Live from my dad's laptop:
My computer has a virus and dies as soon as MSN appears at start-up. I got the virus from msn when a contact sent me a link, saying "hey, someone posted your photos on this website!" Usually wise to this sort of thing, when he mentioned my photos I wasn't really thinking of anything other than "Without my permission?!?" so I clicked on the link, yes, even clicked "Run" on the little pop-up box, eejit that I am (It was an msn address!).
Then saw a download box, which woke me up and I went "Aaaargh! cancelcancelcancelnoooooooo!" as it disappeared, to be replaced by an ugly, grinning face (doubt that it's the infector's own) for a few seconds and when that disappeared, my computer shut down!

In the 50 seconds that I have, between logging in and the computer switching off (and you have the whole starting-up sluggishness issue too), I managed to get to system restore, only to find out that all restore points have mysteriously vanished....

I hate to imagine what kind of person can send out something like this to infect multiple computers, without thinking of the effect that it can have on somebody. I'm not talking about my own situation, because I know for a fact that some people will have it a lot worse. I back up most things of sentimental value as soon as I can, so, to my knowledge I've lost very little, but there will be a host of people getting this who will lose everything and who may not be able to afford to get it fixed (with ya on this one!), may lose a dissertation, may lose something hugely important for work, etc.
You just don't expect it to happen.

Yep. Well, here's me without Photoshop and without a computer for a while....
This is not the best week!

Look forward to good news, coming soon!

Still smiling.
Gerard