I’m really starting to appreciate my cable modem now that I’m out here using a dialup connection.  My mother is computerphobic.  She plays Mahjohngg and checks email, but she’s afraid to touch anything else on it.  This means that I’m her tech support.  So I had to update the virus definitions and now I’m sitting here waiting for a couple of month’s worth of Microsoft “critical updates” to download.  I sure hope that Microsoft’s vaunted security efforts actually start to produce results one of these days.  It seems like every time I use a PC with Windows XP on it I have to download a new fix.  It’s pretty annoying when you have to download them through a modem, kind of like sucking up the ocean through a straw.