Old fanfic, new malware

[captainsblog]

I feel almost un-American admitting this, but: I am really starting to  ♥   Google. As a search engine, fine. Dandy, even. Adding search boxes to my browsers, okay. But I'm finding their tentacles in more and more corners of my computer, and it's beginning to not just annoy, but frighten a little.

Some of my program compatibility problems, I'd blamed on Vista. It's easy enough to do, like accusing Not Me, or those horrible cats, or the Bush administration (sorry, one link won't do for THAT). But yesterday, when Outlook crashed for the 214th time during the day, I wondered if it was being caused by some spontaneous additions to the menu bar by my timekeeping proggy.  I went to reset the Outlook menu bar to its default pristine condition, and it asked me to select a toolbar to restore:

□Standard
□Advanced
□Menu Bar
□Web
□Google Toolbar
□Google Toolbar
□Google Toolbar
□Google Toolbar
□Google Toolbar
□Google Toolbar
□□□ad infinitum, and I do mean infinitum. This puppy had retentacled itself to my email program close to 100 times, and not for nothing, but I NEVER ASKED FOR IT TO INSTALL ITSELF IN THE FIRST PLACE.  

Several hundred-plus check-delete-YesI'mSure keystrokes and one very reluctant Google Toolbar uninstall later, Outlook has only crashed once. That time, though, it told me that Vista's Data Execution Prevention program had initiated the shutdown. (Why would they execute Data? What, do they think he's a toaster?) On the other hand, I'm now able to close Excel without getting an error I'd previously been blaming on a Vista issue.

Stop me before I say something nice about Bill Gates.

----

Speaking of Data, or rather his forbears, I was reminded just now by one of my younger-but-damn-wonderful Friends about a Star Trek TOS episode that I actually published a newsgroup fanfic on, way back in 1996. Since the movie's all the talk of the quadrant right now, I thought I'd share it here.

I often tell people that some things were meant not to be "crossed over"
between shows.  Here's a fine example of why.

"The City on the Edge of Nowhere"

Kirk brings the Enterprise back to Festus 6, the planet with the
time vortex, because when you're itching to get laid, there's no
one quite like Alexis Carrington  in sensible shoes.  They try to
re-enact their famous sequence, with Bones going thru the vortex
first.  This time, though, the ship doesn't disappear.  Uhura doesn't
say, "Captain, I'm frightened."  Scotty reports all is well on board,
all except for an inexplicable smell of sauerbraten coming from
the galley.

His curiosity more piqued then ever, Kirk goes through after his
quarries.  (Always knew that man had rocks in his head.)  Only in
this version, when they get to the Mission of Hope soup kitchen,
Edith isn't there.  Neither is Bones.  In their place behind the counter
is a surly looking guy with a mustache.

Kirk is confused.  He knows McCoy has changed history again,
only,... DIFFERENTLY somehow.  The man with the ladle looks
at Kirk and says, "Well?"

Kirk plods.  "I don't... understand.  I was expecting.... Edith..."

He is angrily cut off.  "I've got a line, you schmuck.  
NO SOUP FOR YOU!"

Suddenly it dawns on our hero.  The heavy water experiments- the ones
with the bouillon.  Edith may not have prevented the Nazis from losing
the war, but she didn't stop them from making some damn amazing soup.

Befuddled by this turn of events, our time travelers seek refuge in Jerry's
apartment; Kirk nails Elaine; and they spend the rest of the episode
talking about nothing in particular.

It's all the more noteworthy since I don't think I ever watched an episode of Seinfeld except for that one. Also, isn't that a bitchin' Usenet-era font?

Comments

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

I so hate google toolbar and also google desktop, which basically lets you do a google search for anything that's on your computer. It is also ugly, annoying, and takes up precious CPU usage running in the background on my positively prehistoric computer. I finally figured out how to make it not run on start-up.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

That's a really nice picture of you on your New Office Entry, btw.

[baseballchica03.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[headbanger118.livejournal.com]

It's a bitchin' hard to read font! OK, I admit, it's time for bifocals. Bleh.

I have Vista, but so far, so good. Happily, I do NOT have a Google toolbar.