A moment of silence, please

My iPod has died. It was second-generation, touch-wheel, and, at the time of its birth, the coolest electronic device I had ever seen. (Now, of course, it’s old skool.) It had started making a couple of funny little noises the last few days — a wheeze, a little cough, a sputter — but nothing that would have led me to think the end was near. Then yesterday at the Starbucks, right in the middle of a great Pandoras set — nothing. CPR has been applied many times, to no avail. All I can do is change which Icon of Death I get on the screen.

I won’t replace it for a while. You shouldn’t rush into these things, and you can’t really replace something like this, anyway. Just as I still miss and fondly remember my first Walkman, I’ll be a long time getting over my first iPod.