Dammit, Amazon delivered my nice new Thunderbolt cable this afternoon and it turns out it’s the wrong blasted one, I can’t use it. Consequently, my file transfer/monitor swap project is dead in the water until further notice.
Not Amazon’s fault in any way, mind; my dumb ass ordered the wrong one all unawares. After a bit of educational research into the whole T-bolt contretemps, I discovered that everything after Thunderbolt 3 (it’s up to v5 now, yet another thing I didn’t know) is basically just a beefier, higher speed-capable cord with male USB C jacks, whereas the ports on both the iMac and the MacBook, being older models, are strictly and exclusively the practically extinct, tragically unhip, and embarrassingly passé Thunderlizard 2.
Somewhat surprising that Apple, notorious for being zealously protective of the uniqueness, backwards-incompatability, and fits-specified-Macs-ONLY-ness of their proprietary parts, pieces, and accessories, would turn to bog-standard USB-C for its more recent Thunderbolt iterations. Where’s the money in that, man? Only way Jobs woulda ever shot himself in his bank balance’s foot, so to speak, via a gratuitously profit-shrinking move like this was if Bill Gates was holding a pistol to his head.
After wading through page after depressingly Tbolt 2-bereft page on Amazon, the WalMart app on my phone, and eBay* desperately seeking Thunderbolt 2 cables that weren’t chest-clutchingly overpriced, I was dismayed to find the barest handful of them, the cheapest of which was on eBay: out of Cullifornya, price just above 35 smackeroos with an additional seven bucks tacked on for shipping courtesy of USPS, estimated delivery in about 2 or 3 weeks, as opposed to the two days’ wait with which Amazon has spoiled me absolutely rotten.
The rest of the T-bolt 2’s on offer ranged anywhere from sixty fucking dollars all the way up to a hundred and a half (!)—this, mind, when garden variety USB-C cables can be had all day long for under ten bucks most anywhere, either online or at a brick ’n’ mortar Best Buy outlet near you, assuming it hasn’t gone belly up as of yet. There were Thunderbolt 2 hubs for sale as well, at the low, low fire sale price of just 300 to 400 US dollars. Don’t delay, folks; with prices slashed this low, these little beauties aren’t going to be around for long, they’re just flying off the shelves. Stock is limited, so better hurry on out right away and take advantage of these once in a lifetime bargains before it’s too late!
Jeez O Pete, what a crazy world. Somebody oughta sell tickets.
* Years back a great little website yclept Small Dog Electronics was my first stop for stuff like this. The prices were reasonable, the shipping times were fast, and having spoken to them on the phone multiple times regarding certain memory chips I was thinking about buying and installing, I know firsthand that the customer service was friendly, knowledgeable, and altogether helpful. Need to check and see if they’re still extant, I sure hope so
Update! Well howzabout that: Small Dog IS still around, bless their solid-gold hearts. That just restored a little luster to what hadn’t been much of a day up till now. Although it looks like T-bolt 2 cables are mighty thin on the ground over there too, alas.
Infuriating update! God DAMMIT, the above Raising Arizona embed is supposed to start at precisely 1:43. After a great deal of bootless mucking about trying to get things set properly, fucking YewToob STILL absitively, posolutely refuses to cooperate for some incomprehensible reason. If the vid jacks you around by starting either way before or way after 1:43, I hereby advise you to hoist a middle digit at YT by clicking in the progress bar at the specified time-stamp your own bad self. You must grab the bull by the horns, step up to the plate, seize the day, and boldly take control of your own destiny, Glasshoppah.
Well, unless you want to scope the entire riotous clip. Which, if you’ve never seen the Cohen Brothers’ masterpiece all the way through before, you really want to do anyhow. Myself, I’ve seen the movie so many times I can reel off almost every word of dialogue from memory. Yet even so, sorting through clip after clip trying to find the above one (took some doing, actually; the others either didn’t include the lines I wanted at all or cut Glenn off just before the “Someone oughta sell tickets,” exchange with Hi, which is the very thing I was looking for in the first place) gave me a yen to watch the whole thing beginning to end again.
RA is one of a handful of movies I simply can’t get enough of. It never gets old, it never lets me down or fails to hold my interest. Each and every time I’ve watched it I’ve picked up on some little something that had gotten by me before, seems like. Top-notch cinematography, lighting, direction, and editing; fast pace; perfect casting; talented performers with the skills, experience, and self-assurance to make best possible use of the brilliant dialogue; unusual, haunting, and unforgettable music; engaging characters who come off as real, complex human beings; an unconventional story told in an unconventional way: every person of intelligence, discernment, and a functioning sense of humor in the civilized world agrees it’s one of the finest movies ever made, and there’s a reason for that.
Raising Arizona, along with just about every other Cohen Bros production, is a 24k showpiece, an object lesson in not just how a great film is made, but in how great a film can be. It’s not in any way overstating the case to call this extraordinary movie no less than one of the verymost outstanding examples of the cinematic art ever, really and truly.
- Entries
I feel your pain c YT.
I’ll specifically safe a clip at a given timestamp, link to that spot, and the damned thing still insists on playing the entire clip instead of starting at the bookmark.
Gorram tech f**kers!
I remember picking Raising Arizona off the shelf at the local video store, sort of randomly, and thinking, “Well, this will probably suck, but at least I have Evil Dead 2.” Oh, what a happy find! A gem.
Maybe it was Utah.