TALES FROM THE BARSTOOL
By: Clint Lien

The Sasser Worm Ate My Homework

So my column is late again, but this time I have a really good excuse! This past Friday at 3:07 PM Pacific time I, and I'm told about a million other hapless fools, was struck down by the latest virus going around. No, I didn't have to go to the hospital - but I almost had to after putting my chubby fist through the wall and pulling my teeth out with my hair. This virus didn't give me a fever or spots, it disabled my laptop - and I mean disabled!!

This new virus was a sharp one. It was called the Sasser worm and it displayed self defense mechanisms that would have made Darwin proud. It seems the first thing it did was stop me from going to any web sites that might actually fix the problem for free. Very slick.

As I type this I've got some process running in the background that's supposed to clean things up. It's about the twelfth different scan I've run. I counted seven different web sites that offered FREE virus protection!!! Only they don't offer FREE virus protection. What they'll do is tell you you've got a virus on your systems and then for the low price of $29.95 - enter your credit card number here - they'll remove the virus. I'm not so certain some of those web sites didn't put the damn thing on there in the first place. Makes sense to me. I know it's not the biggies like Norton or McAfee doing it because they actually will fix the problem for free except I couldn't get to their web pages to do the fix.

One could argue that some good comes out of these things. Bill will make Windows more secure and people will be encouraged to have up to date anti-virus software on their computers. One could argue that - but it would simply make it clear to everyone around that you're a moron. It's like saying "It's good thing that guy shot all those people on the highway. Now cops will be encouraged to beef up protection and gun sales for self defense will boom."

Nothing good comes out of a computer virus. My column is three days late because of some imbecile. If you added up the lost time it would come to a whole lot of late columns.

What kind of skid mark would take the time to sit down and devise such a singularly destructive piece of work? Probably the kind of guy who has floppy drive issues. Im guessing his hard drive is inadequate.

It's probably not such a good idea to express my anger over this mess so publicly because obviously a burnt out bulb like this boy would derive his pleasure from the suffering of others. I'm just confirming his success. If I were in the mood to be honest, I'd take the blame for the problem. I didn't have my "firewall" (What the hell is a firewall?) enabled. I don't have the "latest virus definitions" and I don't "employ safe web navigation practices." But I'm not in the mood to be honest after wrestling with HAL all night long. In the end I got the pod bay doors open and I'm back on course. Tonight I will continue my extremely detailed and highly creative prayers to my god. It's swift and terrible retribution I'm looking for. I shouldn't let myself get so worked up. But I want this guy to suffer! I should get down to Future Shop and pick up some protection software but that can wait until tomorrow. When I'm this upset there's only one thing that really calms me down - and that's Frank Sinatra. I think I'll get on Kazaa and grab a few good ones.

Reactions? Comments? Write me at barfly@netlistings.com