It’s All Maya!

No, I’m not talking about what we had for dinner Christmas Eve.  Patrick as usual out did himself!  We started off with Foie Gras, then Smoked Salmon, an Almond Crusted Rack of Lamb cooked to perfection with Patrick’s wonderful Champagne Sauce, Candied Roasted Tomatoes and Twice Roasted Brussel Sprouts (Much better than once roasted I guess!) Homemade Baguettes and ending with a Bûche de Noël that I helped decorate, followed by chocolates and liqueur.  We began with Kir Royals, my favorite, then on to a nice red wine (2002 Chateau Langoa Barton Saint-Julien) and ended the evening with a nice cognac.  It’s always surprising how we manage to get ourselves to Midnight Mass after such a meal, but for the French, Christmas Eve dinner is more important than the meal you eat Christmas Day.

So where do the sour apples come in, you ask?  Well on Tuesday the 23rd I decided to add a bunch of Christmas songs to my I Touch ipod to give just the right ambiance for our candlelit dinner party.  (I have a great Bose® SoundDock® digital music system that will play my mp3 for days without repeating a single song!)  As I had bought several Christmas I Tunes (Nat King Cole - The Christmas Song, Christmas Time Is Here - from A Charlie Brown Christmas, etc.) I was syncing the songs to my I Touch.  The first song synced without any problem, the second song began syncing and was taking forever to finish.  It went on for about 20-30 seconds and then I got an error message saying that “…the device had timed out.” 

I looked at my ipod to see if the first song had at least downloaded without any problem and much to my horror it said, “No Music”!!!  I didn’t want to panic at that point, but I did!  I hit the home button and went to songs…it said, no music!  I hit artists….no music!  Albums….no music, genres, ….nothing!  No Music!!!  I had close to 800 songs that literally took me hours everyday for over two weeks to put them all into my ipod and in less than 30 seconds my 800 songs had disappeared!!!  I couldn’t believe it.  Over and over I touched the screen looking for my music and nothing was there!!! 

I went to the Apple website hoping to find online technical support or a contact number, but it took forever to realize they don’t have live support, and when I finally found a phone number….no answer!  They happen to be one of the biggest selling companies of modern technology and their service is crap!  They keep banker hours!  I had no choice but to wait until the next morning hoping someone could recover my 800 songs!

When I finally got someone who could actually help me, we didn’t accomplish much!  After trying everything, the conclusion was I needed to bring my Apple iPod Touch to the Apple Store.  Not at my convenience, no, I had to make an appointment to be seen by someone just like you would if you wanted to see your doctor or your dentist.  So, tomorrow afternoon I have an appointment with the Apple doctor to see my sick Ipod!!!

Maya Muses:  I did the next best thing for our Réveillon de Noël (Christmas Eve) dinner.  I had to set up the speakers from my computer and play the I Tunes from there.  It was all right, but not the same as through my Bose system, that’s for sure!

Yes, I sound like sour apples (or is it sour grapes?) but hopefully tomorrow they’re going to fix this thing and not charge me for doing it! If I can see anything positive in all this, it’s the fact that I’m lucky this happened right before the one year warranty is up!

Photo Credits: Flickr