1. I think one of my external hard drives might be dead. It's a Seagate, and it's got all my music on it (not backed up, either--aren't I clever?) and it spontaneously stopped working last night while I was listening to music. Now when I plug it in, I can hear something spinning away inside for several minutes before the computer even recognizes something plugged into the USB port, and while it shows up on my drivers list it doesn't appear as a drive under My Computer or Manage Disks. It's still under warranty, but first I'd have to get all the music off of it, and Seagate will charge a small fortune to recover it for me.

2. In other news, beef and broccoli stir fry is SOGOOD. And I have more broccoli! Need better beef, though--Schnucks, you are disappointing me.

3. If you're in a BBC-related fandom and you're not aware of 31thirtyone, WHY NOT? I spy at least four distinct fandoms on the list of participants and I don't even watch that much Beeb.

4. SYLLEPSIS: ADEQUATE PAPER TOPIC OR DEBILITATING NEUROLOGICAL DISEASE?

5. Speaking of which: today I ventured into the library For Science. UIUC actually has two libraries: the undergraduate library, which is underground (no lie!) and has a pretty standard open-stacks layout, and the Library, which is four stories and divided into separate collections and slightly intimidating. I ventured into the Modern Languages collection after some Czech linguistics, and managed to escape without incident. However, along my way I noticed something fascinating:

CARD CATALOGS.

There are hallways FULL of honest-to-goodness paper-based card catalogs. I don't know if they're current. I don't know if they're relevant. But they are THERE, and they made me smile.

(Dating myself here: I have never actually used a physical card catalog in my life. My earliest library memories involve learning to use the microfilm machine instead.)