Witz DOESN'T Pick: Viruses

Everyone I know has been sick recently. I've had a clingy sore throat for the last two weeks, my roommates have been fighting off the same sort of thing, my sister has been sick, and even my family's cat, Tucker, has worms, which inspired my dad to write this note to my mom: "TUCKER BARFED WORMS LAST NIGHT (SEE PYREX DISH WITH SARAN WRAP)--DO NOT WALK BAREFOOT DOWNSTAIRS (BASEMENT) I WILL CALL ANIMAL GENERAL." Yikes. CSI n' shit. Thirty years of marriage full of pet stains, meal preparation and notes like that-- that's impressive, right?

On top of the sick people, my dad's desktop computer died, my sister's laptop got a virus, and apparently, they've all been sharing water bottles because yesterday, my laptop announced that it, too, had a virus. I am Witz's complete lack of surprise.

The virus began when some software I didn't recognize popped up, announcing that my computer had said virus. More and more warnings popped up, programs crashed, and the software kept announcing that, apparently, every program I had was infected and wouldn't open, and that if I wasn't a complete fuckup, I'd pay whatever was necessary to upgrade from the demo version so I could actually get rid of whatever was attacking my computer.

I fully believed that I could have a virus-- after all, I skipped activating my free trial of Norton that came with my computer because Norton's like the lame guy in a group that NEVER wants to do ANYTHING fun. "Nah, don't go to that site, man, let's just hang here at the homepage tonight," and, "I don't know why, but I just don't TRUST that software...even if it is Microsoft Word," and my personal favorite, "Look, I just want to make sure you're positive you want to allow INTERNET explorer to connect to the INTERNET. Are you suuure??"

In addition, I stupidly clicked on an email link that I thought was from a friend right before reading his apology email telling everyone not to click on the link, so it could have been from that. The last possibility is my Dad's favorite: MP3's. My dad blames MP3's for things the way some people blame the jews, black people, and illegal immigrants. If anything goes wrong with my sister's or my computer, it's those damn MP3's fault. Not enough space on the harddrive? Those MP3's taking up all the space. He acts as if computer viruses, malicious software, poverty, joblessness, and the damn liberal media didn't exist before MP3's. He's mostly wrong, and I don't want him to have his beliefs confirmed, but it is a possibility. So, there are plenty of reasons why I could have had a virus on my laptop-- but this wasn't my first rodeo.

I know about health issues because my health has been terrible, I know about cars because of all the times my car has broken down, and I know about computers because of years upon years of talking with tech support. When I tried to run my other anti-virus software, I was told that the program was infected and couldn't open. So I rebooted in safe mode, and banged out a few scans. Nothing found. I went back to the regular boot and watched everything freak out again. I turned on my Norton trial and ran that back in safe mode-- nothing found. Reboot and suddenly the sky is falling again: warnings, windows crashing, programs failing, and constantly, message after message informing me of malicious viruses invading my computer. I would close all the warnings and try to turn off the software, but it would lead to another slew of messages. I felt like I was in a bad '80's movie, or The Warriors, or Rumble Fish or something:

"There's a virus man, a virus that's gonna ruin our group!"
"Calm down, Billy."
"No way, man, can't you feel it? It's tearing us apart!"
"Billy!"
"No, Danny, I can't sit around letting this happen!"
"BILLY! Don't you get it, man? YOU'RE the virus. It's you."

My browsers wouldn't open, so I rebooted in "safe mode with networking," tweaked the LAN settings, and got on google. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Antispyware Soft. One of many malicious anti-spyware programs, it downloads and installs itself, and proceeds to inform you of fictional threats and viruses. It blocks programs, crashes browsers, alters .dll files, pees on your face and tells you that it's raining. Fortunately, there are programs like Spyware Doctor that can go in and fix everything. Ironically, to avoid having to buy this software, you can find a free crack code on the same sketchy sites that probably gave you a virus in the first place. Oh, The Internet.

Just as quickly as everything went to hell, everything was back to normal. My laptop runs fine, my throat still hurts, and Tucker's still vomiting worms (possibly the worst thing ever-- can you imagine throwing up WORMS? WORMS?? That's ALMOST as bad as giving birth on the toilet when you didn't know you were pregnant). Now, if only Witz Pickz would go viral...

New On Fox: Spyware MD...solving mal-ware mysteries the way Sherlock Holmes solves regular mysteries,
Witz