They left with my mom telling me to clean the kitchen before I left for work. Soon after they left, they called on the cell phone (they can never be gone without calling at least once, nor without getting everyone in the car, then someone coming back in because something was forgotten). They called asking about the progress of the internet. See, I split our hard drive up into 2 partitions, or parts, and installed Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) on one, and Windows XP (eXPerience) Professional on the other. What you do on one won't affect the other in any way. They are like different computers. I use the WinXP one and everyone else uses Win98, with one of the reasons being that it automatically loads Win98 unless you know what to press to make it start WinXP instead, which no one does except me. My dad was on the computer a few days ago and he went somewhere with his stuff still up, so I couldn't close out and go to mine, but I just wanted to check my email and notes and that could easily be done in the family partition, so I did. Stupid popups kept popping up because I was using Internet Explorer since I don't have Opera on the family one. Hehe, Opera is only mine. It doesn't allow popups unless you change the settings for it to. So anyway, one of the popups installed automatically and then asked me what internet connection I use. I clicked on "cable" and then it said it optimized my internet settings and that I had to restart. I did, and the internet hasn't worked since. Sure it works in mine, but that just means that my parents make me leave mine on so they can use the internet. I found out the program was called "Speed Blaster", made by Total Velocity Inc. I've had a heckuva time finding anything on it in a search engine. It all turns up with results about a mountain or racing bike with that name. I called Comcast, who is our ISP (internet service provider) and they didn't know what to do. So my dad wants the internet working and never misses a chance to bring up that it was me who messed it up. Okay, so just because I'm the one they depend on to fix the dang computer every time it goes down, it's 100 times worse when I mess something up than if someone else did. If my sister, for example, did the same thing, they'd tell her to be careful what she downloads, and then tell me to fix it. But no, my parents ask me if I learned a lesson from it, and my dad acts like it was a felony and that I was very irresponsible and stupid to do that. After much troubleshooting, I think reinstalling Windows over itself is the only solution, and if that doesn't work, then reformatting and installing everything again will most definitely work, but will be a pain. Meanwhile, they want me to use all my free time doing that, and get my normal chores done, and they want to use the computer whenever and I can't do anything on it that will take a long time and make it so they can't get on it, because their stuff is "important". Well yeah, my dad's is, because it's our main source of income right now, but he can be a little more understanding on what it takes to fix the computer and that I can't just go around everyone's schedule, meanwhile letting them into my WinXP so they can use the internet. I mean, I got home from work today and found 3 new icons on the desktop, meaning something was installed! On my partition! That's why I freakin' made my own private one, so their careless downloading and lack of maintenance and organization wouldn't corrupt anything of mine. But here, something was downloaded and installed, not to mention annoying icons were left on the desktop and not deleted from sight, and who knows if that was the only thing done. This morning I got on and the appearance was different. The theme had changed and I had to change it back. Winamp didn't start and I had to reinstall it and redo the equalizer and my song list. But I have to let them use it while the other one's internet doesn't work.

So they basically called to let me know to keep my partition open so they could use it while I was at work, and my dad threw in the ol' "it's not a choice, this is for my business" once again. Well, on the bright side, the person I was downloading songs from was online and I got a few more albums downloaded including White Zombie. I burned 6 CDs (2 Catch-22, 1 Korn, 1 Rancid, 2 Rammstein, and 1 White Zombie). When I got in the car to go to work, I discovered that I had run out of room in my CD case, so I decided to hurry over to Radio Shack, which is on the way. I was going about 75 MPH down River Road (55 speed limit) and was behind a jeep that was going as fast as I was. I was holding the few CDs that wouldn't fit and I looked down at them to see which one I would put in after the one that was playing was finished, and when I looked up, I saw an old Ford truck stopped on the road, waiting to turn left. The jeep was going around it on the right in the bike lane and dirt, and I was about 2 seconds from hitting the truck. I hit on my breaks but it wasn't nearly enough and so I followed the jeep around the truck onto the side of the road and then back on the road once we were in front of it. If I hadn't have looked up when I did, I'd be outta here. Strangely, I was about as nervous and stressed as if it hadn't happened. But I can't die yet. It wouldn't be nice and, besides, my friends would kill me if I did. ;)