Monday, December 28

outsourced

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

my holidays were of the usual sort: eating and drinking TONS with the fam, gift exchange, etc. however, since nothing good ever happens without the bad, of course i also had a technical nightmare of a holiday.

on Christmas Eve, as relatives were arriving for a hotpot lunch, my "trusty" HP Pavilion ze2000 was attacked by a virus. all of a sudden my screen went bonkers and the wallpaper changed from an adorable baby picture of my friend SFM to the words "you're computer is infected", my AVG anti-virus program was going nuts stating i had a million infections, and, although i could get on-line, i couldn't access any websites but instead was redirected to advertisements and other sites every time i clicked a link. it was a nightmare.

in this day and age, a person's computer is akin to their cellphone or iPod. it's something i've learned to not live without-ok, that's false. i could live without it, but would i want to? i doubt it. i brought my laptop to PC Warehouse to be looked at ASAP and luckily for me it was open on Christmas Eve. the guy at PC Warehouse could qualify for being in My Five recently. only in August i brought my comp to be completely re-installed back to factory default settings and then i've probably seem him at least 3-4 more times since them. the most recent visit my comp had been attacked by a virus and had to be cleaned for 2-3 days. and that cost upwards of $75-$100. suffice it to say that although PD is a great guy, i really wish i wasn't seeing him so often.

i prob spent a good hour and a half sitting there while PD manually went through deleting various trojan horses (yes, i know the term but what exactly are they i have no idea, just that they're bad news). i brought it home, relieved the crisis was over. or so i thought. INCORRECT. those nasty viruses were still there, just changing and evolving to evade capture and deletion! that was the end of my laptop for the Christmas holiday since i had to drop it off to be fixed on Saturday and will not see it again until Monday at the earliest.

when did computer use and surfing the Internet become so hazardous? according to PD, some site i went on must've had the virus and it attached itself to my computer just waiting for me to click it's link. and those tricky little buggers make themselves look all official mimicking the Windows insignia and claiming to protection programs (and no, i did NOT click any of them even if it did say that-i'm not completely stupid). what irks me is to get a virus on my comp without even doing anything: yes, i may have been on a site with a virus embedded or attached to it, waiting to pounce, but i didn't click anything that was remotely any advertisement or outside link. so how did it get into my comp? it'll always be a mystery. i remember the days when i was even more reckless with my Internet use, downloading this and that, clicking every link a friend sent to me, without ever seeing a virus enter my comp. now, i go on 1 harmless site and my whole computer's down for the count.

i also spent 141 minutes on the phone talking to Comcast and Linksys about our spotty wireless internet connection. what a nightmare. 1st it was Comcast to make sure the connection was good (which it was) and then it was Linksys phone support for our faulty wireless router. it was clearly outsourced tech support, but my technician, Mary, was very helpful and spoke english with a Canadian accent (which is ironic since she was clearly Indian-i knew this from her side conversations). however, i was seriously skeptical and pissed off when Linksys told me that i had to pay to get phone support!! what a rip! and so i handed the phone to my mom and let her rip them a new one before i ponied up and just let them sucker me (what else was i supposed to do? if i could've fixed it myself, i would've already).

it's times like these that i wish i was more tech savvy.

Tuesday, December 22

Quarantined in Sick Bay

for the past 2 weeks, i feel like i've been on a perpetual and never-ending airplane ride. one that just keeps taking off and landing, only those 2 actions. in actuality, i haven't travelled or gone anywhere, but my ears have been constantly plugged up. i keep trying to pop my ears by clicking my jaw, which ends up making me look like fish.

this winter is turning out to be more hazardous than any winter before it that i've experienced in the past. everyone in my household seems to be on rotating shifts of getting sick and being in my house feels like visiting the sick ward of a hospital. i just barely avoided a severe cough and cold (after self-medicating with Robitussin and Zicam for 10 days) and now i feel another itch in my throat that is quickly developing into a cough.

oddly enough, i've never been squeamish about being around sick people (at least when it's people that i know). i possess a completely unfounded confidence that i won't get sick, even when i interact with sick people. however, as soon as i feel even a twinge of illness in my own body, i get into hyper-defense mode and bombard myself with Airborne and Zicam hoping to head off the impending illness.

it seems i've become a hypochondriac in my old age (but only when i start to feel ill.).

i have to add a caveat to the above statement about not getting squeamish around sick people. i get COMPLETELY squeamish around sick strangers or people i don't care about. hence, flu and cold season on a NYC subway is not exactly a fun situation for me. however, MOST new yorkers maintain a level of etiquette while out in public. then there was the Cougher i met last week.

i was on the platform waiting for the E train to arrive on my usual morning commute to work. the train arrived and it was packed like a sardine. of course we all tried to squeeze our way onto the train but it was definitely impossible just as i got to the front of the crowd. i let the doors close and waited for the next one. i realized i was dangerously close to the edge of the platform and tried to back up and realized a woman behind me who was staunchly standing in her spot, refusing to move and refusing to let me back away from the edge of the platform. it took more effort and a blatant shove to get myself even 2 centimeters back from the edge. clearly, the woman was not happy with what i'd done. so she proceeded to cough violently all over me. although she had nothing in her hands, she did not cover her mouth. so while being all pressed up on me, she proceeded to cough all over me for a good minute. GROSS. that is just not acceptable behavior, particularly in NY (or anywhere else really).

Friday, December 11

Followers vs. Leaders

every paper and news feed has been discussing either the global warming/climate change issue in Copenhagen or else it's Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. usually i just read these things and shrug in a "hmm, so now i know what's going on in the world" kind of way, but not today.

really?! as if we didn't know we've screwed over the earth completely? are we really that surprised? or did we just assume that 80 degree weather in September is just a natural phenomenon? and there's all this hoopla about how the meeting in Copenhagen is to create standards and limitations for countries to try and combat the damage we've already done. ppshhaww. i'll believe it when i see it. in the scope of things that occur in each individual country, the last thing on a nation's mind is the climate. and honestly, we're the ones that did this to the environment, so to make a big hoopla now seems a bit hypocritical. i'm sure this will all be forgotten once the talks in Copenhagen end.

more interesting is Obama's Nobel Peace Prize Award. seriously?! they've awarded an acting President, in the midst of war, who just determined to deploy more troops to Afghanistan, the Nobel Peace Prize? gimme a break. because of this decision the Committee that determined the award had to come out publicly and defend their decision for the 1st time in history (or so says the NY Times). during the awarding of the prize, it was said Obama is the realization of Dr. Martin Luther King's dream. perhaps that's true. but that doesn't qualify Obama for the Nobel Peace Prize. shouldn't the American ppl be receiving the Nobel Peace Prize then? they elected Obama into office, he didn't appoint himself. of course, i'm trivializing the effort and courage and perseverance the Obama camp had to have in order to get to where they are, and that's not fair. and maybe that does merit the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. however, for some reason, it just doesn't sit right with me. i just can't accept that, based on Obama's current achievements, he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. i don't think so.

it's really unlike me to rant on about real-world issues. if you've noticed, i rant about idiotic personal things usually. i'm chocking it up to my shortened amount of patience and tolerance for idiocy that commuting to NYC from NJ for work has created in me.