In some 8 years of being a techno-geek, I have suffered few financial setbacks...ok, not in the global sense, but in terms of money blown or lost on a particular gadget or upgrade. I've had one bad processor-motherboard-memory combo, two bad video cards, and one bad PMP (personal media player). In all cases except one (the one bad video card), I have recouped my money and received a replacement component. I have never had anything of significant value lost, stolen, or broken...until now.

On the flight to Mobile, I left my 5G iPod 80GB on the plane, still snuggeld in its BodyGlove case. A phone call the next day to the airline did not yield a postive response that anyone had turned it in. I have to admit that stumbling upon such a find while cleaning the aircraft would have been a hard temptation to resist.

So, I am pretty ingrained with my music; have been since my prevalaent option to attending the Naval Academy was to go to an Atlanta-based college on a music scholarship. I have my headphones on almost anytime that I am at my desk at work, I listen to music whenever I am in the computer room doing anything other than gaming, and I take my iPod with me during my writing or working stints at the local bookstores and coffee shops. Doing without the iPod, particular on this trip, was a non-starter.

Arrrgh...to be an Apple product user...the prices on the 80GB iPods have not moved one dollar since I bought mine last November at Circuit City. Further, a decent case will still run you $20, even at Wal-Mart. A minor additional fudge was that I did not bring my MacBook on this trip, which is what I normally sync my iPod and iPod Shuffle to. Fortunately, just before I left, I copied my iTunes archive from the MacBook, to its external USB backup drive, to my USB portable hard drive for work, to my gaming laptop, the latter two of which I did bring with me on this trip.

Since I could not afford to make the jump to the black MacBook, and therefore have a white one, I changed out the lost black iPod for the white version. It should go nicely fashion-wise with my white MacBook, and yes, part of being a computer geek is looking as chic as possible with regards to the aesthetic design of your chosen mobile gear.

On this trip, I brought my iPod Shuffle for workouts, both the Razr and Blackberry, the aforementioned Asus Z96J Gaming Laptop, my Samsung Q1 and its work-related accessories, my Sony MDR-V700 headphones, and 3 DVDs of encoded video.

The iPod got left on the plane because I was not prepared for not being able to place my Booq Python backpack under the seat in front of me. Due to size restrictions I had to planeside check it, leaving me to carry my book (Book One of the Prince of Nothing, The Darkness That Comes Before, by R. Scott Bakker) which is a huge 577 page tome, even in paperback, the Samsung Q1 in its carrying case, and my headphones (also huge) in my hand. The iPod I stuffed in my pocket. Placing it in the often feared back-seat pocket in front of me during take-off and landing, it remained there when I departed the aircraft since I was in a rush to make a 1 o'clock meeting that was at a location an hour away.

This will of course make me paranoid for the remainder of my obsessive-compulsive life.

In lighter news, I have put in some significant time on Company of Heroes. As the 2006 PC game of the year, I reckon that if I play anything, this should be one of the titles that I get around to. Hopefully, with two weeks to go down here, I might even finish it.

I'm in the market for a new [gaming] laptop, since my buddy is interested in buying this one. There are a few models on the market now with the latest nVidia 8000-series mobile graphics chips. I am weighing the tradeoffs in getting the slightly higher spec'd but much better looking Asus G1, or its slightly slower and more stoic little brother, the Asus F3. Newegg has Open Box units of the cheaper F3, so if there is still one available in about a week-and-a-half, that will be the route I take, since I can not pass up the current markdown. If I am faced with getting an F3 at its regular price versus jumping up to a G1, I'll likely make the jump, since I forsee justifying the extra cost with a lot of time spent on the laptop during the next 5 months while I cycle down to the Gulf Coast for more time than I will spend at home. Fortunately, I didn't have to dig into the money I have been putting away for the new laptop in order to replace the iPod, although I may have to put off the upgrade to the main tower that I had planned (to the point that I actually went ahead and broke that system down before I left, removing the motherboard, processor, and memory). No big loss, since I won't be at home that much...there's a good chance that I may not have ever even lit it off until November.

My final comment tonight is an assessment of the Booq Python, a bag I have been wanting for several years and finally bought a few months ago. In addition to going through a complete fiasco to get the thing, it has not turned out to be a great fit. It is great when I'm on the ground. It's an awesome LAN bag for carrying my gaming laptop and accessories to someone's house, or for making PC maintenance house calls. But its bulk has prevented me, on a couple of occassions, from storing it in front of me on the plane, and I hate having to wait for the fasten seat belt light to go out to get to my stuff in the overhead, which usually does not happen for a good amount of time after you are authorized to use electronic devices on the plane. I'm definitely in the market for another backpack; one more up-to-date than my alternate Targus backpack that every gear-head and his mother seems to have now.