Abroad without tunes

Disaster has struck! I feel a strange sense of loss - like some part of me has suddenly stopped working. On our final jaunt around the USA before emigrating to Malaysia, I lost my i-Pod. So that's 40GB and 3 years of painstakingly ripping CDs, and I go and leave it in the seat pocket of the return flight from Boston. So there it will sit, with the inflight magazine and the sick bag, until the cleaning crew find it. I've emailed, phoned, faxed and written a letter to Continental lost items department. So far I have received nothing but a "we'll do our utmost to get it back to you safe and sound". Oh and of course a lecture about increased security in airports and on planes from the very stern sounding telephone operator. She offered few words of comfort in my time of pain, and in fact added to my woe by saying that if the iPod was deemed a security threat, then it would be placed in a metal container and incinerated. Anyone who knows me will undoubtedly understand my pain.

Although losing it is a dreadful thing, it is made even more unbearable by the fact that all my other music is on the harddrive of my PC, and even the original CDs are tucked away in cardboard boxes. And yes, you've guessed it... the PC and the boxes are sitting in a 40ft container, on a boat, in the ocean, somewhere between Houston and Kuala Lumpur.

So, what to do? I'm not sure I can take much more of the 80's soft rock and power ballads coming from my wife's iPod (lucky for her she has the beauty to distract me from her bad musical tastes). Even when I head out to bars to drown my sorrows, there are the dulcet tones of Jon Bon Jovi or Steven Tyler droning from the speakers, just to rub salt in the wounds.

The only light I can see is the fact that it's my birthday soon, and I can see a shiny new 80GB one becoming my best friend.