Sometimes the marketplace just mystifies me.
I got a webcam to put on the other side of the window from the hummingbird feeder, but Orange Micro in its wisdom decided that more than 6 feet of cable would be a waste. So I can't get the cam (which by the way has a really stupid mounting foot) over to the window without disassembling my entire computer setup and moving my desk.
Easy, I thought: just buy a firewire extension cable. But no. At Circuit City, at Best Buy, even at Smalldog, you can't buy a cable with a female firewire plug on one end and a male plug on the other. Male on both ends only. And since Orange Micro saved fifty cents by hardwiring the camera end of the cable into the cute little spherical molded plastic shell, that's no use. (Oh, did I mention that they also saved money by including only a demo version of the software you need to run the webcam? If you actually want to use the camera, you'll have to pony up for software too.)
Gender changer plug, like in the good old days of RS-232? Not on your life. For something like $50, smalldog had a firewire hub they could sell me, plus maybe another cable to go from the hub to the computer, only they were out of hubs anyway. Some mail-order place on the web had a powered extension cable for which they wanted either $33 or $49.99 depending on what link I used to get to it. But sheesh.
Finally I found some poor garage outfit that specializes in selling modules that fit in the drive bay on the front of a computer and hold copies of all the plugs on the back of your computer -- and cables that go from A to B. Not only that, they have free shipping. I promptly gave them my credit card, and we'll see if they think I have to order one of their module thingies before they'll sell me their piece of wire with plugs.
But criminy.
Which also explains why you're not seeing any hummingbirds yet.