Good news regarding my brick:

After a few more tries I was able to re-flash my N800. It took pulling the battery and restarting with the Home button 3 times but I finally got the USB indicator. I jumped from the 26 to the 38 firmware.

Prior to the brickage, I had just installed VideoCenter. Well, maybe not "just" but I'm pretty sure that that the pre-brick power cycling was the first one since installing VideoCenter. I'd had Canola on there for a while with no issues.

thanks guys! I'm back up and running. This an awesome forum