It was bound to happen sometime. I've had such good luck so far. I didn't cross my fingers before clicking "Install". I didn't smile at enough people last week. The stars were aligned against me.

For whatever reason, the 10.2.5 update was not my friend. It seemingly ate my preferences folder from my home directory. This may seem a small thing, but after an hour of using my computer I began to get very annoyed. At first I just ignored all the little signs that something was up. I just chalked it up to "10.2.5 reset some things". Finally I began to investigate. Lo and behold, my ~/Library/Preferences directory was looking very very slim. I began to curse and scream at Apple. How could they do this to me? I did not back up my prefs. (no clue why not...rest assured I will in the future)

So after crying for a while, and beginning a plan to re-construct my valuable preferences and get important things working, (Mail.app) I thought to myself "self, you should look in the Trash". Guess what I found there? Yup, a nice shiny...or not so shiny...folder named "Preferences". Sheesh Apple...of all the places to put it, could you have put it anywhere more obvious. Figures I'd look there last.

The strangest part of all of this is I was up and running for a while. I of course restarted after the install and then I launched all the usual apps. Mail was up and running fine for a few hours. Somewhere between the restart and the Moment of Discovery, the Preferences folder found its way to the Trash.

Phew. What a load of fun. I've yet to try to figure out any actual reason for the above. If anyone knows...(S.Jobs, this better not be a nasty prank because you don't like us shading windows ;) ) clue me in.