I recently took the family traveling to see a pair of beloved nieces graduate from high school. Along with the family I brought my PowerBook and 5G iPod, just in case (and, okay, because I can’t seem to unplug). Turns out that they came in handy, as in:
Entertaining the wife
My spouse and I have developed an affection for Showtime’s Weeds. Though we generally try to stay in sync on these things—each vowing to forego solo viewings of episodes until such time that we can watch together—a business trip with accompanying 5-hour flight allowed me to invoke the But-Honey-I’ve-Got-to-do-Something-on-the-Plane clause and burn through the remainder of the season.
After a long day of swimming with The Light of our Lives, said wife was ready for a little Weedy unwinding. Problem is that the iPod is far from her favorite viewing vehicle. TLooL was fast asleep in the roll-out bed next to ours and we didn’t want to risk waking her by jacking the iPod into the hotel television (which lacked the right connectors anyway) and I hadn’t packed Weeds onto my PowerBook. What to do?
Do just as you do if you want to play music from the iPod through your computer’s speakers. Plug the iPod into the computer, flip it into Manual Mode (via the Music tab in iTunes’ iPod Preferences), plug headphones into the computer’s headphone jack, choose the iPod in iTunes’ Source list, select the episode you want to watch, and hit the Spacebar to begin playing. The video will play on the computer, giving you that Bigger Screen Experience from a little screen device.
Entertaining the child
Toward the end of our travels we’d run through the automotive entertainment options for our child. One more round of “I Spy With My Little Eye” and the lot of us would have exploded.
“Want to watch Mary Poppins again?”
“No thank you, I’m tired of that one.”
“ Cinderella? ”
“I just saw that.”
“How about taking a little nap.”
The look.
And then it dawned on me. We were near a middling-sized town and it was close to lunch time.
“Let’s eat.”
And I set on a search not for cuisine but rather connectivity. Spying a coffee joint likely to sell sandwiches I dashed in and asked the crucial question:
“Do you have free wireless broadband here?”
“We do.”
Done.
In goes the family, out comes the PowerBook, and while wife and child ordered and ate, dad dropped $6 at the iTunes Music Store purchasing three unseen episodes of Dora the Explorer.
Seeking an answer for why anyone would bother purchasing Dora when it shows 19 times a day on your typical cable connection? I got your answer right here, buddy.
Sweet, sweet, family distraction.