While it churns, I stare at the MiniDisc. It is a blue, translucent rectangle. I open the little shutter and breathe on the disc inside. It is perfect. So small. So physical. I imagine the laser burning pits into the polycarbonate. I imagine the music becoming mine .
The iPod is sleeping in a million backpacks. It is easy. It is frictionless. It will win.
This is the lie. On a PC, “Check Out” means “copy.” On a Mac, in an emulator, “Check Out” means “pray.”
A progress bar appears. It does not move for two minutes. Then it jumps to 34%. Then it stops. The music from the Mac’s speaker (a single, tiny speaker) stutters. The whole system freezes. I cannot move the mouse.
The driver installs.
My Mac begins to sweat. I can feel the heat radiating from the dome. The hard drive chatters like a telegraph machine. The conversion takes six minutes. Six minutes for one song. I have a playlist of twelve.
I do this again. And again. And again. I learn the incantations. Never use AAC, always WAV. Never transfer more than three songs at once. Never touch the mouse during the “Write TOC” phase. Always eject from Windows, never from the Finder.