It is safe to say that I am relatively fucking relieved to retrieve all of the lost files on my porn machine ... thanks to everyone who offered advice. I still don't know what happened, nor can I even explain how I recovered what appeared to be gone forever. To me the computer is like a car -- I can operate it well enough and I have a vague understanding of the science behind its existence, but if something goes wrong I am utterly baffled at how to fix it. I am not ashamed of this ignorance, it is simply a fact, and I trust that God has blessed me with other areas of expertise to make up for this shortcoming (although I have yet to discover what they are).

I am currently in the market for a sun lamp to help ease my seasonal depression, which has resurfaced with great vigor over the past month. The cocktail of medications (prescribed or otherwise) that I gulp down daily go a long way toward getting me out the door and into what some call "life," but after one of the most positive, constructive and gregarious summers I've had in ten years, the creep is back along with the flooding rains and grey winds, so I can't discount the effect of mere weather on my fragile psyche. It really is a drag living in the world's richest, most powerful country, isn't it?

In other, probably not completely unrelated news, I've resigned as film editor of Resonance. Too many bumped stories, not enough freedom to justify my unpaid work, and just a general schism between the aesthetics of the magazine and my own. Call it mid-life crisis if you like, but I don't have enough time left to write about what other people do unless I'm getting paid to do it (we all have to do things we don't care about if we want to stay indoors and eat -- most of us, anyway). Don't take this as a rejection of Resonance, I'm still going to write articles for them and I'll be doing what I can to keep the film section together until they find someone to take my place, I just can't accept the responsibility of "film editor" anymore ... I have to start focusing my energies on projects that will bring fame, riches or personal satisfaction (I'm most interested in that last thing).

So if anyone wants the gig, let me or Monko know ... there's a lot of free DVDs in it for you.