one of my roommates has been naughtily downloading things and has infected my computer with a virus. doesn't make terrence a happy camper. last week, while one of them was online, i looked over in time to see him accepting one of those Verisign Certificates. 'what was that?' i asked. 'i don't know,' he answers. 'it says i have to have it to see the web page.' 'could you stick to the porn sites that you can see without downloading anything?'

feh.

on Saturday, i started up IE to see that someone had installed Yahoo! Companion on the browser. i already have the Google toolbar, so the Yahoo! only duplicated the functions. also, i now have Yahoo! Messager installed without my knowledge, and keep finding "Sign Up for AOL Now!" shortcuts on my desktop, neither of which i want (and don't those AOL things appear once you've installed something that's sold its little electronic soul to the evil empire?).

when i first decided to get internet access at home again, i asked my roommates about what they'd be using it for (probing to see if i'd need to worry). 'I just want to be able to check my email!' says one. 'I just want to play Everquest!' says the other. and i believed them. bah! now i have to do like i did whenever my mom wanted to use my computer: no downloading anything. period. i don't care if it says it's a photo of cute fluffy kittens. don't do it. if you're even thinking about violating that rule, you'd damned well better ask me to take a look first. and don't click OK for anything without asking me about it first.

plus, i'll be buying some software to make sure they can't do crap with the computer, except check their email and play Everquest.