Computer viruses.
You know what sucks harder?
Computer stores.

About two weeks ago my computer got blindsided by a bastardization of programming spawned from the festering excrement of Adolf Hitler and John Wayne Gacy deep within a clogged toilet in the Seventh Circle of Hell, and the results were not pretty. Fortunately, I've been using a Zip Drive to store my personal files for some time; unfortunately, I didn't include college and/or work documents in that category.

This wouldn't have been too serious a problem by itself, but I had forgotten the golden rule: Murphy's Law will #$@& you up royal. My laptop arrived at the store Saturday afternoon, and they estimated it would take until Monday to perform the exorcism. Long story short, it was Saturday the following week before I finally got the damn thing back...and all told, the bill came to over $400. I was ungodly fortunate that my family agreed to split the cost, but still–February has not been kind thus far.

Now that I'm through wallowing in self-pity, back to current events: College is moving along nicely (I actually picked some interesting courses!), my personal life is "meh," work is so-so, and I'm gathering a fistload of poems to submit to the school's quarterly student journal. Here's hoping I get published!

- James