This morning, my video card committed suicide, shooting out a very impressive burst of orange flame that I was thankfully able to extinguish. No other components were harmed during the making of this conflagration. The video card was not a suicide bomber. I suppose it had come to know the other components it shared the case with over the past three years, and had decided that it was too depressed to live. All this is a pity. But this explains the computer display problems I’ve experienced over the past few weeks. The video card has been replaced (and I have had a heart-to-heart with the new video card, persuading it that there are plenty of reasons to live and that there will be love for it guaranteed by me) and the display is much better. But between this unexpected technical snafu, and getting unexpectedly caught up in a very fun novel (of which more anon), the podcasts I had intended to complete this afternoon will have to be postponed another day. There are lessons to this story: Nurture the components in your computer or they may spontaneously combust. And be sure your computer case is not a bleak house!