I started getting popups on my work machine last week. Today I dug thru Add/Remove Programs and found a little monster called “Web Savings from Ebates.”

I typed it into Google.

At Remove WebSavings I got a nifty tool to remove the damned parasite. The tool’s running now; I’ve got 37 instances in the registry, 147 suspicious cookies, and I’m only 10% of the way through the scan. (The software only identifies problems; you have to buy it to get it to auto-remove ’em for you. But with a list you can do it manually.)

Argh.

Working in the Internet industry as I do, I’m pretty dang savvy about downloading and/or installing stuff on my machines… and even wracking my brain I don’t know how this baby got installed. Honestly. Those spyware folks are some clever bastards.

I accidentally joined the Science Fiction Book Club today. Ooops! It’s Elizabeth Moon‘s fault, if you must know. I went to Webscriptions to see what else of hers they sold, ended up at her Baen bibliography, then at her personal site, and from there followed a link to the SFBC. Suffice it to say I’m really enjoying Heris Serrano. Sigh.

Tim’s not in today, so I’m rather swamped with stuff to do. I’ve been doing other stuff all day and really need to dive into my DSL db now.

Next week I’ll be here (at LISCO) every day, covering Tim’s vacation. The week after that: AMMA!!! First in Mount Pleasant, then in Chicago. (I am so ready to see Her.) I expect to be inhumanly busy in Mt. P, sitting at the Seva Desk with the wonderful and unflappable miss Christina – who has done essentially all the work of seva assignation this year. The trip to Chicago will be with the ever-lovely misses Tahmi and Anna, and we’ll be staying in the program hotel, always my favorite solution. I am ever so very ready for my annual Amma trip. Sigh.

As for my physical health, lately I’ve been feeling just utterly exhausted. My heart skips beats all the time or beats rapidly, which makes me even more tired. I miss taking my supplements, and have discovered that finding a doctor not suffering from rectal/cranial inversion re thyroidism is harder than one would naturally expect. I doubt I’ll find one and get an appointment before I’m off in Amma world for a week.

Last but not least, I did reverse DNS this morning for a customer who hosts two domains on his own server over a LISCO DSL (ie using LISCO IP addresses). This miraculous feat of competence apparently impressed the hell out of the customer’s network guy, who told the wife of one of my co-worker’s that I was stunningly competent because not only did I know what he was talking about (reverse lookup) but I actually did edit and reload the db within the 10 minutes I’d promised him. Yay, me! (It is so nice to get the occasional attagirl just for doing one’s job.) (I won’t mention that it had been so long I actually had to look up how to do it in my notes. Heh.)

Anyway, off to work. Ciao, lovies!