I spent 10 hours in the air yesterday traveling from Oslo, Norway to Cleveland, Ohio, where I am visiting a friend. The Oslo-Newark direct flight is a 8 1/2 hour marathon sitdown which, needless to say, is a challenge for any active person.

But my iPod Touch saved my day - for two reasons.

First of all it was of course nice to have time to read. I am still working my way through Anathem (se previous post) and it’s getting better and better. I had an aisle seat which is my preferred seat and means I get less light from the windows - perfect for reading. On such a long flight I don’t really manage to read for too long periods at a time. Maybe it’s due to the ambient noises?

The best setting for this scenario is my usual setting - white text on black background. And since it was pretty dark I could keep the brightness setting way down, saving battery. I kept wishing I had noise canceling headphones but read on, maybe I’ll get there…

The second way it saved my day wasn’t really due to the iPod but rather the earbuds I had in my pocket to listen to music. The clip-on headset the handed out on the plane was truly horrible. I had to press the pads closer to my ears to hear anything at all. My Sony buds worked like a charm - even without an adapter for the dual plug they have on airplane seats.

I saw three episode of CSI (the works: NY/Vegas/Miami) and the latest Indiana Jones movie before I somehow managed to lose the cushion on the right earbud. It’s virtually impossible to look for a black plastic item about 1.5 centimeters wide inside a dark airplane. To make matters worse, the guy next to me almost tore off the cord from the plug when he had to go to the restroom - the armrest would not budge. Not his fault but now my headset is useless and I have a new item on my US holiday shopping list.

At least I don’t need it for ereading. When I woke up at 4AM, severely jetlagged, Anathem was good entertainment. And now I’m heading out to look for some good, noise canceling (or at least noise supressing) in-ear headphones.