The Phoenix and Drum

The Pheonix and Drum, originally uploaded by Jaqaroo.

The Phoenix and Drum sonds like a British pub name. I remember there was a number of pubs that started with The Phoenix and ....something.
I'm not sure if the metal bird on top of the drum is actually a phoenix. This was taken down our High Street at the weekend; some kind of small festival was about to take place.
It's nice to feel like a phoenix sometimes, don't you think? To rise from the perceived ashes of failure, to be born again. Life should be lived forwards.

iPod Nano

galleryimage011, originally uploaded by Jaqaroo.

This is now my number one object of desire. I want one!
My old iPod has been a good and faithful friend for the last couple of years, and continues to be one. Never let me down; always lifted my spirits when the pressures and stresses of the day would have crushed me.
One of the original, first generation, 10 gig iPods, he is getting a little on the heavy side these days. And of course I don't help by insisting on wearing those "Egg" headphones...but the sound man! The sound!
So recently I've been thinking it would be nice to have something really small. Something that would all fit in half a shirt pocket or less, and weigh nothing. There's a lot of them out there. The iPod Shuffle of course...I would like to stay to loyal to Apple. Then there's the new Sony Walkman stick, which looks very nnice, I have to admit: small, long battery time. And then a long list of other really small MP3 players.
But this morning I'm reading on the BBC about Apple's new mobile phone, and they mention in passing that Jobs also annouced the iPod Nano.
How far can these things go? I mean, what is going to be available 10 or even 5 years from now? Perhaps it will be like the mobile phones. In Japan they got smaller and smaller until they became like little toys and almost impractical to use. So then they got bigger again but with new features. So I think future iPods will come with cameras (still and video), video play back, GPS, you name it, plus capacity for a 50,000 songs. It's coming.