My apologies for being E & T yesterday, but the day turned into a computer virus / worm day for me. When I got to work at seven, yesterday morning, I was told that we were experiencing some computer glitches. Within about twenty minutes, it became obvious that the State computer system was infected with the dreaded Sasser Virus that started out in Russia on Sunday night. Our entire computer system was down for the whole day. In the past, that would not have been a problem, because a lot of my job could be done on paper, but since they installed the new computer programs, all of the data I need to do my job is now only available on the computer.
After work, I decided to stop by Office Depot and pick up the latest edition of Anti-Virus software for my home computer. I had downloaded a program from the internet a couple of years ago, but I had never been very confident that it was doing the job. And since Danise’s computer woes last week seemed to fit all of the symptoms of Sasser, I thought it was probably better to be safe than sorry. After five hours of searching, the software ended up locating seven viruses on my home computer (none of them Sasser), so I guess it was money well spent.
I must confess that I spent Sunday evening and last evening watching 10.5. I knew, going in, that it would probably be pretty stupid, rather cheesy, and be a very cheaply made film; but I didn’t care, I like really LOVE disaster films. Actually, I thought story-wise and character–wise, it was no worse than, say, Earthquake. However, since it was a TV movie, the special effects were really far-below bargain basement (think Plan 9). AND, of course, there were a lot of rather strange and illogical plot holes, many of them even larger than the San Andreas Fault, but I didn't mind those either. At the same time, who could help but be moved by the scene where Fred Ward, trapped one hundred feet below the surface of the earth with a nuclear warhead sitting on his chest (don’t ask), finally tells his son (played by Crossing Jordan’s Ivan Sergei) that he loves him. All in all, a fine waste of four hours that might otherwise have been spent reading smutty books.