When I got the virus that disabled my hard drive, Gargoyle, I had not downloaded anything--I had merely opened an expected e-mail from Adobe after erasing all two hundred or so similar messages. I didn't Save the message, I simply didn't delete it because it had some directions I had asked for for installing an Adobe program, directions I didn't have time to put into use immediately. I don't download files I haven't requested or which have come from someone I know and trust, and I hadn't downloaded anything at all in days, maybe weeks (it's not a regular occurance in my computer usage). So the message itself was in aol, not my computer--after I had closed it. I think that generally it's safe to accept e-mail from a major software publisher--and I'm not sure that it was the message itself which caused its alias to reproduce itself endlessly. If and when I can get data from my old hard drive, maybe I'll find out what happened. Also, I find it hard to use my Mac when it's covered with too many condoms--one, maybe, but more than that and the screen gets a bit dim and the keyboard and touchpad difficult to use.

By the way--did you feel the earthquake yesterday morning?

--seed