I clicked on of Google's fabulous results from my question, and instead of sending me to the page I requested, a spam search page loaded, complete with pop-up ad. ("You're computer is infected with viruses!!! Would you like to scan??? YES or NO.") I clicked the X button to close the pop-up (which is what you should always do, but you knew that, right?) and shut the bogus page and went about my business.
One minute later, my precious Firefox crashed. CRASHED. I sent an error report, rebooted and started again.
And once again, my search results redirected me to a spam page. (A different one, but it had the same stench.) I figured out, if I clicked "back," Firefox would take me to the page I was trying to get to. But after a few more minutes, Firefox crashed again.
I started to suspect that my sweet little laptop had contracted a ITD. (Internet Transmitted Disease.) My suspicions were confirmed a few minutes later when my wireless connection reconnected itself to the Internet after I had disabled it and then proceeded to LOCK ME OUT. "You cannot shut down this function. It is being used by someone else on the system." Oh really? And who would that be? THE BABY?!? No one else was at home!
Thus began the witchhunt for the elusive malware. I've run all kinds of scans (including McAfee, which has been running on my system this whole time,
Which is why I'm writing this on our back-up laptop, which is normally reserved for the kids' computer games because it's glacially slow. (Also? The wireless Internet card only works if I have the laptop on the dining room table, pointed at the north wall, while I wear a hat made of tinfoil and refuse to answer the phone. And even then, it drops its connection every 12 minutes, just to keep you guessing.) Corey took my precious laptop with him to work today to have his IT department look at it, and it only took me about 30 minutes without a computer to start feeling shaky and crabby and paranoid. (I believe that's the first step in detox, isn't it?)
If Corey's team isn't able to find anything, I'm thinking about calling the Geek Squad. They charge $150 (GULP!) to remove malware or viruses, and that bugs me, because I've got some geek blood in me and I hate to pay someone else to do something that's usually a simple task. But gosh darn it, if I can't find it, I can't remove it. And if I can't remove it, I can't have my laptop back. And if I can't have my laptop back, I'll go crazy.
CRAZY!
You know what else bugs me? (This is steam of consciousness; can you tell?) I had all sorts of posts I was going to write the last few days. Wednesday, I was going to post a video of Teyla that shows what a monkey she is these days and link to my 5 Minutes for Parenting post, which explains why eating in restaurants is dead to me for the next year or so. (Hint: the video illustrates the post.) Yesterday, I was going to post My Big Story, which is teetering on the brink of being old news. And today, I was going to post a link to an Easter iMix I made this week (before the computer got funkified), because I love Easter and I love music, and I think Easter gets cheated in this regard.
But maybe my computer will be resurrected (I am SO RESISTING THE JOKES, people, because I don't think they are all that respectful) by tomorrow, so I can post the music.
I sure hope so. Because otherwise?
Crazy. CRAZY!
(I'm suddenly reminded of Carmen's "It may feel like Friday night, but Sunday's on the way." Do you remember that song? It's a little too dramatic for the mix, but the lyrics are classic.)
