I’ll tell you now, you may read some rougher language than usual in this A Dog’s Lunch.
The clever and insightful writer of these columns has been a bit jaundiced of late. You see,
I’ve been battling a virus for over a week now and I’m pissed. In fact, I’m getting pissed off
all over again right now just writing this.
I’m not talking about just a nuisance like AIDS or some upper respiratory thing; it’s much more
serious than that. We’re talking about a computer virus. And no, it’s not the Anna Kournikova
virus; even I’m not that stupid. The year old Love Letter virus infected my computer. I’m so
unhip, even my computer virus is a year behind.
The virus infected my Windows 95, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, and ate up all the
pictures I had saved over the last three years. I know what you’re thinking, “Dave lost all his
porn.” That’s true, but I also lost all of my pictures of Israel. My computer used to be pretty much
just pictures of naked women and The Land Of Milk And Honey. If I could have gotten Alyssa
Milano to pose naked on the Golan Heights, I could have saved a lot of memory.
This insidious bug comes to you as though it’s an email from a friend. Open it and you’re dead. In
my case, I haven’t talked to the “friend” who sent me the email in awhile, so I was being nice by
opening the joke he had attached to the email. Just a note to my family, friends, and fans: don’t
send me any jokes. I don’t care how cute you think the little wordplay is. By this point in the
history of the Internet, haven’t we all grown up enough not to be amused by the different uses
and derivatives of the word shit.
I’ve spent a week and a half staying up late buying virus cures, unloading and loading software,
backing up documents and wondering why my computer still doesn’t work right. Of course, once
you buy the super-duper anti-virus software, then you have to spend another hundred bucks on
the pay-for-help line to figure out how to use it. G-d forbid that the company who sold you the
computer in the first place actually attempts to help you. Tuxedo rental places are the only
businesses that can consistently screw up the order and stay in business. That’s a fact of life but
you have to use them. Computer companies, though, are the only ones that take your money,
drop you into a free fall, and then have the nerve to charge you for the help you need on the
machine they sold you!
I’m not a violent man, but I’ve also been staying up late thinking up elaborate tortures for the
little, 15-year old, non-pussy-getting loser who wrote the Love Letter virus in the first place.
Nobody enjoys his teenage years. I know that. I hated high school and waited all year to get back
to summer camp, but I never acted out in such a mean spirited way. Sure, I had a couple of good
years on the J.V. baseball team, but somehow I still found myself withdrawing a good part of the
time. You know you have no career in professional sports when, even on your J.V. team, you’re
the utility player.
I don’t know why I expect more from 15-year olds. Last week, in the midst of my anti-computer
fury, I passed a Burger King billboard that said, “our burgers are made for a king, not a clown!”
Ooh. Now even our Fortune 500 companies are acting like teenagers. When the McDonald’s
clown sees that billboard, he’s going to kick the Burger King’s ass in front of his girlfriend.
I read that the Love Letter virus was written by some kid in the Philippines. One of the World
Trade Center bombers was picked up in the Philippines. I suggest we use the same task force to
clamp down on this ne’er do-well and his pimply-faced gang of co-conspirators. Either that, or, I
love irony, does anybody know how to get in touch with the Uni-bomber?