Passed!
I passed shorthand. Crazy. Shorthand is the paper still freaking out 80% of the journalism majors and grad dips. I don't know how I passed. Based on the two days (the requirement is to pass twice) I turned up and made the grade, the secret to passing is not studying at all, eating toast (and only toast) for breakfast, turning up ten minutes late and finding out what the subject is when you've finally snuck into class and opened your booklet, drinking a Coke Zero during the rehearsal session, cracking lame jokes in between practises, and expecting the worst.

The universe rewarded me by making my new iPod arrive instore (it's been loading songs on from iTunes all night, I'm yet to have a proper play with it) and Chris Knox responding to my requests for a brief interview about the new way the music industry might work. He was cool.

Apple haven't had it all good in my view today though. Their media relations rep in Australia gave me the runaround in relation to parallel importing, answering every single question I had for her with words effective to "take a look at our website" which is not only the complete opposite of what we've been taught to do, but a really fucking lame thing to quote in a news story. And to think the rest of the staff on the way up the call centre ladder to her were so helpful and friendly...

tariqa got an iPod Touch. Oooerr.