Cream cheese...she comforts me...

My desktop computer is dead. And this time I can't blame Dell. I have no one to blame but myself.

Last spring, when I bought my laptop, the sales associate recommended Norton for virus protection so I dutifully purchased it.

Over the summer when my McAfee subscription expired on my desktop I purchased Norton. After all, it came at the recommendation of the kind sales associate from Circuit City and I didn't have any problems with it on my laptop.

I installed it and began to use it without problem. However I started to notice that my computer seemed to be running slow. And the problem was gradually getting worse day by day.

Finally, around the beginning of December, I could take it no longer and decided to Google "Norton". And then I googled "Norton is making my computer slow". And a couple of days later I Googled "I'm going to shoot my computer if I don't get Norton off of it right away!"

It seems as if I am not the only person who has experienced problems with Norton. And it seems as if most of the geeks on the computer chat boards recommended removing Norton right away.

So, I took their advice and removed Norton right away. And low and behold, my computer started running like she used to run. I could zip between files, websites and applications without pause.

Cue the Angels singing.

The whole time I was enjoying my new found computer speed, I kept thinking in the back of my head that I really need to get McAfee or another virus protector back on the computer.

But I was busy and never got around to it. It was December after all. Christmas, vacation, travel, gifts, etc. I was busy!

Cut to the audience rolling their eyes, shaking their heads and murmuring, "we can see where this is headed."

Yesterday I pulled up the Internet and a bunch of pop up ads assaulted my screen. And then I tried to type in a web address and even though it was typed in correctly, I was sent to a different website.

And then I got the dreaded blue screen.

I almost started to cry when I saw the blue screen.

I turned off the computer, turned it back on and after many pop up ads and many reboots later, I finally got McAffee installed.

And after many more reboots I started running the virus scan.

I definitely have viruses and I think I removed a few of them from the computer. Unfortunately the dreaded blue screen keeps coming up before I can get the whole virus scan completed.

I made a few more attempts this morning but finally threw up my hands in despair.

I shut her down and will be taking her to my friends at the Geek Squad on Thursday morning.

Thank goodness for my trusty laptop. And thank goodness for cream cheese. I think I'm going to drown my sorrows in some right now.

And no. I will not be adding feta to it. I've learned my lesson.

I have it narrowed down to salsa or Harry and David's Sweet Red and Ancho Pepper Chili Sauce.

Ahhh...cream cheese...she comforts me.