Kay -N- Kay

I wanted a share a really nice picture of Kristin and I in our Halloween costumes this year.

Really nice that is until you notice Mr. Clean back there.  :-/

Halloween party was a big success.  Not so much in the way of Halloween oriented games and crap, but a lot of cards and kids running crazy through the house.

There may have been a shot or two of booze as well.  😉

I’ve been an avid computer user for pretty much my entire life.  I mean, when I was around 12, along with playing “Adventure” on my Atari 2600, I was writing BASIC code to make funny little graphics of an airplane dropping a parachutist who would inexplicably splatter into a red mist when he reached the ground.  Yeah… I know.  I’m not proud of it… well, actually I was, heh.  But the point is, in all this time, from early in the 1980’s until today, I’ve only really gotten a single computer virus.

Back around when Al Gore invented the Internet, I got my first taste where so many others started, from America Online. (AOL)  Back then, it was all the rage.  Key words, chat rooms, all at a blazing 9600 baud speed!!!!  Being new and completely naive, when a stranger offered to give me a totally rad new program to haxor the bajesus out of AOL, I jumped on that opportunity of a lifetime!  I was going to be 1337!  I was going to be a terror of the chat rooms!  I was going to be a virtual babe magnet!

After installing The Program of Awesome and dutifully rebooting, I was staring at a black screen proclaiming “Operating System Not Found” and wondering what happened.

Since that valuable lesson, I have been virus free.  Well… I mean as much so as anyone can truly be.  I pick up tracking cookies every 5 minutes, Adware may creep in here in there, and I’ve caught viruses trying to install themselves, but nothing truly destructive.  No key stroke hacks, robot spammers, redirectors, or backdoor trojans. (Yeah, I giggle too every time I here that, too, hee hee)  It’s not that I have security ratcheted up to Fort Knox levels, I just… I don’t know… I’m observant.  When Facebook emails me about an update, my spidey sense tingles and you know… I just don’t click.  When Bill Gates emailed me Windows patches back in ’95, I kind of wondered how he got my address.  As a result, my computers have been blissfully virus free.

And then my wife discovered teh intrawebs.

Kristin picks up viruses like kids eats candy.

Each week, she’s cussing at her computer until I drop everything (read: stop playing WoW) to come over to see what is vexing her.  To my horror she’s got her home page redirected to www.mega-virus-download.com, the computer is streaming our passwords to China, her email is cranking out spam to our friends and family, I mean the PC is completely hi-jacked.

Ok, I may be exaggerating for effect, but the point is that her computer gets viruses and mine doesn’t.

Last night, Bran comes in while I’m playing WoW to tell me that Mommy wants me.  I’m only half listening, because there’s a raid boss I’ve only killed 80 times before and I don’t want to get caught standing in the fire.  Then I hear him saying something about a virus.

/sigh

I walk in to discover she has managed to download the grand daddy of all viruses.  Shit is popping up everywhere, pretending to be Windows Security alerts.  It’s saying I have a virus and just need to activate this, download “Anti-Virus Pro”, click on yes to proceed, scan my hard drive, continue on by clicking yes, all all manner of tempting boxes, buttons, and links promising salvation.  Meanwhile, it’s merrily downloading the entire seedy back alleys of the Internet, changing my icons into pretty little pictures of genitalia and redirecting them to such innocuous sites as www.porn-queen.com.  It was searching out other computers on the network, finding cable modems and routers, leaching memory and sealing itself into BIOS chips.  Email addresses were devoured, spam was spurting forth like the the pictures of my new icons, friends lists broadcast, IM programs sprang up and web pages were duped.  The TV was reprogrammed, all the digital clocks reset, the dog was impregnated, IT WAS PANDELERIUM!!!!

I spent a while trying to rescue the poor soul, but in the end it was a total wash.  Everything had to be wiped clean and just reinstalled.  Unfortunately, such is the way with viruses.  Anti-virus software does a good job of keeping you protected, but once you actually HAVE a virus, all to often it just can’t effectively remove the infection.

So let this be a lesson to all of you… www.porn-queen.com looks pretty damn cool!

Kristin and Bran are having an adventure down in Arizona this week.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t go with them, but they are having a good time so far, even despite “The Great Paul Family Ham Stand Off of ’09”.  I may be able to get Kristin to post that saga when she gets back. 

Bran had a crisis of faith this year about the Easter bunny, compounded by Kristin waffling with her “Well, what do you think?” answer when asked if there truly was an altruistic seasonal hare who harbors in spring through the ritualistic decoration of avian embryos by children and subsequently hiding their handiwork for suspiciously unknown intentions.  He was pretty sure this Easter Bunny character was real, but his child-radar was picking up that while Mommy was seemingly allaying his doubts, she would not actually outright validate the existence and proclaim all doubters as heretics to be immediately stoned and posthumously drug through the streets.  Something was possibly amiss and clearly needed to be investigated further…

On Easter morning he woke up bright and early and unbeknown to his still sleepy mother, had hatched a plan to clear up this Easter Bunny business once and for all.  The night before, they had performed the ritual of properly coloring each egg in the house according to unwritten edicts of ages past and stored the talismans within the refrigerator.  Therein lay his proof.

Moments after opening his eyes, Bran made a beeline for the fridge and mother’s intuition prompted Kristin to ask what he was doing.  “Oh, I’m just going to check on the eggs.” he replied.

Misunderstanding, Kristin said, “Hunny, we’re not doing the Easter Egg Hunt yet, remember how we talked about doing it this afternoon?”

“Oh, I know.” he replied.  “I’m just going to check the refrigerator to see if the Easter Bunny picked up our eggs.”

The truth of the situation struck Kristin like a thunderbolt from on high.  If the eggs were still there then clearly the Easter Bunny would not have been able to get the eggs prior to them being hidden in the afternoon.  The crafty runt had out foxed her!  She needed a diversion…

“Ok dear, well why don’t you go use the potty first.”  It was a stretch… but it might buy her about 30 seconds.

Off he went and Kristin sprinted to the kitchen.  With only seconds to spare, she grabbed the tray of eggs, whipped it out of the fridge and cleverly covered them with an ordinary looking kitchen towel.

No sooner had she successfully disguised the tray of eggs as a large lump of something clearly being hidden underneath a towel when Bran returned.  He opened the door to the refrigerator which was now cleared of the damning evidence and turned wide-eyed and victorious to his mother.  “He IS real, Mommy!”