, whine.

Then, last month, my iPod finally gave in to its hardware demons a week before we left for California. Not only did I miss it during the trip, but during the week before -- I never realized how much I rely on it, and how much I enjoy the ability to instantly conjure up a certain song or certain album wherever I might be. So, my iPod was crippled, and while I'd basically filled my allotted 30 gigs on it and needed to start thinking about buying a new one anyway, this was also the cause of much inconvenience. And whining.

On the same day that we flew back from California -- a trip that, thanks to airline rescheduling, meant that we were up at 3 am -- I had Pete drive me across town, grubby and exhausted, to the West Towne Apple Store, where I asked the sales clerk for a new 80 gig iPod and decisively slapped my credit card onto the counter. Despite September being the month of Very Little Money for TAs (summer income is minimal and erratic, and we don't get paid for semester-ly work until the beginning of October) I've been delighted to once again be in possession of my CD library. Ahh.

Of course, it wasn't until yesterday that it hit me that my video iPod plays, you know, videos. I'd previously ignored this feature because it seems like a disservice to cinematographers everywhere to watch something shot in 2.39:1 on a 2.5" screen. While sitting in front of my Bernina, however, it hit me with a wallop: I could watch my iPod at my sewing table! You know, like it was a TV! And it was more portable, less ugly, and much less money than buying a TV!

After thinking about a little while longer, though, I've realized the problem: I don't know what I want to watch.