superflea

Long one today. Stick with me, mmkay?

To the person or persons who created this lovely piece of spyware that has infected my machine... I have to say that I really don't know what to hope for. I don't know if I pray that your miserable existence comes to an unpleasant end in some shady but anonymous corner of the planet, such that I'll never know that justice has been served, but maybe get that brief sense of karmic equilibrium that suggests somehow, somewhere, a piano covered in razor blades and full of rabid mice with tiny claws that could crack a safe has fallen on you.

Or instead, I don't know if I hope that one day I'll find you. Because, you see, you've caused my life to be so very much fun this weekend that I should probably thank you personally and on a scale commensurate with the delight you've shared with me.

Seriously - I don't understand what drives these idiots. He's wanged up my computer such that my most likely recourse will be to fucking reinstall windows -- AGAIN. I've had to do this twice already in the past two months (one general 'it's just time to reinstall and clean everything up' and one hard drive failure that those of you who have been following the program all season will probably remember). I shouldn't have to do it again. And I shouldn't have to do it because some shithead decided it would be really neat to write some little app that would hose my computer.

Here's the fun part - I'm a smart surfer. No file-sharing apps. Router. Firewall. All the security stuff you'd expect. I never click on attachments from strangers, no matter how large they promise my penis will get. I don't even open unexpected attachments from people I know, even if they assure me in all solemnity that someone like to date with me!!! I never let any application install itself over the web, despite vows that this toolbar will make my life easier, my teeth whiter, and my enemies tremble.

So I can understand how my dogged refusal to ride the short surfboard around the internet would bug any number of script kiddies who are just dying to get something... anything... into my system. (I keep telling them I'm just not that kind of girl, but they never listen.)

And what do they do? Not only have they come up with a little gem that doesn't ask to be installed (it's just embedded in a random web page somehow), but it makes a bunch of fucking registry changes!!! GREAT.

Ad-Aware can't find it. Spybot can't squish it. I gather it's pretty new, because all the complaints (no solutions, just complaints) I can find about it are dated within the last couple of days - the exact timeframe where I got nailed with it. I mentioned all of this to Microsoft Help in my original email. Two rounds of email later, their suggestion is now "download Ad-Aware". My suggestion is that Microsoft start hiring guys who don't only have short-term memory. Argh.

I think I'm just gonna reinstall. It'll take me an hour, and I'm not too worried about it. But it's inconvenient. And I just want to know why some dipshit would go to all this trouble just to ruin my weekend and make me have to reinstall my OS. What did I ever do to him? He's never gonna know he got me. Asshat.

Update: mad shout out to the fine people at Lavasoft, who this weekend put out a new patch to squish the unpleasantness. This stuff still makes me nervous, and I'd still like to use the heads of those responsible as tees at the driving range.

Oops. Missed again. Clumsy me.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

In other news - I saw both versions of Dawn of the Dead this weekend. I have to say - the remake was absolutely brilliant zombie-blasting fun. It's a popcorn movie, to be sure, but I enjoyed it almost as much as the sublime 28 Days Later. If you or somebody you love has been affected by zombies, I urge you to go and check the new one out.

I didn't care as much for the original. The reviews of the remake have in many cases suggested that it's a more technically savvy spectacle that doesn't have a lot of the sophistication of the original. Maybe I just don't get Romero, but I didn't notice a whole lot of sophistication. Just a whole lot of blue-skinned zombies lurching slowly through a mall. If I want to see that, I'll just go... y'know... to a real mall. The new one may have the very best 'head getting blown off' shot in the history of guys getting their heads blown off. And I assure you, dear friends, that I know a thing or two about guys getting their heads blown off.

I also picked up Abre Los Ojos - the Spanish film on which Vanilla Sky was based, and a Japanese film by a chap named Ryuhei Kitamura called Versus. My favourite quote from Rotten Tomatos (83% fresh) reads: "while on many levels, it's a poorly written, hammily acted, cheaply produced piece of crap, damn it's got some good ass-kicking". I've heard his name from my film friends in the know, suggesting that he's a director worth checking out. And they had it at Future Shop yesterday while I was browsing. So there.

The car continues to be splendid. Our fridge is now great with actual food - the spoils of no less than three separate and excellent food-sellin' establishments, which I can now drive to on a whim. It's delightful.

You know - I really want to join the SG:NHS group. Is it weird that I have an English degree and can't for the life of me think of a work of literature that has influenced my life? I don't think I've ever had a formative experience of any type.