It seemed like a good opportunity. Little was I to know that with one little click of the mouse, I was in for a day of blood curdling hell.

Norton has an update that it's pushing to hapless subscribers. "Norton Internet Security 2010 has been downloaded to your computer. Click the button below to f**k up your computer."

Of course, it didn't say that exactly, but that's what happened.

The update didn't take and presented a wonderful error message with a three step process to fix it. Step 1 was the most important, but I wouldn't learn that until later. Step 2 probably wasn't necessary, but who's to know in situations like this. Step 3 was worthless as it didn't do anything.

In the course of trying to get this thing to work and then trying to undo the damage that was done, Norton announced that my IP address was invalid and needed to be updated. WRONG! At that point I lost internet access and didn't get it back until going to Compaq who walked me through the Windows Recovery process. In other words, for those who have had the pleasure, restoring my laptop back to a pristine, out of the box condition.

Luckily, I have been backing up my documents, pictures, and music because if I hadn't, well . . . Windows Recovery is similar to the old blue screen of death. Funny, but the background color to the Compaq Recovery screen is nearly the same shade of blue.

Unfortunately, not everything is back to normal, but I do have documents, pictures, and music, what just might be the important things in life.

On a more pleasant note, today is the sixth anniversary of my LiveJournal blog. It was started a mere thirteen days prior to my coming out and went on to record most of the subsequent pathetic events of my life. On a happier note, for the past eighteen days or so I've been serializing short segments of a story I'm working on, mostly to get back in the habit of creative writing on a daily basis.