A well constructed virus is the next best thing to hell.

I have been functionally offline for three days. I picked up a virus, I am not sure how, but I left my computer for a few minutes, and came back to find it in a circular rebooting mode. I turned it off manually, let it sit for awhile and turned it on again. It automatically went into safe mode and then a brilliant green screen came across where my wallpaper used to be that said that I had a virus and some spyware attacking my computer and needed to-- about that time, my virus killer came on to tell me that "Warning, a virus has been detected" and gave me the opportunity to delete. I did, and the screen went momentarily back to safe mode. I immediately noticed that I had acquired a new icon on my desktop and another on the lower work table (whatever in heck it is called). I right clicked the icon and my screen filled with an apparent antivirus program titled Antivirus XP 2008. I quickly killed that and discovered that both of these icons were labeled with that title. That was the beginning of one of the most frustrating episodes of my computer semi-literate life.

I tried spybot search and destroy, a program which has served me well in the past, but half way through the scan it crashed. I tried scanning with my antivirus program (yes I have one, and it found about six virus's which were deleted. In the meant time, my little icon on the lower part of the screen sent a note that Antivirus XP had discovered 1 virus, and I should install the program to get rid of it. I realized quickly that Anti virus XP was the virus. I called my son the computer guy and he suggested that I go into CONTROL, see if it was listed on the programs and try to uninstall it. I did so, found it, clicked uninstall and the program worked beautifully except that seconds after it finished, the Anti virus xp program showed up and, I suspect, laughed at me.

With the help of another son (and the first one) I found a page from google which explained how to get rid of this thing, and for about an hour I followed instructions through directorys and segments of my program (which had notations warning against deleting any thing in that segment) and after a day or two of frustration most of it got deleted (My virus scan then went back and found the remnants that we had missed) and my computer now works (for a while)

I discovered that this virus, masked as an antivirus program has a web page which offers to sell you a program and give you a FREE SCAN. It is a damn lie, the free scan intalls the virus (which will give you notes at the bottom of the screen listing an new number of viruses about every three minutes. The last notice I had said that it had Identifies 3627 viruses and I had better pay the money and install the program in a hurry. It is not only virulent, it is a scam to which many people have paid money and received a hellacious virus in return.

AVOID "ANTI VIRUS XP 2008" LIKE THE PLAGUE (For which it is a reasonable substitute).

Upon reading about it on a couple of the webpages that are dedicated to helping you clean it out, you will find that it has infected lots of computers and managed to get a lot of people to pay for it.

As a side note, yesterday was my birthday and some good things happened. On the day before the big day, my oldest son made a wonderful low country boil, with enough food for about twenty people. My wife took me to the movies. We had planned to see MAMA MIA, but just after we were seated, they announced that the air conditioning had died in that screening room and we could have our money back or see another movie. We went to Batman.

I really liked Batman Begins, and expected to enjoy this one, but I found it totally predictable with long philosophical garbage between the action scenes. It was at least thirty minutes too long. (Dear wife was dozing by the time it ended). The make-up for "Two Face" was good, the makeup for the Joker was pretty bad (though the role was one of the better acted roles in the movie) The two elderly supporting actors (both of the names just slipped out of my now "Three Score and One More Than Before" old brain) were great old pros and the movie moved up a step each time one of them was on the screen.

Last night , on the birthday itself, Janet took me to the most expensive restaurant in town (called Christopher's, it was very nice, good food, good atmosphere and good company, (and I closed my eyes when her credit card came out)

I have had a peripheral neuropathy for 16 years and my feet generally are always in pain, so my ultimate gift from Janet was --believe it or not-- a professional pedicure this morning. It was quite wonderful and may become a part of my regular routine. After sitting there and watching me through the process, Janet has suggested that I now "Know what she wants for her birthday"

Well I will close my now functioning computer and go to bed.

Avoid and protect yourself against Anti-virus XP 2008 at all cost. Do NOT go to their web page.