Good morning?

Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays.

Monday morning. My alarm goes off at 6:15 as usual. I get out of bed at 7:30 not as usual. I have a feeling today is going to be one of those days. I arrive at work around 8:30, which is kind of on the late side for me, but still about a good 3 hours before anybody else shows up. Fully caffeinated, I log into my workstation and I’m greeted with “Your password has expired. Please reset your password now”. Excellent, I was hoping today would be the day I could add one more password to the dozen or so already swirling around my head. I’ve only had the current password for two months. I guess the hackers trying to get access to my machine are getting very, very close. I’d better think of something really good. I know, I’ll take my old password, which consist of letters, numbers, and symbols (yes you read that correctly my password at work must contain letters, numbers, and symbols) and I’ll change the order of the characters to make the resulting word totally without meaning. That should make it hard to crack…um, and remember…gees.

[Begin aside ] Now that I think about it I’m really pretty amazed with the human mind’s ability to remember so many passwords and associate them with their proper context. I have at least 10-15 different passwords to various accounts. I couldn’t list them all off the top of my head but when faced with a familiar prompt my brain signals my fingers and I’m in. It’s not even a conscious thing anymore. But I digress. [End aside]

With my password successfully reset I log into my workstation (probably for the last time because the chances of me remembering my new random sequence of letters, numbers, and symbols is really very, very slim). Once logged in it’s time to get down to business. The first order of business – fire up a browser and check my personal email account. Afterall, it’s Monday and I’m sure my mailbox is full of heartfelt “miss ya”s from my family and friends, that or it’s full of all kinds of fun to read spam. Either way this is a win, win situation.

Uh oh. I have a virus! And to learn more about it I should run the attached file. Well I’m always trying to learn more about things, but I thought I wasn’t supposed to open attachments from strangers. And technically this is a stranger. What if the attachment is a virus and the message was designed to trick me Jedi-mind-trick-style into opening the virus. I think I’ll do some research before opening the attachment. So I open another browser, go to Google and search on the subject “Returned due to Virus!!!”

[Begin aside #2] A lot of times virus software sites like Symantec and Trend Micro will post detailed reports about viruses. So this is pretty standard operating procedure for me. Yes, I could just delete it, but that wouldn’t be fun. If a virus is attached I have this overpowering urge to examine it. I can’t explain it but I have to. I think it’s my way of getting back at the virus writers, albeit without them ever knowing about it. But still whenever I get a script virus I always open it in an editor and make disparaging remarks about the ability of the author.
[End aside #2]

My Google search leads me here.

Whoa buddy. Hold on for a second. Google’s giving me an error when I’m just trying to search. It must have been some kind of freak timing thing or a sunspot or something. I’ll try again. And again. And again. Every time same error.

So here’s where I’m at. I can’t ever shutdown my machine because I’ll never guess my password, my personal email is crawling with viruses (or is it viri?), and Google is broken just before their big IPO. All this and it’s only 9:30. I have a feeling today is going to be one of those days.

Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays.