Con or Bust auction ends today!

A list of all the cool auction items ending today. Spread the word! We have just enough right now, projected, to send all ten of the fans of color who've asked to WisCon—assuming that no-one needs extras (like, uh, food), flights don't go up, more last-minute requests don't come in, and no-one flakes on their auction bids. So go, look, bid on the cool (and surprisingly cheap, some of it) stuff, or just donate if you are able. Thanks!

alas for packrat tendencies

When I came home tonight I dropped my iPod on the floor. After refusing to play, it displays a red "X" when I try to reset it or get it into disk mode per the online support instructions. So I suspect I have wrecked the hard drive, again.

(I think this is the third one. Maybe the fourth.)

I should really get a Flash-based player, because, obviously, carrying around a small hard drive is just always going to end badly for a klutz like me. But Chad has way more music than would fit on any currently-available one (even if they weren't so much more expensive), and every so often I go through the songs of his that I haven't rated yet and find stuff I know and/or like, and I never listen to music except when away from my computer, and I like the ability to watch video too, and and and . . . Like I said, packrat tendencies.

I console myself with the truth that this is a very First World problem to have.

Anyway. Have any of you successfully overcome a tendency to break portable hard drives? Any cases you'd recommend? I use a Contour Showcase, but if anything is actually going to help when I drop the thing while the drive is spinning, obviously it'd be worth it.