crap
Stupid hardware. So I replaced both the SCSI controller and the SCSI cable today, thinking that would end my problems, but no. It seems that both the orginal controller and the new SCSI HD had/have problems. Unfortunately, I didn't figure out that the new drive had a problem until i was about 95% of the way in copying 15GB of files to the new drive. All of sudden it started making some violent metal against metal sounds, and the data transfer haulted. Seems that everything in cache from that point onward never was flushed to disk due to the blocking IO process with the horked drive. So even though I had successfully logged completely out, all of my Mozilla and XFCE4 settings got completely wiped out. So i've spent the past 2 hours doing my best to recreate them. The worst part is attempting to remember all of my bookmarks (if i could remember them, i wouldn't have bookmarked them, now would I??) and over time, the form passwords that I've saved for a few dozen sites.
Also, i'm in the midst of ripping & encoding Frontier House, disk 2 for Denise. Netflix has been doing some really odd stuff in the way they ship replacement DVDs out. First we had to wait a full week before we could report one as lost in the mail, and now she's stuck with the 2nd DVD, even though she requested the first before it. So hopefully if I just rip it all for her, she can ship #2 back, and just watch it from the ripped version.