dud of a dell

computer woes. yesterday as i turned on this here dell computer and logged on, i got a couple of error messages (rundll32.exe is not initializing; userinit.exe is not initializing) and then there were no desktop icons. not a one. there was no task bar at the bottom of the screen, no start button bottom left, no clock bottom right. and the quick-keys on my keyboard were not functioning. to access the internet and my email, i had to go through the task manager. thankfully, at least my famke wallpaper was intact. but i was rather worried for my computer as a whole. my spam blocker wasn't working. how did this happen? is it my fault? did i visit a contagious web page? my computer felt naked, exposed, vulnerable. at my dad's suggestion, via crosscountry email, i attempted to reinstall windows - fortunately i still have the cd-rom this infernal machine came with. but the computer would not let me reinstall the software, citing something called go back, apparently a norton product i installed some time ago as part of a firewall-type package. i'd thought norton was the way to go when it came to computer protection; it seems i was misled. it occurs to me that perhaps i shouldn't be using this computer at all now, shouldn't be posting on this inane little blog, shouldn't be checking email, shouldn't be visiting my usual buttcrack sites, as likely that little black box is wide open to further viral infections right now. i'm going to make a call this afternoon to a local computer shop, just a few blocks up 6th, perhaps unfortunately called last stop, and see if they can fix it all. otherwise, who knows? i certainly don't want to buy a whole new machine. this dell has been an irritant for a while, but i'm sure i don't want to deal with vista until i have to. next time, whenever next time may be, i might get me a pretty little apple.