Playing the baby waiting game with an iPod

As I type this, my wife has entered the early stages of labour. It’s our second child, but the first time she’s gone into labour, so we’re a little unsure about exactly where we’re at in the whole birthing process, and how long it’s all likely to take.

Oh sure, there are books and videos, and we’ve read and we’ve watched. None of that seems particularly useful or relevant now, following my wife around with the stopwatch function of my iPod touch activated, timing what we think may or may not be contractions. I’m a little irritated because turning the iPod on its side doesn’t make the display turn sideways so the digits are big and clear. When you’re watching a video or surfing the web, the accelerometer in the iPod tells it you’ve turned it on its side and adjusts accordingly — why not for the stopwatch?

My wife, for some reason, doesn’t seem to care.

The random thought occurs to me that Google’s recent announcement of a public transport mapping service in Perth may not actually be a “what have we got to lose” test-bed, as has been speculated. Where some people seem to think that starting the service in Perth rather than one of the bigger cities is wise because it doesn’t matter as much if it goes wrong, I’m inclined to disagree. If you take a wrong turn in Perth you could end up in the middle of nowhere pretty quickly. And Perth doesn’t really have a lot of people — it can’t afford to lose too many. I reckon Perth is a baptism of fire for such a service.

And, interestingly enough, my wife clutches her back and expresses less than zero interest in this observation.

I’ve recently been indulging in a little bit (well, actually, quite a lot) of BitTorrent downloading, following my discovery that my DVD collection — without hardly trying — includes a sizable proportion of the Academy Award-winning animated shorts. There are 76 of them, from 1932 to 2007, and pretty much by accident I’ve acquired 59 of them. Naturally, I’ve since set about trying to acquire the others and complete the collection, but many are not available for sale and some never have been. That’s where BitTorrent comes in. You can get almost anything on the Internet if you’re prepared to steal it.

My wife glowers disapprovingly. Or maybe it’s another contraction. It’s so hard to tell.

Anyway, my little torrent of BitTorrent has begun almost perfectly to coincide with Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) announcing it is stepping up its efforts to find online thieves. Of which I have become one. I don’t know precisely what method MIPI is using to find online thieves, but I do know I have no idea how to hide my activities. So I’ll probably get caught, unless I finish downloading before their trackers find me.

Hmmm. “Quest” by Tyron Montgomery, which won the 1996 Oscar, says it will take another 48 hours to download. Great.
Oh well, MIPI, send the cops, send the dogs, send the SWAT team or whoever it is you send when you find a pirate.

I’ll be waiting.

Matthew JC. Powell really ought to have a second child about the house by the time you read this. Send cigars to mjcp@optusnet.com.au

an baby game hardware ipod playing the waiting with