[boi]

i know you weren't. i had actually forgotten you mentioned it, honestly.
i took off the back, battery and hard drive and noticed the firewire port was carefully installed with a very small piece of scotch tape. brilliant.
i took a soldering iron to the ibrick and voilá, it's an ipod again. that firewire port isn't moving any more. i have to elevate the firewire cord a little bit, so it goes into the port at an angle, but it's a small price to pay. i'll eventually fix that with some tape or something.

now my ipod has... character ^_^.

i also sanded the back of it to give it a brushed metal look. it looks fantastic. now all i have to do is get rid of the scratches on the plastic, somehow fix the discoloring of the wheel (spraypaint maybe? i wonder how silver would look...) and fix my little remote port on the top. now that apple has denied me warranty, i'm no longer afraid to customize my baby.

i'll snap some pictures of the whole process once i find the charger for my digitical camera. i found the number of guides on the internet for taking an ipod apart to be extremely insufficient. i need to pass on the help, because i know a couple other people here have ipods with broken firewire ports. it's really a pretty simple fix. it was my first time with a soldering iron (thanks for the help blake!).