As I walked home from my mother's about 11:45 p.m. I looked up toward the water tower in hopes of spotting Mr. Owl. I was not disappointed. There is no wind tonight and the evening air is crisp and clear. Good for my friend the owl but forboding for the field mice and numerous small critters skittering across the meadow below the tower this evening. I embraced Mr. Owl in that way that infers a relationship understood only by animal lovers and wayward dreamers. His presence brings me comfort.
After arriving home I set up my laptop on my desk, turned it on, told it who I was and went to do other things as it worked its' way through waking up and showing up for my pleasure. At some point in the recent past I installed something called Advanced System Care. Maybe Kim Komando suggested it in one of her daily e-mails. I am sure I ran it as a diagnostic tool and I have no doubt the diagnosis predicted dire consequences if I did not stop what I was doing and purchase the deluxe version immediately thereby avoiding an armageddon of the technical variety. This got my attention for, oh I'm guessing, 30 to 45 seconds. Few of the dire warnings made any sense to me and I didn't need the tool to tell me that this laptop is feeling a bit arthritic of late. Too lazy to uninstall the program and influenced by nagging thoughts of a possible, "I told you so!" from the Advanced System Care minions I left it installed.
There was one tiny little problem. Everytime I turned on my computer a small window appeared in the upper right hand corner of my screen with smaller little windows inside of it showing me the status of my system on several levels of which I had no understanding. I could cope with that information as I pay it no mind whatsoever. I could not cope with the smiley face emoticon thingy that changed from a smile to a grimace or a full fledged mouth curved down and from yellow to orange to let me know that my system was bad, very bad, distressingly bad. Tiny little charts with moving graphs were not enough. Just in case I was too dumb to know that this laptop is old and cranky Advanced System Care provided me with charts and a face. A face expressing varying emotions that changed for no apparent reason as I had done nothing to effect a change (unless downloading that piece of crap java update counts).
Tonight I took one look at the downturned smile on the orange face and I knew I was through with it and with the advanced care system that brought it into my world. I became willing to risk technical armageddon by bravely uninstalling the offensive system which by proxy would kill off the face of doom staring at me each day. I connected to the control panel, found the icon for programs, opened it, selected Advanced Care System and chose the uninstall option. Advanced Care System did not like my choice. A pop-up window suggested I needed to get the aforementioned deluxe system as I was now in danger of making a calamitous choice to uninstall their system. I clicked the continue to uninstall choice, watched the system disappear into wherever systems go when they are uninstalled and felt lighter of spirit. Lord knows I am fully aware of shortcomings, system problems, character defects and obligatory guilt over things left undone. But next time I boot up this old dame I won't have a deranged face made from two dots and a curve indicating an approaching armageddon of technical proportions. Goodbye, you technical party-pooper. I'm feeling mighty good right about now!
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