superfishy?

They don't call them "viruses" and "anti-virus programs" for nothing. The metaphor is quite apt. Last year, my computer was infested with more diseases than a 17th-century gutter whore, and I took it to some geeks with a business and they cleaned it up and installed PC-Cillin (or something antibiotickey) on it and then everything was fine for a year.

And then a couple days ago I was notified that my subscription was about to be up. And I dutifully got online (for FOUR FREAKING HOURS) and downloaded the new version and some $5 add on* and the next morning got it to install itself and felt pretty good about taking this prophylactic step, instead of showing back up at the geeks' place with spyware and viruses and everything else in about three months and dropping another $150.

But. It would appear that in the intervening year, the PC-Cillin company got some Faith-Based Initiative funding from King W, because it is now completely pro-abstinence. It will not let me onto the internets. All of its help functions involve connecting to the internets (which is not so helpful, as you can imagine, when the problem is that it won't let you connect to the internets). So, I went what seems to be the typical route with this whole abstinence thing - I turned it off, and here I am skanking around with no protection whatsoever.

I know that I should work on this whole PC-Cillin thing until it is working and acting like a condom and not like a repressed wingnut. I really know I should. It's probably just a setting. I know I should work on it now.

*I don't know what it was for. I don't know if it downloaded and was installed. I did pay $5 for it.