The Eagle Has Landed on my iPod

About the only good thing to result from the theft of my bag just before Christmas was replacing my ageing original 1G iPod with a sleek new black 5G video iPod (whoever thought that glossy white ‘iBook’ look was a good idea?). Actually that’s not strictly true: I’ve effectively ‘upgraded’ many of my closest and most familiar possessions at the cost of many hours cancelling credit cards, talking to insurers and replacing missing Christmas gifts.

What has really surprised me however, is how much I’m enjoying video on the move. Just today I was watching the 1969 ‘The Eagle Has Landed’ film (recently made available on Google Video, along with a number of other NASA History of Space Flight Motion Pictures), watching Neil or maybe Buzz shaving on the 3-day flight to the moon. The commentary describes this as ‘housekeeping’ whilst I was thinking ‘why bother?’ before I realised I’d just missed my stop on the tube.

Shaving on the way to the moon
Originally uploaded by Rob Bevan.

My wait for the return train was just enough time for the best sequence – the Eagle’s descent to the surface of the moon – which actually just reminded me of all the times I’ve peered out of the the window of a plane (I always watch) as it lands: there’s that long wait as the plane seems to hover interminably just above the ground before touching down. This is usually the only moment I get a little tense whilst flying, unlike my mate Tim who pretty much feels that way the entire flight. (He was so visibly distressed when we flew to Glasgow once that one of the cabin crew came over to find out if he was going to be OK, and tried to comfort him with “don’t worry – we’re the lucky crew!”, which understandably made things worse.) I’m constantly on the lookout at the moment for moon-related material to pass on to Tim for his ‘golf on the moon’ project: clearly he’s going to have to deal with his fear of flying first.

And just because this is doing the rounds today, is very funny and brilliantly executed: what if Microsoft redesigned the iPod packaging?

(Finally, one housekeeping note: here’s a smart way to get video from your iPod on TV using a cable you probably already have, instead of the $19/£15 proprietary Apple iPod AV Cable.)