Or at least, so we hope.
SuperGirlfriend went in for a check up yesterday. It's one of the things that had been deviling us the last few days... this bad luck streak we've been on had been coming pretty close to lickin' us, it seemed only too likely that this would be the knock out punch... that the condition she'd been so assiduously dieting these last few years trying to avoid, the one that all the other women in her family inevitably fall victim to... had finally come knocking on our door.
But, her blood sugar was normal... not just okay, not just doing better, not even 'good'... it was normal. As in, not a hint, not a speck, not a smidge of the elevated glucose level we'd been dreading word of.
So that's excellent.
Beyond that, we've seen another small but extremely satisfying victory over the forces of chaos and entropy -- upon following Mike Norton's advice and downloading a fabulous free program called Ad-Aware, we finally seem to have beaten the goddam pop ups. I can't tell you what a relief it is to be on the computer for longer than five minutes at a stretch without having to deal with ads for casinos, ads for adult dating sites, ads for cut rate pharmaceuticals, ads telling us our computer is not safe, ads for I don't know what the hell all else, all popping like a gun belt full of bullets some Jimmy Stewart character had just kicked into a campfire, hoping to distract the rustlers (or the Comanches) long enough to let him get to the rifle (most likely a Winchester '73) hidden underneath the bench seat on the buckboard.
I, personally, was astonished to watch Ad-Aware going through our hard drive and harvesting no less than 168 different problems that our Symantec Anti-Virus and Yahoo Anti-Spy and No-Adware programs had all missed. (That last one, due to a complete lapse of judgement and intelligence on my part, cost us $37 to 'register', and it still didn't work. I have hopes we'll be able to get a refund, but not high hopes.) But, in the end, I finally rechecked Mike Norton's email, found the program he'd recommended (which I'd mistaken No-Adware for, due to the proprietor sneakily setting up a website one letter off from Ad-Aware), downloaded that... and we're free at last, free at last, O Lord, hallelujah, free at last.
Mike Norton is officially declared Hero of the Month at Castle Anthrax. (Dr. Piglet, Dr. Winston...practice your art.)
We've also had a lot of automotive problems this last week or so, and yesterday the car broke down once again. Right now it's over waiting to be looked at... but I think, if this is truly the turn of the tide, that that's going to turn out okay, too.
And if not, well, we're young and we've got our health... (and a virus free computer)... what do we need with a car?
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So this Boy Scout, couldn't have been older than eleven, is holding up this kinda chubby looking Scotch Pine. It was.... ehhhh... okay...
Excellent news!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to SG for all her hard work and the resulting check-up.
As for the computer solution, I apologize for being not mentioning it earlier -- I was so initially locked on the worm you'd been infected with (which was likely part of what opened your system's security to the severe spy-/ad-ware infection) that I simply stopped thinking beyond it until Scott's mentioning spy-ware, which reactivated the thought process.
You should find that Mozilla will do a solid job of protecting you from new pop-ups. Between that, updated security software, and occasionally running Ad-Aware (once a week is likely a good regimen) you 'll likely find recent problems something that won't come back. Don't be concerned when Ad-Aware still comes back with a list, as it also notes some fairly innocuous things related to cookies.
A fine ending to a week!