Manuel Bouyer drunkenly mumbled...
> 
> Either your HD is failing, or the filesystem on the disk is corrupted.
> In the first case you should have error messages on console.

since i don't babysit my console, i didn't see this until .mrg. pointed out
the very same thing, and yes:

sd1(esp0:3:0):  Check Condition on CDB: 0x08 1c dd 60 10 00
    SENSE KEY:  Media Error
   INFO FIELD:  1891681
     ASC/ASCQ:  Unrecovered Read Error

looks like it's time to find  new disk for this thing.  although it is /var/log
so maybe i'll just run it until it up and dies.  who needs logs anyway ;0

thanks,

-brian