24-Hour iPod People

If you missed my iPod update yesterday afternoon, I decided to leave my iPod on until the battery had drained to see if it would kickstart it the next time I use it, then shut it off, then try to use it again (read the old entry if this doesn't make sense).

I'm going to bed now (at 6 a.m.) and my iPod has been playing nonstop since 2 p.m. yesterday -- 16 hours straight!

I'm more confused than ever. It loses its charge if it's turned off for an hour but can PLAY for 16 hours (or more -- I'll update this when I wake up in the afternoon).

:-)

One Bad Apple Don't Spoil the Bunch?

SEE UPDATE BELOW!
I know a lot of you are tired of hearing about my Apple/iPod problems, so if you're one of them please stop reading now.

Truth be told, though, this is really more of a question than an actual complaint. So remember how I took my iPod to Rome last month and didn't even turn it on until the flight home, only to discover the battery was dead (having been fully charged and then never used)? Today I was in the mood to listen to the new Peter Bjorn & John tracks I got on iTunes (see how hip I am?) so I took my fully charged iPod to work with me today. Listened to about two songs on the short ride to Times Square and then I turned it off. As I was leaving work tonight -- a mere seven hours later (thank you, Newspaper Guild of America!) -- my iPod was completely dead again.

Do other people have this same experience or is my iPod truly defective (again)? I can't believe you can't listen to it on the way to and from work in one day without the charge going dead. With the Rome thing it had been sitting in my bag for five days, so even though that seemed ridiculous given the fact that it wasn't turned on, I could almost accept that. But all in one day? More than anything, I'm in disbelief. Anyone? (In case it matters, mine is the Fifth Generation model.)

UPDATE: So I turned my iPod on at 2 p.m. and decided I would continue to let it play until the battery died. It's now nearly 10 p.m. and it's still playing -- and the green battery indicator says it's still fully charged. I have no idea what is going on. I'm guessing the problem may have to do with the unit's ability to turn back on after resting. The battery (obviously) is more than capable of working for hours on end. Sadly, my iPod is more than a year old now and Apple kind of blows you off at that point, or so I've heard.

S'Mac in the Face

My disdain for all things Mac is well-documented. Although I always have problems with mine at work, this week has been particularly frustrating with InDesign and InCopy crashing every half-hour. (My loud cursing would probably have gotten me fired anywhere else, but everyone else working on the Macs in my section is yelling too, so I kind of blend in.) But this isn't even about that. As regular readers know, Michael (sweetly) got me an iPod for Christmas 2005. It died after 10 uses and Apple promptly sent me a new one. But even though I only travel three stops on the subway with it, every time I dare to use it something goes wrong. Each time, I've ended up bringing it home and putting it on the speaker-station my mom got me and it seems to be working fine again, so I convince myself that the problem is me (I hadn't charged it enough, I hit the wrong buttons, etc.). So Michael and I leave for Rome last month and I make sure my iPod is fully charged (the little green battery indicator assured me I was good). I ended up reading and sleeping on the plane ride there, so I didn't pull out my iPod until five days later on the way home. Lo and behold, it's completely dead. The screen lights up and hieroglyphics appear for a second and then BAM! Nothing. Back when I was "slumming it" I could bring my portable CD player and listen to as many CDs as I wanted. If the batteries died I always made sure I had some backups. For reasons that are unclear, Michael's older iPod was working fine even on the way home, but when I asked an iPod enthusiast at work if he had any idea what was going on with mine (did I get another lemon?) he said that the batteries frequently lose their charge even if you don't play it. HUH??? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of having an MP3 player with you on a trip? I don't carry around a computer with me (can you imagine?) and even if I had had the station, the plugs are different in Europe, so I still wouldn't have been able to play it. Again: when it comes to Mac products, I just don't get