My computer is back up and running. I was considerably nervous about formatting the drive and installing the operating system myself, so I asked Scott for help. Bad idea. For the next hour and a half I had to endure the continual mockery of Scott and Philip for not being able to do basic computer maintainance tasks myself and of Philip for having a computer that needed to be overhauled, viz. a PC and not a Mac. Turns out that I could have done it myself. But the computer is working much faster; every task takes a third to a quarter of the time that it used to. Now I just need to set all my preferences right.

Thank you, all those who sent get-well cards and flowers.