Starting over

My PC crashed and burned at the start of last week - cue wailing and gnashing of teeth ...

Slowly but surely, i've had to reinstall everything from the get-go and once again i've lost all my photos, music, funny stuff ... the works :@(

I don't quite understand the 'how' it happened, but more to the point : Why, oh why, do i never create backups ?

Because (small 'a') : Like anything really bad, i never think it'll happen to me
Because (small 'b') : I'm a bit of a dumbass

All of which to explain why my little corner of the web has been a bit neglected of late.