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We've all been there: You're trapped by an international gang and all you have to fight your way out with is an Ipod Nano. What do you do?

Kevin Fleming presents eight helpful ways to despatch the villains.

1. Break it in half with your hands (very easy to do) and use the glass viewing screen's broken edge as a razorblade to slice the jugular when they are looking the other way.
2. Take off one sock (a dress or tube sock; pantyhose will work in a pinch), place the Nano in the sock, swing it around as fast as you can (being careful to not hit yourself), and whack the intended target right on the temple.
3. Take the reflective shiny part and catch the sun's ray and shine it in a vehicle driver's eyes, or if you are at a rock concert and the lead singer is prancing around on a center stage that protrudes into the audience like a phallus, you can use the same technique.
4. The cord on the earbud headphones can be used to strangle someone. A knee in the back can give extra leverage.
5. Dig a pit about 5 feet deep, then take about 15 3-foot-long stakes 2 inches in diameter and sharpen one end to a fine point, like a very sharp pencil. Jam the sticks at least a foot into the ground, with the sharp ends pointing up. Cover the hole with pine boughs, grass, and leaves. Treat the Nano like a slice of cheese pizza in a deep, hot oven and place it gently in the middle.
6. Carefully unstaple a tea bag and pour the contents on a plate. Break into the lithium-ion battery pack and saturate the tea with the battery's poison, then dry the tea in the sun (or with a hair dryer if you are in a hurry). Put tea back in tea bag and bend the staple back to its original position. Put the tea bag back where you got it.
7. Download to the Nano "We've Only Just Begun" by the Carpenters. Tell someone you will give him or her your Nano if they listen to that song a hundred times in a row.
8. Hide the Nano in a bowl of lutefisk, then take it to the annual Norsefest Lutefisk Eating Competition in Madison, Minnesota.