You are somewhere in-between.

Eight years ago to the day I got the best computer virus imaginable. How it slipped in and infected my computer I really can’t say, but after making itself known I wasn’t in the slightest bit upset I’d been digitally molested. Truth be told I was thrilled that this piece of viral code had infected my machine. I was thrilled it’d infected me. It wasn’t malicious, didn’t corrupt any program, delete a single file or steal a solitary bit of personal data, but that wasn’t what made me happy. For the great part I didn’t even know this germ was there inside, quietly interacting with my computer in some sort of forced symbiotic relationship. I liked this virus. I considered it a friend, and like all good friends I’d eagerly wait for it to visit. In this particular digital pathogens case that meant those special five minutes (always just five minutes) when it seized absolute control of my computer and demanded attention. I never knew when it would, it just would at seemingly random intervals sometimes months apart, and I was glad when it did.

Sadly I lost my little friend a year or so later when I bought a new computer and I have to say I missed it immediately. I missed what it did. I missed its irregular but always precisely on-time wake up call, and so on this 8^th anniversary I will share the single thing this virus would do to my computer. There were no bells signaling that it’d awoken. There were no whistles or warnings at all. My screen would simply fade lazily to black then this message would ghost in, remain quietly for five minutes, and then disappear again. (Click to enlarge)