Zombies vs. Computer Eating Viruses
Zombies- 0 point
Computer Eating Viruses: 1 Point
The winner: Me, but only by a slight margin and with a lot of help from my Dad, who is like a computer genius. (Yes, I'm bragging but he's great with computers. He's a network administer at a school district and can pretty much solve any computer problem.)
And because my Dad is a computer whiz, my computer is blocked by a powerful firewall, virus protection programs and a host of other things that I don't know the names to but I do know that they work. Except for this computer eating virus that came out of nowhere and devoured my computer whole. One minute I'm browsing orthodontic sites (don't shake your heads in disagreement, I have those sorts of sites blocked to protect my children) and the next I'm being told by a pop up screen to download an eighty dollar program to save my computer.
I refused such acts of terrorism and they, whoever the creeps are, decided to wipe the programs off my computer, hide all my documents and photo files and destroy my operating system. They were like zombies and zeroed right in for the brains of my computer.
I was almost crying with frustration. Most of my files are backed up, I am a child of a computer guy, but not all of them. And how their program ever managed to sneak pass all the levels of security on my computer is just amazing. Terrible but amazing.
No, zombies did not eat my laptop and my wonderful, addictive access to the Internet. After a week my Dad was finally able to save my files and my computer. He had to download my files onto another computer to even gain access to my writings and my photos and then he had to completely wipe everything off my computer and reinstall my operating system.
But for a week I didn't have my computer. What to do with myself? Of course, I did find things to do before AOL graced itself on my computer in the nineties but now I didn't have access to writing my blog, to editing my writings, to preparing my photos to sell them or to surfing the Internet.
In desperation, which shows you just how much time I shouldn't be spending on the web, I took my iPod and tried to read all the websites that keep me informed of all the terrible things happening in the world right now. The print was tiny, the scrolling was impossible, and typing involved feats of patience that I usually only need when trying to get children ready for school on time.
So I gave up. (and you can't type an entire blog entry on an iPod. You need the patience of a Saint or the fingers of a 24/7 texting teenager.) In the meantime, I didn't spend as much time stressing myself out over all the crises in the world that I can't do anything about anyway. And I have to admit it was pleasant. I didn't have to worry about zombie attacks, stupid news that focuses on politicians showing off their supposed assets instead of reporting real news, or wondering whatever human hair really is used to make a dough conditioner used to bake bread. (Tasty. Have you had your human hair today?)
And I'm sure that now that my computer is back up and running, I'll be back to checking on the status of the entire world and the ingredients used in products that I'm sure our Grandma's didn't have on their pantry shelves. But this forced hiatus has reminded me that I don't need instant access to unfolding events. Life is too short to be worrying all the time. I need to save my worrying for more important things...like wondering about the dietary preferences of zombies; do they prefer bread with human hair in it or do they stick to the usual low carb/high brain diets? And how would I figure out these life altering questions if I didn't have my wonderful computer?
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