Ok, the title of this blog is actually pretty untrue. My mum went to college at age 16, and my dad is one of the smartest people I know. They're both professors at a major university, as well as being published authors. So, really they're pretty amazing people. But they're also some of the worst people when it comes to computers. My mum has no clue at all what she's doing, and while my dad's actually pretty knowledgeable about computers, he has no clue how to apply said knowledge. For this reason, I've been spending quite a lot to time lately helping them 'fix' their computer. And I put fix in quotes because that thing is dead meat.

If any of you have parents who probably have your phone number listed in their contacts as 'tech support', you'll know what I'm talking about here. Somehow, even after they put five (and I really mean five) anti virus programs on their computer running full time protection, they still managed to get viruses on that thing. I have no clue how they do it. The thing is so messed up that it takes half an hour to boot up, and the viruses have started downloading other viruses whenever the computer connects to the internet. I have 100% no idea what they did to the poor thing, but somehow, even after I fixed the damned thing a month ago, even going through the freakin' root kit, they've managed to mess it up worse than ever. I admit that I could have missed something, but if I did there was nothing I could have done about it. This thing is SICK.

It's probably because of my parents' "Safe internet habits". They're constantly nagging my younger brother about how he'll get a virus on his computer because of all the time he spends on youtube, while they themselves have some of the worst internet habits I've ever seen. They use the computer in question for pretty much two things. Finding recipes on the internet and finding pictures on the internet. They will go to any site the pops up on google. That computer probably goes on more websites than mine, even though I use mine ten times more than they do. I think that one of the many anti virus programs they downloaded (without asking my advice) might have brought some friends along for the ride. However, I've stopped caring and am now just advising them to get a new, not eight years old computer.

Sorry for the rant, but this has taken up so much of my life lately that I'm getting tired of it. My internet giving out at the same time did not make things any easier on me. But, my internet is (probably) back up now, and their computer is... probably going to have to be totally lobotomized, upgraded to windows seven, have all it's software re-installed, get backed up, and then finally replaced.

Sigh...