Viruses and Cell Phones

This morning a nasty redirected virus continued to plague Caroline's laptop. The problem seemed to originate from downloading a sunrise video clip from Limewire--a file sharing program that John has warned me about countless times. There was confusion as to what the problem was: Internet Explorer, Google, or Windows itself. Windows pop-ups bombarded the laptop, each claiming to have detected a deadly virus and warning the computer would exploded unless a credit card number was provided immediately. It reeked of a scam. But the internet browser had been hijacked, and navigating to a website was impossible. With the aid of my laptop and a thumb drive, Caroline got AVG and Malwarebytes installed, but while each found the virus, neither would dispose of it (for free). We turned to Spyware Doctor, since almost a year ago I had purchased it for my computers and you are allowed 5 installs with your purchase. It went to work on Caroline's computer and in 3 hours had found over 300 nasties.

Also during all this, Caroline began debating over a new cell phone. There are so many choices!! Her current contract expired in three days--should she switch providers as well? What model phone? What type of plan? Internet capabilities was a must, mainly the ability to check email and use Skype. With some basic parameters in mind, we headed out to the shopping mall.

Northland was packed, as usual. We checked out all of the major cell phone companies and gathered information from each. None of the sales reps were extremely helpful. And as soon as you mention the iPhone, that's the only thing they want to sell you. It almost felt like we were shopping for a car! It was overwhelming and frustrating.

To lift our spirits, Caroline suggested a movie night and fajitas. We ran through the grocery store for steak and avocado and on the way home, stopped by an electronics store with the notion that maybe a third party could give us some unbiased cell phone answers. Almost immediately, Caroline found the phone she wanted. Within ten minutes we were headed home again, new phone in hand.

As I ran inside to dump off our groceries before heading to Blockbuster, I ran into Hillie who was just getting ready to leave. She was heading home to Pyramid, located a few hours north. We drove her to the train station to see her off with tentative plans to see her again for Easter. She arrived home safely later that night.

Caroline and I browsed Blockbuster for some shallow movies with pretty boys, but only one in six actually fit the bill. The others were much deeper, introspective movies that also looked good. We had a lot of TV hours ahead of us! Then we ran through another grocery store to get some ice cream, since we still had BROWNIES at home! Might as well go all the way, right?? :)



That night we had fajitas for dinner (made by me, who has never cooked fajitas before in my life) and settled down to watch our first movie, The Narrows. We'd picked it because it looked straight-forward and angsty, but it proved to be a much stronger movie than that. We were surprised by the complexity and subject matter and although we weren't prepared, still enjoyed it very much--more than we anticipated. I give it two thumbs up: the story will suck you in and the ending will surprise you.

Next, after refueling with brownies, ice cream and tea, we watched Mao's Last Dancer--a movie I'd seen advertised EVERYWHERE (on buses, billboards, and video stores) but knew nothing about. I probably wouldn't have watched this movie on my own--I just don't go for true-life stories of any sort, let alone ones about ballet--but I'd recommend this one to everyone. The story is only strengthened by the knowledge that it actually happened, and the on-location cinematography is beautiful. Whether or not you like ballet has nothing to do with the impact this movie creates. It is a story of possibility and triumph, and will definitely give you some things to think about.

Goodnight!