9/27/4 - Home: Bed to Computer

Well, I picked up a nasty virus the other day and have been in bed with one of the worst colds I can remember. I passed off on two different timber-runs and that's just the way it had to be - I sure could have used the money, but it's been takin' a lot out of me just to get up and go to the bathroom...Hell, I couldn't imagine drivin' all day. Lorraine's been keepin' a close watch on me: pokin' her head in our bedroom to look-in on me every so often, and supplyin' me with everything from chicken-soup to that green cold-medicine stuff, which always seems to send me off to dreamland. It also turned out that my computer picked up a nasty virus the other day too. Lorraine got Sean, the hacker-kid from down the street, to come and look at it and he had my computer diagnosed and fixed within 30 minutes. That just blows my mind 'cause I can sit there and yell at the damn-thing for 30 minutes easy. Sean told me that, "while viruses, internet worms and some hackers can be stopped by anti-virus software and firewalls and all, this latest virus-spyware that messed-up your computer Tom, arrived through Microsoft's Internet Explorer." Because it never started popping-up ads and installing unwanted programs and all, I didn't even know it was there. Sean finished his diagnosis with, "It's all Microsoft's fault, Tom". I didn't buy it. That got me thinkin' and I had to explain it to him this way: "My truck was built to haul timber along the road. Now if someone gets drunk and uses their truck to drive up onto the sidewalk and plow into a crowd of people, who is to blame: the maker of the truck, or the driver?" Sean didn't like that and I went on tellin' him that the way to deal with the driver who just killed 20 people isn't to ban trucks, but to jail him for misusin' the truck. So the way I figure it: the correct way to deal with computer viruses, worms and spyware isn't to reduce computers back to being TV sets, but to jail the hackers who misuse what computers are able to do. Sean REALLY didn't agree, said a quick good-bye to me on his way to the kitchen, picked up a twenty from Lorraine and headed back home. Lorraine popped her head in our computer/sewing room: "Now why were you calling Sean and other hackers criminals Tom?" she wondered. "Because a lot of hackers are not about making computers better for us all, they are only out to line their own pockets and use our computers to do it. A real computer-security expert can do what they do using their own computer. Only a criminal needs to wander out over the Internet and into other people's machines." Lorraine reminded me how onery I can be when I'm sick and I heard her grumbling to herself as she went back into the kitchen. I got to thinkin' again: I've been hearin' from the people I run into in St Helens, and readin' on sthelensupdate about missin' funds, unfinished parks, a missin' mayor, all kinds of stuff. I wonder if it's time to call these people on their virus-like behavior and the stuff they seem to be doing. I dunno... Well, I gotta go, Lorraine's tellin' me that, "that's about enough out of me and time to get back in bed." Hope things are goin' good this week in that nice town y'all got, be sure an keep a sharp eye out on things; kinda like Lorraine keeps on me...ya hear?
Tom