It's Not Bacteria. It's A Virus.

Today I am doing my blogging from the library computer. I will be for about a week. My computer is sick. It has a virus. Bummer. I'm thinking that the onset of it must have been the reason all of your suggestions for my blogging and picture woes didn't help.

Here is the irony. We bought the computer right at three years ago from Best Buy. It's a laptop and we paid $800.00 for it. Not that you care, but I'm going somewhere with this. Just hold on. We paid another $300.00 for the extended service protection plan. Well, if you ever read my blog you'll remember that it has been acting up on me and won't even let me upload pictures properly. I have to create any blog post that have pictures with them from Picasa then load it to Blogger. A couple of nights ago we started getting a warning saying that it had been infected with a Trojan-dropping virus. (Infected? Was that right? Do computers get infected? Or do they get affected? Maybe that was effected. No, that's effective - which it is definitely NOT at the moment.) Ok. I'm going to focus now. Last night we took the laptop to the Geek Squad and pulled up our plan. It expired - get this - March 31. Yesterday was April 17. Seventeen days after our protection plan expired, so did the computer. Seventeen days. SEVEN.TEEN. DAYS! Go figure.

Now, it's going to cost $199.99 (Why don't they just say $200.00?) to do a diagnostic blah, blah, blah and fix the thing. On top of that, every picture I have ever taken with my digital camera has been loaded onto it. Did I ever back it up? Do I even know how? NOOOOOO. Note the sarcasm in my voice, please. So, we need to pay another $99.99 to have the files all backed up before they do blah, blah, blah to it. Otherwise we'll lose everything on it. That's $300.00. Top that with the $300.00 we spent on the extended service plan that we never, not one time used. Now we're up to $600.00. For an $800.00 computer. We could have saved the cash and bought a whole new computer for just about the same price. I'm feeling slightly jipped at the moment.

I do have to hand it to the Geeks, though. The girl working with us at the counter felt really bad that our plan had expired just seventeen days earlier and went to talk to her manager about it. They are going to refund the $70.00 for the diagnostic blah, blah, blah that we WOULD have saved under the plan since we are going to have them back it up. I thought that was very nice of them. So, that takes us down to $230.00. Did you notice anything with that statement, though?They are going to refund the $70.00 that we would have saved with the service protection plan. I'm thinking that paying $300.00 for something that only saves you $70.00 is NOT a very good deal. I think the next time we invest in electronics we'll probably forgo the extended warranty that seems more and more like a scam at this moment. Unless, that is, any of you can leave me a comment letting me know how an extended warranty completely rocked for you. Then I might reconsider.

When we bought our Explorer we also purchased the extended warranty. We needed to use it once and found out that the one that we purchased was not the one that they sold us. So, we still had to shell out some fundage. I made that word up for you. Like it?

Anyway, this whole ordeal has me seriously looking into ways to get computer educated. I need to learn how to back the stinker up and load my pictures onto DVDs. But first, I need to find out which ones my computer takes. I bought some once and they didn't work. Evidently there is more than one kind of DVD. I would know this if I wasn't such a computer geek. Actually, if I WAS a computer geek I could work on computers and make lots of dough. Not the kind like I make as a homemaker. The green kind. No, not play dough. Bacon. No, not pork. I fry that up in a pan. I'm singing in my head at the library right now... "I can bring home the bacon...Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh. Fry it up in a pan...Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh. And never let you forget..." Cash. I could make a lot of cash. Whew! I have signed up to take a couple of computer classes at the library next week. I hope they have useful information for me. There is also a sign I'm going to check on that has a number to contact the county for computer classes. I need to explore all of my options. I need to learn to use the computer! If anyone has suggestions - I'm open.

I'll be signing out on that note.

Have a great Saturday!