I Hate Microsoft Windows(tm)

I finished with my first class this morning somewhat dreading the six hours between. I thought I would spend it by driving home having a free lunch then doing some reading for four hours then return back to McCormick. Windows had a different plan for me. I got home around 1:00 and had a quick lunch. No problem, everything going according to plan. Then my dad emerges from the basement and informs me that "the computer is broke." Now this is to be expected it is a Windows machine. So I head down into the dark, cold and damp basement thinking I would spend maybe 30 minutes and then I could get to some reading for class. The first problem was that the machine had been taken over by the "SBC Yahoo DSL" install. Not only does this software suite install it's own browser, email client, tcp/ip interface, and PPPoE login module but it install some various spyware programs. I knew it would be a problem the moment I installed the DSL three weeks ago but I thought it might be fine to install if I told my parents not to use the browser and not to use IE. Well, that didn't work. It took an hour alone to uninstall all the SBC crap. The list of spyware that was on the computer was endless (and reinstalling as fast as I could remove it). TV Media, EzOla, Web Offers, Cash Back, and on and on. I finally got the computer into safe mode and removed most of the spyware. With a few exceptions, I had to use three separate spyware removal programs to get them all! Spybot Search and Destroy, AdAware, HijackThis. After I cleaned everything (I hope). I had to setup the Linksys router to handle the PPPoE login for the SBC DSL (now that the computer wasn't doing it, which I don't think it ever should). Now, finally, I pray that the computer is clean and working with the router.

The problem I think is that my father is going to a whole bunch of porn sites as well as my sister going to a whole bunch of "punk rawk" sites that are selling stuff. AND they were using the "SBC Browser" which was just a shell for IE so they were being infected that way.

I never thought I would have to have "the talk" with my dad about going to porn sites and the problems it causes!

By the time I was finished it was 5:00pm and I had to rush to class. Blah. I was going to blog today about Post-{Modernism|Traditionalism} and a key image that would help people see that it is not relativism! But that will have to be for another day.

One good thing that happened this afternoon was when my dad and I were chatting about politics. My dad said the way our society is going is not dependent on how we vote. He used the imagery of an airplane with a "right wing" and a "left wing" they are both holding the plane up in the air heading in the same direction. He said no matter how we vote its all going to crash. Then he and I complained about fascism. Weee!