oh fuck. mercury retrograde anyone?

[magical thyme]

shitshitshitshitshit.

ads suddenly started popping up this morning, so I upgraded my trial malwarebytes anti-malware, which I remembered provides ad blocking too. then ran a scan and it found some suspicious files which I quarantined, thinking it would speed up my browsing. instead everything slowed down. a lot. then another flag popped up, so I quarantined that.

now everything is excrutiatingly slow. I thought maybe it was a DU issue, and tried accessing some other sites. not only excrutiatingly slow, but now I can't access some sites at all.

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. I was about to start doing my taxes, which I need done early so I can make the deadline to submit my income based repayment info to continue that. and as soon as I got those done, I was going to get going on my pension rollover.

thank dawg I have 3 2-day weekends in a row coming up. at the speed my internet runs, I may as well be on dialup. it will easily take an entire weekend to do each one of them. if I can even access those websites.

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. what have I done?1?!

[elleng]

1. Yup, thyme,

it's been here. http://www.democraticunderground.com/122017295

I'm being cautious about things. A DU friend had car probs, and I suggested this as 'cause.' Another friend has medical problems, so fingers crossed, and he's had computer probs too.

And for you, too.

[Sweet Freedom]

2. Yep. My friend's washing machine just died

and I've had to redo my design jobs three times before I land on something I like.

Don't forget to reboot, otherwise those quarantines aren't permanent. You also may want to run a superantivirus to make sure you killed everything.

I think mercury retrograde likes taxes, so that may work out just fine for you!

[cwydro]

3. Yikes!

I'm such a computer know-nothing.....I can't help.

But sending you good vibes.

[Tsiyu]

4. Just. Yes.

A friend and I were discussing the wretched MR yesterday. We ran into each other at the store, where everyone was complaining about feeling like zombies.

Sorry about the internetz. I cruised at 1/2 mph on the internetz for years. DU was one of the few sites that didn't take long to load.

A called it my ADDSL.

No videos, no music; it was a life of waiting to scroll down.

You start loading 3 or 4 pages, go off to fold laundry or walk dog while they load.

What the heck. Wash the car.

Come back to the desk.

One page is ready to read.

Read pages.

Repeat.

Now I have fiber optic and I am seeing All The Things, fast.


I am just not feeling the writing thing; this is my MR affliction. Have a revision I need to get to a super picky editor whom I am avoiding like the plague. The deadline looms.

It's nice out and I want to be doing shanty improvements instead of fiddling with words.

Have a great day no matter what the planets decree, magical thyme

[Tsiyu]

5. Also, because I'm dim: Try to run task manager to see what's running

also, if you know how, go into advanced settings on internet options and disable Javascript, flash, (not sure what you're running on, but also any exe. )

I bet some computer wizard will be along to help. I wish I knew more, but I hope the Goddess of System Restore will pay you a visit.

[HappyMe]

6. Cross post this in the computer group here.

[Orrex]

7. I have an old thermometer that keeps going backward, so you might be right!

[magical thyme]

8. phew. a hair faster here. my system prompted me to do something

which I guess I did, so I've lost my "default" starting page, but go straight to www.google. from there some things are downloading ok. irs.gov downloaded in record time. not normally my favorite go-to, but hopefully I'll be able to get the taxes done.

Oh, and all of this was after the bad news this a.m. that I need a new pressure pump for my well. at least it's the good plumber, who has one in stock but no time today. they set me up w/60 pounds of pressure so I'm good for the next week. Next Wednesday, I get new pump, jit for payday. easy come. easy go, I guess...

[KamaAina]

9. No thanks.

[magical thyme]

11. you see the little icons next to the usernames?

you could just click on the one of a little person with red x, instead of dumping the rolling eyes on me. Otoh, I think I now recognize you from somewhere else. Hmmmm....

[KamaAina]

12. I was rolling my eyes at Merc!

[magical thyme]

13. ooops! sorry....

I usually get through merc retros more or less ok, but with everything coming due asap I'm nervous, hypersensitive and overreacting!

[magical thyme]

10. hah! all back to normal. it was still running in the background...

it didn't show at the bottom of my screen. I think somewhere in there another browser was open without my realizing it.

I was in the middle of watching family guy when a message popped up to restart. It came back still with google as a home page, and I still couldn't seem to get into DU from there. but then I reset my home page back to mystart, and everything is working again!

then the dogs started barking, and lo and behold, the plumbers were back. I'd called earlier and gordon told me they didn't have time to replace the pressure pump today. so my nap is off -- too hard to rest with the noise from the basement!

Onward and upward!

[WolverineDG]

14. I had to buy a plane ticket

:/

I'm getting travel insurance this time but I hope my travels don't get delayed.

[DebJ]

15. Jan 19: my printer had a mystery jam for several hours. Jan 21: phones went dead

for several hours; comcast couldn't help, then came back to life by itself several hours later so I cancelled the service call for the next day.

Here's a message I sent to a friend on 1/27:
What a lovely Mercury retrograde day. The phones are out again. I misplaced my dentures and simply can't find them anywhere. Then I went to the car to put my reusable bags back in. The sliding door behind the driver seat wouldn't open (the damn thing is electronic) when I tried pulling it open by the handle...it hummed, but wouldn't move. So I threw the bags in the front seat. BUT after I went inside, I noticed the interior lights had not shut off. Although I had reached around inside the car and pulled out some trash, I didn't recall turning the lights on myself. Kept trying, couldn't get them to go out. Finally thought well I'll try starting the car maybe a frozen wire needs to be heated. So while running the engine, I remembered the door that wouldn't open, and thought maybe it opened just enough to turn the lights on without really appearing open at all. There is a switch in the front to open the door, so I opened it, and closed it. Then I got out of the car, and the lights went out.

There you go, Mercury retro in it's glory: phones, computers, transportation (car issues with the door and lights), communications (my teeth, which I did eventually find...to long a story to explain here).

On the 28th Comcast came out, and we found the source of the phone trouble. Hubby has had a bad chest cold, coughing a lot at night, so we increased the humidity in the bedroom. Also, this old 1954 brick home was built with no insulation, just plaster inside on top of the brick, and the outside wall of the house in the bedroom radiates a great deal of cold. So, in the worst of the winter, I make a temporary headboard by taking a thick piece of blueboard, wrapping a thick old quilt all around it, and propping it up behind the bed against the wall. Well, what happened this time was the extra humidity hit the cold wall, condensed, and ran down the wall into an antique phone jack (one we aren't even using) and shorted out the line. But it only did this across the very bottom 6 inches of the wall, so we didn't see it. The guy was able to get us reconnected somehow by fiddling with some wires outside and using a different phone line to plug in our base. The house had two phone lines but we only used one all these years. Long term we should get the phone lines redone in the house.

I'm doing taxes next week also and expecting some adventure. I calculate them on an Excel spreadsheet so I keep emailing updated sheets to myself to have a back up. I'm just hoping that since I've worked on the taxes off and on throughout the year, me working on them next week will be 'revisiting an old item'...which is good for a Mercury retrograde period. Not holding my breath though!

[Tsiyu]

16. Humidity in the house kills stuff

Everyone up here basically lives on a rock. Which sweats. In the wettest Eastern woodland forest.

So houses just rot from the bottom up if you're not careful. But I hate dry air; like your hubby I find that steam helps with breathing and such, so I also have a water pot that I keep steaming away. Well, that killed a beautiful oven I was given by a friend, because it had digital controls and display. Never get a digital range if your place is humid.

The nice part is, back where the main fire pit is, there is a carpet of soft green moss growing everywhere, even along some of the paths. I will miss that when I go, but we haven't used it in a long time. It's a wreck - on the list to clean...

Hope all have a great weekend. Hope mt got it all sorted, too.

[DebJ]

17. Oh wow, an oven died? I have a four year old gas range but the darn things only come

with digital controls (when you want real stainless steel). I hate that; in the past I always
could use the gas oven for some heat in a real emergency if the power went out. Not that you
are supposed to do that, but it would beat frostbite in your house.

And guess what? The way I increase the humidity was to boil lots and lots of water on that stove top!

Thanks for the warning. I hadn't bought a humidifier because the last one I bought put out like 1 tsp of water every EVENING,
and the reviews on all the other ones I looked at online were either bad reviews, or positive reviews that said things like
if you clean it out every single day, then it is fine, except blah blah blah. And our water has an extremely, extremely high
mineral content, so we use a salt-based softener............sigh. No good answers.

[Tsiyu]

18. Well, I could have fixed it for $150

but didn't have it.

My son brought me an old double-stack oven, but there's no stovetop, so i use a stainless steel pot in the stove or use the crockpot to heat water. I have an electric water kettle that heats up really fast but the water boils away...

It's always something, as Roseane Rosannadanna used to say.

[DebJ]

19. I miss the good old Saturday night characters. n/t