In response to the Trojan/Malware/Adware rogue web site attack on my PC tech guy replaced nearly all my MS software with comparable products from other vendors.

Internet Explorer or Internet Exploder to tech guy? Gone. Now I use Firefox 0.9. Outlook Express? Replaced by Thunderbird. I guess these open source tech types drink a lot of cheap booze. Bring me the Maddog 20/20 photo editing program.

The cool part was that it all was free and easy to get running. All my contacts, bookmarks and email settings work like before. All the songs still play.

Of course, I had to learn how to use a bunch of new applications but it was pretty easy to get my swerve on. The interfaces are different, but not that different from the old stuff. Besides, it’s good to try new things.

So, I’m minding my own business heading into page 5 of new content for The Ridge Runner. Things are going well, dealing with the heat, my coffee is running strong. The need for a tiny bit of information sets in, so I surf over to google.com, type in a phrase ( a completely innocuous – nothing naughty), hit feeling lucky? and

BOOM!

I got virus! I got virus! I got virus! Yaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

Tech guy was on it like no one’s business but it took more than 4 hours to undo all the damage. Sort of killed the writing momentum for the evening.

That got me thinking, how many people don’t have a tech guy to bail them out when they do something stupid, like say open a web page? A whole lot. Another question is there any reason opening a web page should cripple a perfectly good PC?

Oh, if anyone got an email from me between 3 pm and 7pm, it’s best you delete it right now. I probably didn’t send it and you don’t want what’s in it anyway.

NOTE: Every so often I try to write like another author. Here’s my shot at emulating Hunter S. Thompson.

The air feels like the sole of boot left to bake on the only highway leading out of the desert. All around, the sound of an impending riot beckons. An irate neighbor is yelling at his wife on the porch. Something about a burnt potato and a broken air conditioner. The chances for survival unlikely, our mission compromised.

Children race after the ice cream man, for this extreme clime is just too much for the Good Humor man to bear. You poor hapless bastard. Nobody told him the plight of the last man standing in the concrete jungle.

Perhaps a full scale riot is unlikely, however impending doom is certain. I can feel the bastards at the gates, circling, waiting for the next victim to fall so they can pick the carcass clean.

My head feels like a pineapple stuck in a vise, swollen from the heat. I could go at any time now. Need food. Need water. Need cold water for shower. How long Lord, how long must I suffer in this inferno trapped with these swine? And how did I get here?

I try and lift weights and jump rope regularly. Think jumping rope is for sissies, huh? Give it a whirl for 5 minutes and get back to me.

The goal is to get the heart pumping a bit because writing involves next to no physical effort. In fact, as I’ve come to understand it writing is mostly about sitting in a chair for long time and without blowing the day surfing the web, talking on the phone, cleaning the house and otherwise not writing.

Lately the fatigue has been so acute that the targeted body parts shake uncontrollably halfway through the workout. But I found a cure.

Eating a baked potato 30 minutes before the workout holds the tremors back. Who would have thought? And they say carbs are all bad.