August 21, 2003
Dear Everyone:
“Jeannie” called last week to report that her computer was “sick”. Having heard about the MS Blaster virus in the news, she assumed that her PC had picked up the virus from WebMD.com. I explained that it probably wasn’t the web site that she was on, but rather the fact that she was on the Internet at the exact same time that the virus checked her connection.
My PC, on the other hand, was not infected because I generally don’t spend more than a few minutes logged onto the Internet at any one time. That allowed too small a “window of time” for the virus to attack. I did, however, discover that my habit of ignoring the frequent “wouldn’t you like to check for updates?” reminders now meant that, in addition to the “patch” that would inoculate my machine from the Blaster, I needed about 49 “critical” updates.
On Saturday, I went up to “Jeannie’s” and checked her computer. She did, indeed, have the Blaster virus in two places. I “disinfected” her PC and we celebrated by going out to lunch. We also visited another court reporter to check her hard drive, but it was clean.
As for the infamous Blaster virus: It was supposed to activate last Saturday by “waking up” all the home computers that are left turned on and connected to the Internet and then ordering them to all connect to the same Microsoft web site at the same time, thus jamming the server and resulting in a “denial of service” to legitimate customers trying to reach the web site. But the people who created the virus were so proud of their accomplishment that they couldn’t resist bragging about it. Forewarned, the folks at Microsoft simply changed the URL for the target web site. The folks with infected computers saw, at most, the standard “Page not found” error message.
On Sunday, rather than work on updating our
respective computers, “Jeannie” and I opted to check out a new movie
house in downtown
Your first clue is the fact that the film was released in August. August is the dumping ground for movies the studios don’t expect to do well. If the movie is going to have “legs” (meaning repeat visits and good word of mouth), it will be released early in the summer. If it’s a possible Oscar contender, if only for technical awards, they’ll hold it for September or later.
The first hour is spent on developing a new team of
attractive, energetic, if somewhat violent, puppies.
Gorgeous young puppies, most male, one female.
The second hour is devoted to the major action of trying to
escort a seriously bad guy from county lockup to a federal prison.
Naturally, every bad guy in
Totally predictable, and with holes in the plot big enough to drive the big, black moving van that S.W.A.T. uses for transportation through. Nevertheless, if you like watching attractive young people running around, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon.
Love, as always,
Pete
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