The Great Computer Migration of 2008

Picture this dramatic scene.

The old eMac and the new iMac meet face to face for the first time. Instead of having a jolly chat about my personal foibles and my inability to keep their keyboards clean, the iMac becomes aggressive and takes instant control: Firewire cable, Migration Assistant, only one goal: to suck all the important information from the eMac and turn it into the obsolete doorstop that we've all suspected it to be.

If the eMac already looked like an E-Z Bake Oven in comparison with the new iMac, it looks doubly pathetic when lashed helplessly to its usurper.

Macintosh computers have a much-vaunted, invincible, seamless integration, except when I try to use more than one of them at a time. The Migration Assistant connects properly to the poor eMac but refuses to do anything more; it just sits for two hours "waiting for the drives to appear." A call to technical support reveals a crucial piece of information that everybody needs to know: "Migration Assistant just always works." That is nice to hear.

My happy tete-et-tete with the technical support technician is interrupted by a dentist appointment, where I get my chipped tooth fixed by chatty oral hygienists who don't know the subtext behind "I Touch Myself" by The Divinyls:

"I always thought they were saying 'I love myself!'"

"Oh no, it's 'I touch myself.'"

"Whew! I mean, 'I love myself,' that's going pretty far! They'd never get away with that."

When my jaws are strapped apart with a pink rubber tent, one of the hygienists says I'm being "awfully quiet," and they laugh hysterically because I am unable to reply. They allow one of the tent flaps to hang over my nose where it sucks into my nostrils with every breath.

I return home with a lip that feels like a totally unfunny balloon animal. My two computers are still connected, as useless and helpless as two dogs who have become locked together having sex. Rather than dump water on them, I decide that attempting to get Migration Assistant working has already taken longer than just manually copying everything over myself.

So that's what I do for the next half hour: copy applications and data through the Firewire connection. Then I bundle up the poor elderly eMac and banish it to its temporary home in my living room, where it can join other sadly forgotten things like my pussycat.

Next, the real hurdle: configuring the system to work with my Sympatico internet account. I hold my breath through the entire procedure, waiting for it to fail the way all non-Apple software always does. Except that it works perfectly the first time, of course, whereas the famous-super-fabulous Apple Migration Assistant just wasted two hours of my day.

My first task, then? Communicating to you, dear blog readers, using my spiffy new computer...I am back in business at last.

Since "business" includes making silly videos and "Daily Muffy" episodes, I'm happy to report that the next "domestic drag show" is still in the works. More importantly, this weekend Vanilla and I documented an ambitious new Daily Muffy. It's called "Protest!" and here's a quick teaser.