Please borrow this cable

In a fit of clarity, I realized just how stupid I've been in my purchase then non-use of a new laptop. I mean, how unbelievably retarded would that be?

Right. That retarded.

So, a few days ago, I set up my laptop to transfer my account and applications from the old laptop to the new laptop. I started the process just before I went to bed, expecting the next morning to be very similar to a six year old's Christmas morning when Santa still existed.

Despite sleeping in semi-late and suppressing all the excitement, I found the transfer only 5% of the way done when I checked the next morning. Given that I had a phone call with a client in the morning, and that call required my being online to follow the tasks at hand, I stopped the transfer, rebooted the old laptop and started my day.

I talked to Mike about how he transferred his data to new machines. He suggested starting the process from a Time Machine backup, and just don't do anything on the old machine that would necessarily alter the data on the old machine while using it. You know, by like saving any files, or browsing any sites, or editing anything local.

Right.

That's not going to happen.

So, old laptop to new laptop over the network isn't going to work. Restore from backup isn't going to work. Next up: connect over firewire.

I wasn't exactly interested in spending money to buy a new cable that I would use once, but Mike said he didn't have a Firewire 400 to Firewire 800 cable, so I was out of luck there. Great. Was a second disk replacement an option? Maybe a disc clone? Ugh. Well, turns out the cables aren't as expensive as I thought they would be (they're $10 or so), so off to Fry's I went tonight to buy a new cable.

Now, for the record, I do not like making purchases at Fry's. Now, that is NOT to say I don't like shopping at Fry's: I enjoying looking at all of the computers and networking and hard drives and components and electronics. Actually purchasing the items is a little difficult sometimes. I mean, they pay someone to stand at the checkout line and tell you which light just lit up at their registers. Great, the economy is sustained by retarded jobs like that, fine.

What I don't like is the hard-handed, antagonistic, bully checking of bags on the way out the door. Stopping honest shoppers to check the receipt against the bag at the exit constitutes unlawful detention. If the store has not witnessed you lift and item, and has not had a report of your lifting an item, it does not have a reasonable cause to search your person, and the detention to do the search is unlawful, and just plain wrong. It creates a very hostile relationship bettween the store and the people who are trying to spend their money with the store. When you're Mike-sized, you can stroll out the door. When you're Kitt-sized, strolling out the door is less easy given how easy physical restraint can be. Couple that with the level of conflict-adverse I can be, and well, shopping at Fry's is not a pleasant experience.

So, I timed my walk out away from the registers so that I was walking behind another group with my purchase, my new cable in plain site with my receipt right above it. Based on experience, I can say that refusing a bag is often a trigger to have all of your stuff searched (a trigger that f---ing p---es me off, I would add), but having a fluffed out bag will also trigger a search, so no bag, and one fewer bag used, it is. When the two guys at the door stopped the group in front of me, I walked around them and out the door.

With the stomach clenching knots as confirmation of how much I hate the end of that shopping experience. I feel like I've gotten away with something bad, something wrong. So culturally ingrained is the belief in authority that asserting my rights causes me physical pain.

There's something wrong when that happens.

So, I now have a six pin Firewire 400 to ten pin Firewire 800 cable. I'm going to use this cable once. I would very much like for you to use it if you have a need for it.