Technological Era

I begin today's blog by stating that I am so pissed at myself. I got a stupid virus. I clicked on that link, you know? The one that is screaming, "I am soooo a virus!" Just because, maybe instead of a virus, it's a link to the meaning of life. How could I not click on the link? Well, the next step was to uninstall AIM off my computer. So now I have no friends, none of my thousands of away messages, and no access to my family. Still, the computer immediately slows down, completely not caring about the sacrifice I just made for it. I just shut 'er down and wait until I can take her someplace to get better, which as it turns out, is the library. Yeah, they have sweet people here. And it didn't cost me anything -- take that Valpo EIS desk.

I have to explain to the computer guy (and you can picture him in your head) that I have a virus and how I got the virus. He laughs kindly (so maybe he's not that guy), and gives me a thirty page book to complete. This book contains instructions on how to salvage my computer on my own. Yes, I can hear the widespread gasp. "Annika's going to try this on her own???" That's what I tried to tell him, but he said I could do it. So after scanning, I have four viruses, and 29 cases of spyware. Stupid link. Do you want to know how long it took me to do all thirty pages? All the day long. I am completely not kidding. After I had cleansed the computer in ways that made me feel invasive, I re-downloaded aim only to have it pop up the annoying away message link, meaning that yes, my whole computer could be re-contaminated. I have to re-scan for viruses, and re-scan for spyware, after of course, again uninstalling aim. Then I have to continue as before.

Now after all this, I finally have aim, but I can't get into my blog, hotmail, anything requiring a password unless I go down to the computer lab. In the rain. Uphill both ways. So I sacrificed all this, dear friends, to keep aim on my computer, much to the chagrin of the help desk guy. Says it's crap and I have to agree.