
If you wisely took my advice and skipped the last entry, here is a crash summary: In an affort to get some college funding, which could not be found in Port Huron, I have temorarily moved to my father's house in Stanton, Michigan, and have been working at a grocery store he manages for the last month or so. I should be back in town on August 14th, a week before classes start.
I was going to begin commenting on my duties at the grocery store tonight, but before I continue any farther, I have to vent some frustration. It's been building for the last twenty-four hours and it's driving me crazy!
My mother gave me a phone call last night. Right from the start, I know this can't be good news, as very few such initiated conversations with my mother are. Sure enough, it's her Windows-related ignorance contacting me, telling me that the computer had blown up in her face for the 3245864320956th time. She tells me that she had run the virus scanner (!) and said that it had found some things.
Immediate mental reaction #1: You wouldn't know how to deal with a virus if the scanner happened to find something, Mom, so why, in the name of all that is sacred, did you run it?!
Judging from the description of what it found, it had probably found some spyware. As such, I figure it's probably better to just leave it where it is, as she could be deleting something that actually isn't a threat, and it may even be a utility file of some kind. So I tell her to just close the virus scanner and leave it be. Oh, but that doesn't seem to be the only problem! (groan...) After this, she tells me that she cannot connect to the Internet anymore! She says that once she clicks the connect button on the dialogue box that it reads "Unable to establish a connection."
Okay, a multitude of different things can be wrong here. After running off a checklist of sorts with her, I obtained the following diagnosis: the modem is making no sound whatsoever* in attempting to connect online; no dial tone, no number crunching, no screeching, nada. After rebooting the machine, a New Hardware icon displayed in the system tray, saying something with the word "modem" in it. It's possible that the thing may have done some update, and in the process, the modem driver was replaced and wasn't installed properly (Mom's ignorance, probably). I don't have any real way of knowing what's going on though, because I'm on the other side of the state and I can't see the screen from here, obviously. I tell ehr this, and hinted that the was pretty much screwed and she should dono more with the thing until I come back home in two weeks. She moaned at me, saying something about being unable to find some EMS stuff that she wanted to look up.
Immediate mental reaction #2: Don't give me that baloney! ** You go for weeks on end without using the stupid thing when I am home, so you can go for seventeen days without the Internet until I come back.
I guess this is somewhat my fault. I allowed my intimidation of her to get in the way of my better judgement when creating her account, but no longer. After this experience, I can now justify revoking the rights of her account on the computer. When I first bought the machine, I was initially hesitant on doing so, because she may have become suspicious of what I was up to. You know, like trying to keep your parents out of your room because you may or may not have a bag of cocaine hidden under your mattress. Well, once I get home, she is so having her rights removed.
I'm sick of the stupid thing thinking that she is a competent user when she clearly isn't, so I'm basically going to put her user name on permanent probation. Hopefully I can prevent the computer from trying to do something stupid while she's logged on, like UPDATING!
Sigh...I feel better. Being able to speak of cocaine in an essay exempt of anything ghetto-related cheered me up a bit. That, and having a reason for taking something away from my mother, for a change. Oh, I'm feeling particularly evil right now! 
* I don't think I've been given all of the symptoms. I have the feeling that she didn't turn the speakers on when she tried dialing. On this machine, the modem noise is fed into the sound system, so that, when it tries to connect, you can turn the ear-splitting screech off. However, with the sound off, if a problem does happen, its much harder to diagnose. I asked her if she had the speakers on when she tried, and I didn't get a definate answer. Her reply was that the dialogue box "immediately says 'Unable to establish a connection.'" So, without having gotten a response, I don't have any real way of knowing if it's even dialing or not.
** I know the proper spelling of bologna, but it feels better to spell it phonetically. 
When my kids screw up the computer, I skip over to the local library to their computer room.