yeah, i liked creative but they have an alarming tendancy to  die on me.  the only thing made by creative that i own, that isn't dead is my soundcard in my computer. then again, i have had to replace most of the capacitors and 2 of the op-amps to resurrect it after one of my 'experiments' went wrong. my sound setup used to be an old hifi amplifier and a set of surprisingly good £20 hifi speakers. the amp blew up one day so i decided, as a stopgap until i could get hold of  a new amplifier, to see  if  i could run the speakers directly from the soundcard. i knew it would be quiet and not very good for the soundcard, but i continued anyway. needless to say, the impedance of the speakers was waaaay to low for the op-amps on the soundcard, so  i was welcomed to a thin white plume of smoke come from the soundcard. i replaced the op amps a few days  later and all was fine again. by this point i had found a hifi amp being thrown out on the street, and its still going strong.


in other news: i went down to town this morning to  buy a charger but guess what. out of stock there and every other store within 60 miles. so i go and find an internet  cafe, do some quick googling to see if any other stores nearby stock it, and found that official apple ipod chargers  work with my mp3 player! they may cost more but there was no other alternative.

so i went against my anti-apple predjudices and went and bought an apple charger. got home, tried it, and HUSSAH!!!! IT WORKS!!! while i  was in town i also stopped off at the local produce market and bought some bread.

so, a productive trip into town. i overcame my predjudices, i found a way to chrge my mp3 player away from a computer, i bought some 'healthy' food, and I'm supporting local businesses in doing so. its all good....