What did you learn in school today?

With my first bonus from work – way, way back many years ago now – I bought my first iPod. And, more recently, I replaced it with a newer model, because it turns out that I have a lot of music and even more videos to put on it. 

Part of this is because I occasionally travel for work, and sometimes it isn’t practical to take a dvd player with me. And part of it is because my girlfriend and I sometimes spend a lot of time in hotel rooms, and some of these hotel rooms allow you to plug in RGB/Scart leads meaning I can play videos on a full size TV, which is always nice.

Currently it’s about 50% full, but I am going to add a few more movies from iTunes which should bump up the useage to nearly full – and will force me to start deleting some of the stuff I’ve downloaded.

But it’s not all bad – I am (if I do say so myself) fairly good at networks and systems, and my TV has a VGA port on the back, so I am going to put a copy of iTunes on an old computer, and run the videos in to the TV like that at home. So even if they don’t persist on the iPod itself, they will still be available to watch when I want. 

But none of this actually has much of what I wanted to write about, but it is all good, background stuff that will make you understand just how I – someone who is considered to be quite bright, quite smart and not a bumbling idiot – could end up doing what I managed to do today.

There is a web-series called The Guild. It is really quite good, and while I am not as avid a gamer as the people on the show, I can identify with some of them – no, I am not going to tell you which. 

There have been five series so far, and – up until the fifth series – it has got better as it has gone along. But the most recent series, the one at the convention, was just so utterly crap that I haven’t bothered to watch it since the first time. 
 

But the first four series were very good, and I ended up downloading them from iTunes – the only other place I had them was on my xbox, and that was not conducive to watching them in hotels or while I am on the go.

Again – all background stuff, but also relevant to my adventures earlier today.

After arriving at Tesco car park, I pulled out my iPod and put it on to listen to the second half of Series 4 of The Guild. I tend to do this sometimes – listen to TV Shows or movies while I am shopping, because – well because it is kind of fun.

Everything was going well until the point where The Guild Hall is remade (oh – spoiler alert). The effects and production of this part are so good, and the entire effect is so fun to watch, that I pulled the iPod out of my pocket and started watching it.

(Some of you will no doubt have guessed where this is going by now, but please – don’t spoil it for everyone else!)

By this point I had finished my shopping, and was back out in the car park, pushing the trolley filled with shopping back to the car.

I got to the car without any problems, put the bags in the boot, took the trolley back to the trolley park and then set about walking back to my car. 

This was the point where The Hall is remade, and the point I started watching it.

And the point where I walked in to a post because I was staring at the screen rather than watching where I was going.

Happily no one saw me do this, I didn’t hurt anything much and my iPod wasn’t damaged.

But still, given that I am – as I said – quite bright, quite smart and not generally considered a bumbling idiot – the fact I walked in post was not my brightest hour.

So what did I learn today? I learned that trying to watch TV while walking is not a good idea.