Too big for my iPod

Did you know that the audiobooks of the Harry Potter novels do not fit on a 2MB iPod Shuffle?

For some reason, I find that completely amazing.

I just bought an iPod Shuffle, to replace my old Discman for walking-to-work music (yes, I still had and used a portable CD player). I thought: I'll just load the Jim Dale versions of the books onto the iPod's harddrive, then fill the rest up with music on a separate playlist.

No dice. In fact, the audiobooks would apparently fill up just over 3GB of space. Wow.

So I will have to keep my disc players available, I guess.

And, since just listened to the 150+ hours of Jim Dale's reading, I doubt I'll be loading them up again any time soon.

Which leads to the question: what next from the Harry Potter standpoint?

To be honest, I think my next experience will be reading the books in French. I've read the first three in that wonderful language but just acquired the rest of the French versions late last year. That means it will be a whole new adventure.

Much slower, to be sure, since my French is good but not perfect. And then maybe I'll watch the movies with the French soundtrack engaged!

The end of an amazing audio experience

I am amazed, and half sorry, to report that I have now completed my 150+ hour journey through the seven Harry Potter novels as read to me by actor Jim Dale.

It's a credit to just how good these recordings are that I listened to them every chance I could over the past three months. And, to Dale's credit, the recordings got better and better as they went along, with Dale reaching his peak as the stories came to their final climax at the end of book seven.

Another amazing fact about this journey is that my 25-year-old discman survived the ordeal as well. In fact, it performed very well, despite a number of bumps and bruises. The only question in my mind now is: when should I start the whole cycle again?