Two questions...?

First, is there any way I can disable those complete obnoxious "here's what everybody else is doing on LJ" ads that now pop up when I go into my own page. It used to be there'd be just the latest messages on my blog, which was fine, it let me see if there was anything new. Now it's these ads for "OMGod" (or whatever the blog they're promoting is)... horrible. Can I disable that "feature"?

Second question. As I mentioned, during the festivities Sunday my microwave oven croaked - and the microwa...