Phendrana Drifts

So as near as I can tell, our computer has four problems, of varying degrees of complexity and annoyance.

1. The sasser worm was downloaded onto our computer. 13 days ago to be exact, as a result of my downloading of a certain computer program on Kazaa. Not that I condone that sort of thing. But that was the start of something very bad. Why was our computer susceptible, you might ask? Well, I can't say 100% for certain, but McAfee VirusScan did pick it up, quarantined it, and cleaned it. As well, I didn't download the security update from Microsoft in due course. Certainly my fault as the system's administrator. Obviously in the time between its downloading and the detection it still found a way to install itself on our computer. I'm not quite savvy enough to understand how, but I know no one ran the program.

2. Five separate spyware/adware programs installed themselves on our computer, a direct result of the sasser worm. Some of these suckers were easy to remove, one remains... and I've tried a lot to get rid of it. Yes, including formatting both of our hard drives. How it escaped that is actually beyond my computer knowledge. But it is nasty.

3. Our computer continues to take an inordinate amount of time to shut down or restart. Again, no good idea why, and I'm certainly not computer illiterate, so how or why this is occuring is beyond me.

4. Our CD Writer no longer reads CD's. At all. The drive is properly connected (or at least it was) and the computer recognizes it as a drive, but CD's inserted simply aren't read. The old CD drive I tossed in there doesn't work either, but it seems to be a different problem. Plus that drive is ancient and I would believe it has physical problems, like the door not opening (which seems to be the case).

One sick computer. But I've learned lots. Especially about our various programs meant to make these things easier (or at least recoverable) like VirusScan, Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy. Not to mention I've learned tonnes about viruses.

Computer now works. I am going to bed.

Sick doesn't even begin to cover it. Stupid sasser virus. Stupid me for not seeing the problem sooner.

Step one: Backup important parts of 80GB hard drive on 40GB hard drive.

Wow, our computer is sick. Very sick. I suspect that I have a long night ahead of me. Fortunately I have the nice keyboard. And Goodfellas.

Blog as wish pot? I wonder... for example, if I were to wish for the Goodfellas Special Edition, would it arrive in two days? It would seem so. What should I suggest next in you blog?

Goodfellas, easily one of my favourite ten movies of all time, just came out in special edition DVD (with two commentaries and a tonne of features, nudge, nudge, wink, wink Allie). Which of course is great. But then I read this. Goodfellas II? I would say it couldn't be done, but then that Godfather Part II didn't suck, did it? If Scorsese, Pileggi and Liotta are on board, obviously so am I.

For us to live any other way was nuts. Uh, to us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day, and worried about their bills, were dead. I mean they were suckers. They had no balls. If we wanted something we just took it. If anyone complained twice they got hit so bad, believe me, they never complained again.

AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long. The world's most perfect song?

We now have a new keyboard. I feel almost like a new person. It is gorgeous. And once again I can control Winamp with the single push of a button.

I love salmon. Come to think of it, I like most things that are pink. Take that however you like.

I will be the first person to admit I only have a rudimentary knowledge of basketball, but one thing I do know, the very best players by far come from the United States. So much so, that the American Olympic Team is not supposed to lose any games. But, here they go again.

Ice cream makes everything better.

Despite Allie's suggestion in the comments of my last post, it isn't that good of a story. But how the keyboard got broken was I had decided to clean the keyboard. It was disgusting. Gross. So I make a slightly soapy solution, grab a cloth, and start yanking keys out. I wipe the board. It is even more gross underneath the keys, if that is possible. I shake the keyboard a bit to get the gribleys out. Dry the keys put it back together and voila, each stroke causes about seven characters to appear. Hmm. Not good.

Upon taking apart the keyboard, I discover the thin sheet of plastic and circuits that is no longer able to fit in the right place. Boo.

I broke the keyboard. Do you realize how hard it is to type without a keyboard?

I am so tired. I am in mid-Kill Bill, but the events of the past while are so draining. Work is good, but exhausting (in a good way). Being married is, well much the same as living together. But a friend of mine thinks that is the ideal sign - if things drastically change then what does that say? - so that is going very well. I miss the kids, who are returning tomorrow. But wow. Death. Again. As I said this morning, I guess our family is getting very good at dealing with it. The first time I experienced the death of someone close was in 1988. I went 12 years between that and the next one. I could use another break like that.

Life is unfair. I feel so mortal. I guess death does that. Good bye Chris. Sorry I didn't get to know you better.

Problem #62 with the work computer

Why does it take 6 minutes for PowerPoint to open, and what do I do while I wait?

Problem #63 with the work computer

Why can it only send one PowerPoint slide to the printer every two minutes?

Going to work on a Sunday. Boo.

Microsoft to buy Nintendo?

Interesting rumour. Very interesting. I don't think it is good for me, but it would make Shigeru Miyamoto a bizzilionaire, which he deserves. Well, maybe it wouldn't. Does Miyamoto-san own Nintendo shares? I certainly don't mind the idea of Nintendo just making software and Game Boys (unlike some other fanboys) but still, Nintendo makes a kick ass product and I would hate to see all that talent go to waste on just being rich but not making games anymore.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

President George W. Bush

Priceless.

It is too bad I didn't clip or save the story, because I can't find an online copy anywhere. Nevertheless, over the past week or so, the Government of Alberta's Public Affiars Bureau (PAB) has come under fire for being, well, partisan. The PAB, at least as far as I can tell, is about 130 people who work on the overall communications and messages the Government of Alberta sends out. Every department has their own communications shop to be sure, but the PAB is a coordinating and strategic body that does a lot of things. It thinks about when a good news story should go out to the public for example. Or what communications message should go out from the government in response to a crisis. Political stuff. Partisan? Well, that depends. I certainly subscribe to the idea that politicians don't just govern, the run for elections. As the fictional President Bartlett said in the West Wing:

Make no mistake, I certainly don't want to see all public employees working their darndest to re-elect the government in power. But when it comes to the communications arm of a government, we demand a government that communicates its intent to the governed. We demand a government that is accountable to our questions. We demand a not simply to only be heard, but also to be led. You can't do that without communications staff. Well you could, but communicating to 3,000,000 takes a lot out of people. Of course, it is unfair to those parties who aren't the government. I'm sure the Liberal Opposition for example would love 100 people working solely to communicate the Opposition message to Albertans. I don't have a good answer, and I do believe in a healthy democracy (which requires a opposition party and alternative to the government of the day). That said, I do believe that the party that wins gets to govern. And spend public money. And yes, communicate their messages to the governed population. And if nothing else, what messages would a non-partisan PAB talk about? And who would be accountable for those messages? At least now, I know that the messages come from an elected government.

So I am actively thinking about ditching my current e-mail account for the Gmail. Thoughts? Anyone else using Gmail and loving it? Hating it? I'm not a big Hotmail kind of person, although they are eventually upping their storage capacity too. Regardless, I have phendrana@gmail.com in case I decide to take the plunge. I have also dallied with the idea of hosting my e-mail on my own site with the account duncan@phendrana.ca. I worry about spam, although my host provides a couple of interesting spam tools, I'm not so confident they work super well. Heck, I don't even know if Gmail's spam tools are any good. I will grant Shaw this, their spam detection is amazing.

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