Eclipsed iPod

I swear that this is true!

If you have heard of the iPod or own one yourself, then you know just what a remarkable device it is. In something as small as a pack of cards, you can play hours and hours of your favourite music. But did you know that the iPod has a mind of its own?

A man, Steven P. Lasseter, picked up an iPod as a gift for his wife on her birthday. Before presenting it to her, he loaded it with some of her favourite songs, including the complete Pink Floyd album, "Dark Side of the Moon". His wife, of course, was extremely pleased to receive it and started listening to it immediately.

A few days later, she noticed something peculiar about her iPod. Whenever the iPod was set to play a song randomly, she found that the Pink Floyd song, "Eclipse", would always be the third song to be played. At first, she thought nothing of it and continued using it as normal. But this happened again and again, so much so that she could no longer enjoy the rest of her music.

She told Steven about it. Like her, he brushed it aside as mere coincidence or even a joke. But when he tried playing songs randomly, he encountered the same phenomenon as well: "Eclipse" would always be the third song in the random playlist.

He tried various tricks, such as shutting off the iPod and resetting it, putting in a lot of songs, even adjusting some playlists in the vain hope that something would click. But nothing changed and "Eclipse" remained the third "randomly picked" song. So he did the only logical thing to do: he removed that song from the iPod. Now, his wife could enjoy her music again... but it was not to last.

She complained to him that her iPod would always shut itself off after only a half hour's use. This happened even when the battery was at full. Steven thought that it was a battery problem, so to fix this, he swapped batteries with a brand new iPod that he had just bought for himself. But the problem persisted as if the batteries had never been changed. When he swapped the batteries back to their original iPods, his new iPod played for hours between recharging, while his wife's iPod continued to fail after half an hour.

At his wits' end, he decided to load back Pink Floyd's "Eclipse". Miraculously, the iPod continued playing for hours on its old battery, but "Eclipse" once again became the third song to be selected when the music was chosen randomly.

Steven brought his wife's iPod to Apple to be checked out. The service staff said that they had heard some news about this problem, but had been instructed not to make any fuss over it. Their instructions were simply to give him a free replacement for the old iPod. He gave the new player to his wife, who loaded her favourite songs again, except for the Pink Floyd album, because she was spooked by it. Her replacement iPod worked flawlessly. But one day, when she accidentally loaded "Eclipse", the problems started all over again.

Once again, Apple replaced the iPod for her and everything was blissful. To be on the safe side, Steven erased "Eclipse" and each and every Pink Floyd song from all of his home's computers. Then, he hid the Pink Floyd album in a remote corner of the house, never to listen to it again. None of their iPods have exhibited any problems described above again.

So if you listen to Pink Floyd on your iPod, DO NOT load Pink Floyd's "Eclipse" into it. If you do, your iPod will always select it as its third random song, and if you remove it, your iPod will stop functioning properly. The only solution is to replace your iPod. Apple has not commented officially on this issue. But they cannot do so because admitting to it will only enrage the thousands of Pink Floyd fans, many of whom also are Apple fans.

This is not an urban legend. Let all of your friends and family know about it quickly!