There Danny Williams was... working his job at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, when all of the sudden he noticed something warm and bright. He looked down to find flames shooting up from his pocket.

The source of the fire was Williams' iPod nano. After a year and half of wear-and-tear, the device's lithium ion battery shorted out and went all Sony on him right in the middle of work.

Now, spontaneously combusting at work is bad enough, but Williams faced the added danger of being in the middle of a post-9/11 U.S. airport with smoke and flames shooting out of his person. If the fire didn't get him, the bullets might.

05 Oct 2007

Fortunately, Williams was okay, the fire was put out and the TSA didn't liberate his brain via-handgun. Apple, in its enduring gratitude, plans to send a new iPod to replace the one that burst into flames in his pocket.

Williams' response?  "I'm still kind of freaked out that after only a year and a half my iPod caught fire in my pocket."

The man is not surprised that the iPod suddenly caught fire, per se, but that it did so in just 18 months.

Apparently, you should get at least two or three years before having to worry about your MP3 player randomly starting an electrical fire six inches away from your crotch.