one of the Network guys came by this morning to remove all software from my computer that may be illegal or prohibited by company policy. i didn't know i had any, but he spent nearly an hour uninstalling and deleting.

he removed programs as innocuous as "Weatherbug" (never used it. for weather reports, i suppose) to programs such as "Sexygirls" (it goes out and searches the web for photos of nude women. never used it. the Network guy said the guy who had this computer before me was fired for using such programs).

he removed all mp3s and anything that could play them (saying they were illegal). he removed Windows Media Player (no more CD listening for me).

he removed most of my personalized settings, so the color scheme is wrong and the icons i used on my desktop are gone (all changelings in the area take a point of Banality as individuality is crushed). he was kind enough to leave my wallpaper though, but only because he likes Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

he was also kind enough (after laughing at me first) to upgrade my browser to IE5.0 (woo hoo! closer to being current!), so now Jean and (dead link) Rich can't be technosnobs and laugh at me (not as much as before, anyway). the only problem with the more current browser is that it's the TVGuide version, which has the TVGuide logo in the upper right corner, twirling like a disco diva. it's irritating.