I just fried both my external hard drives, at a time when there is about 5 gb of space left on my compy.

I think I fried both of them because I either; a/ used the wrong power source, or b/ plugged into an ungrounded socket or c/ both.

One hd holds all my archived data of about 5 years so if I were to get audited tomorrow the auditor would have a short job of it. The other holds all the videos I did this year for school.

I tried plugging in the second one, a second time, just to see if I could somehow coax it back to life and not only did I smell the burning, I saw a little plume of smoke curling up from it's silver casing.

Anyone know how to rescue data from hds that have suffered some vague electrical damage?

I am not going to say much about this one cause I just spent all my brain energy (and judgement) over at Shameless, but I'd love to hear what people think of this (hella long) article from the Globe and Mail: Mending a broken mind. It describes a new treatment for depression that involves constantly stimulating certain regions in the brain with electricity, prompting emotional and mental changes in peopel who suffer from severe depression.

Giver'ha people.

Amid less fanfare then perhaps it should have had, Neil Diamond released an album in May called 'Home Before Dark'. So, the big deal here is that he is an old guy now. The other big deal is that Rick Rubin has produced his last few albums. But really, and none of the reviews seem to be picking up on this, the real big deal is that his persona has made this wonderful transition from playboy, to slightly melancholic playboy. It's like he always seemed to be someone's ex-husband with that ego, you know the showmanship of buying a sportscar and a linen suit and dating younger ladies. But now he's like the ex-husband/boyfriend you still quietly love. He comes in and sits at your kitchen table and whips out his guitar and it turns out that for 30 years he's been thinking about what went wrong.

It's great, he's managed to stay inside his goofy "I'm a loverman" act, but turn it into something bittersweet. Also his voice with it's gravelly texture gets better over time. The less suave he is, the more I love him.

If I Don't See you Again

Back when my mom died I used this blog to write about my grief. I was a lot younger then mentally, and I think I had fewer inhibitions about talking about my feelings in a public space.

Now another person in my life has died, and I feel the same urge to write, but I feel less comfortable writing about what I am feeling, I want to be fair to him and he was an intensely private person.

I wonder why it took so long for this to happen. What with the interwebs being the pejorative "safe haven" for all sorts of crumb-bums, weirdos, sociopaths and lonelys. I guess it was one of those 'it was so obvious no-one thought of it before' issues? Or this one just has better design - anyways.

I am Neurotic

Yep, now any small habit you have that you think (or out and out know) would put you on the wacky side of wild n' you can describe here, and submit it to a rating system! What better help for one of nervous temperament than knowing the other people think their nervous tick is lame ? Also comments = awesome! Hells yes do I want to know that 12 other people in the world turn around and check the bowl everytime they go potty.

I am at Jane (my cancer stricken, eyebrow-free, nauseous as hell friend's) house keeping her company and getting some work done. Here's how Jane views my selfless dedication both to her and my professional development.

Jane: "It's 3:30pm, you've gone to the gym, gone shopping, eaten sushi, and broken your phone. It's like ab-fab. You're a workaholic."

Miriam: "Shut-up..."

Jane: "I'm just jealous because you have a job."

Miriam: " I don't have a job! I have an RFP where they spelled my name Miriam Verbug"

Metafilter just posted thist site called Favrd a site that aggregates 'favorited' twittrs, but not the ones that are sales pitches(how does the machine know the difference??).

I never understood what the big deal was about twittr but I like this site.

some good lines:

"Dungeons and Dragons should really be called Mom's Basement and Tang."

"FAKE OR REAL INDIFFERENCE IS A POWERFUL PERSONAL WEAPON"

"Till 5 seconds ago, I thought it was "no holes barred" not "no holds barred." Damn."

Is one of my favorite quotes from "Spin Control" another SF book I read this week.

Simon just sent me this article;

Solitaire-y ConfinementWhy we can't stop playing a computerized card game.

I am addicted to solitaire on my phone, that's why Simon sent the article to me. This is going to humiliate me but I am going to say it anyways. At bedtime after I have turned out the lights, I play solitaire on my phone until my eyes start to fall shut. Then I put the phone down and pass out.

I was just leaving a comment about Steven's insanely accurate new rating system:

Yeah I know - move over stars here comes Steven and his taffy apple.

I know I sound like some gaytardo from a sophie kinsella book when I write titles like that, but I need to indicate the gravity of the problem. I bought another handbag today. A year ago I couldn't buy handbags, they all looked like overdecorated vaginas (or vageens, or hoontangs, depending on the mood) anyways, overdecorated primary sex organ symbols and I hated them. I had a big bike bag, and a smaller bike bag and a backpack and all was well in the world.