[3 million gil!]

Wow, 24 hours and Cloud STILL hasn't wasted a million Gil yet. I'm up to 7,500 GP and counting... I'll be taking prizes exclusively when I start racing chocobos.

[Sega CD Nuttiness]

Try running a CD copier program on the games that have long load times. That helped me out a lot, and I just keep the copies in that giant case with the original (not like there isn't enough space)

[My dog is going to die]

I hate losing pets. I don't know if I could have waited several days for a pet to be put to sleep. I'd probably cry the whole time, knowing they were gonna be gone on a certain day at a certain time.

 

Hang tough, man. I'm sure if Zeke could talk, he'd tell you he doesn't want you to be sad.

[My hard drive is dying]

I tend to ignore most hard drive errors. If it refuses to register in the BIOS or on the controller, OR if I get a message saying I need to contact customer service on PowerMax, then I worry.

 

I run multiple drives on all my machines. One has a dual boot of 98SE so that it is always ready to run even if I have a data corruption or a hard disk failure (the latter hasn't happened yet, knock on woodgrain). The others typically have one drive for the OS and the other as a data drive.

[Suicide... Tell a friend!]

On my first deployment I met a friend in the damage control department. We chatted many times while on duty, and shared some common ideas about the ship and the Navy. I also met another friend who became a plumber.

 

Not too long after we got back to our home port, the second friend broke bad news to me. Our mutual friend in the damage control department was found hanging from the safety net 20 feet above #1 pump room. IIRC, he was found by an electrician whom I worked with later.

 

I couldn't believe it--everyone I knew thought the fellow was doing fine. If one is ever thinking suicide, they need to get hold of several of their closest friends and start talking. I've been there, and I've had times where there were weeks back to back that I wasn't sure if I was gonna make it. My closest friends, and in some cases some strangers, pulled me through it.

Oh, and one other thing...suicide is NOT painless. Far from it.

 

Suicide affects everyone. May I offer my condolences for your loss.

[Hunker Down]

Glad your house wasn't damaged too bad, but I'd still be worried about the carpet pads in the master bedroom.

 

Best wishes, though. I hope everything goes well.