There I was, at the gym, pumping my arms on the elliptical machine and listening (again) to Bella banter with Jacob while pining for Edward, when my Zune kicks off mid-stride. I stop, nearly falling on my face as my legs continue to swing wildly and the machine struggles to slow down. I grab up my little brown and green companion resting on the plastic holder and turn it on. Nothing.

Hmm, I think, must be out of battery. Little did I know that I was already in the midst of ZuneBug '08 -- a fitting end to a year full of bad news.

What happened? Well, some stupid programmers at Microsoft (yeah, you read me right) didn't account for a leap year on a driver in the 30G Zune. The digital crash, and my near-physical crash, were the result of the driver suddenly realizing that the year hadn't switched to 2009 like it was supposed to. So, with a lack of programming to tell it what to do, it seized up.

Now, in their defense ... it's not as if a leap year is common knowledge. It's not like every school-aged child since 1950 has learned the little rhyme of how many days are in month ... it only happen once every four years, and it's not like anybody was looking to use their Zune to play music during, say, a New Year's Eve party ... right? Software knows when things aren't normal and corrects for it, right? C'mon guys, right??

Yeah, not so much.

Alas, all is apparently better in Zune-land -- once the real 2009 started, the date was recognized by the driver's memory and the error went away on its own.

Users still afflicted by an error message: Let your Zune run out of battery, then hook it up to a charger and reboot. Voila, the problem will be magically fixed.

Here is the official statement form Microsoft:
"Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used). The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year. That being the case, the issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you're a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device."

Perhaps it may be time to upgrade to a new model Zune. I still love them, like you love your annoying little brother who just looks so adorable when he's sleeping. Hey Microsoft, can I please have a new 4G Zune in green to store all of my books-on-tape? Pretty please? :)