“TS” took the HD to a local disk repair shop, who (after some confusion) opened up the case to discover that when the drive landed, it grounded out in 3 places. This means that there were rings of death burn marks in three areas on the drive board itself. This also means that whenever my computer attempted to read anything past the burn marks, it got stopped and couldn’t go any further.

In our attempt to recover my data, we managed to melt the connectors inside the drive. It would have taken three connectors to get past the burn marks, not to mention the hours of recovery, so, it has received the “Lost Cause” stamp.

Moral of the story: Organization can come second to reliability. Back up the new stuff before you start downloading the old to organize archives.

Before you start telling me how I’m suppressing your rights, and how I must be afraid to face you and your comments, I suggest you take a look at this article by Greg Finn of Search Engine Land: Beware These Comment Saboteurs In Social Media

This article outlines 11 types of commenters that have little to no social benefit. I would like to point out the “troll.”

The troll

…These users seriously dislike you and want you to know it—publicly. Maybe you created better content than they did, or you downvoted one of their articles and they found out. The fact of the matter is that they are pissed. And they are going to follow you around to pester you.

I have no tolerance for trolling. Period and end of story.

Dislike of someone can be expressed via e-mail outside the public eye.

If you don’t like the content (see “the hater”), then that has plenty of room to be addressed in the comments, but please maintain a certain respect for the author. There is no law stating that you have to agree with every opinion I, or anyone else for that matter, may have. Offering opposing views ensures that the media is not skewed in any particular direction and ensures a good balance of opinions. However, if your hatred for me gets in the way of contributing to society and only proliferates hate, destruction, and negativity, then I’m simply not going to display it.

It’s so easy for people to hide behind their computer monitors and spout hateful and hurtful garbage pretending that everyone wants to hear their noise. Please try to remember that there is a human face behind everything and perhaps then there will be much less discord in the virtual world.

Here’s the scope: I bought my MyBook back in July off eBay. The “one year” warranty expired in October. But I haven’t gotten there yet…

January 17th, while moving my computer to RugDoctor underneath it, my poor little MyBook takes a tiny little spill from the top of my computer to the carpeted floor. Two foot drop at most, honest.

January 18th at 02:00 (wee hours in the morning on my BIRTHDAY), I decide I should do a quick birthday comic to let everyone know I am well and give them something to read. Lo and behold, my little MyBook tries to tell me that my MyArt folder doesn’t exist. (“WTFBBQsauce? I just double clicked on it, of COURSE it exists!“)

I then proceed as any person who has spent endless hours on the telephone with Tech Support; I unplug the drive, restart my computer, and plug it back in. Windows recognized that there is a USB drive plugged in, but no way to access it. (“oRLY?“)

Restart again, leaving the drive plugged in. My computer nearly dies. In a panic (again, wee hours of my BIRTHDAY), I call a more technical savvy friend of mine that I knew would be awake at the time, we determine that it is in fact the drive that is the problem and my computer is not dead.

Relief washes over me, and then I realize… That I hadn’t done my annual disc back-up, and I have photos of my artwork on there that was recently destroyed in the flooding of my mother’s basement. Panic sets back in, TS (for Tech-Savvy) assures me that he will look at it in the morning.

Hours later, amid chores and preparing for birthday celebration, I hand over my drive, and we discover the warranty is up… And attempt to access the data. After a few days of scanning, TS found font files (in the wrong folder) before the hard drive nearly melted itself.

Conclusion: Externals are not a fail-safe. Western Digital makes crap fragile drives that could easily destroy everything you hold dear. Oh, and their warranty policy for a year is just lame.

So, James, tell me…  Do you like coffee?

I have silly dreams.  I call them silly, but they’re really exciting and generally remind me that I have an overactive imagination.

Take last night’s dream for example.  Studying under a “master,” I fell in love with a fellow apprentice assassin (James) whose master kills my master because she was jealous of my “date” with her apprentice.  According to the rules, my date and myself are now required to fight to the death so that I may defend my master’s honour or die because my master wasn’t a fit assassin (because she died).  Little did the opposing master know that my master was my birth mother, which made the assassination a personal vendetta, so I could bypass the apprentice and challenge the jealous wench directly.  I figured out that the jealous wench had fought my master once she figured out that I was my master’s daughter begotten from my mother and her master who mastered both of the women.  The JW was “cast aside” for my mother and so she killed him, leaving my mother to fend for herself… Etc., etc.

Might as well make it a book, right?

… Looking at it a little longer… It reminds me of Yin.