It happened a few days ago, and it was bound to happen sooner or later. My sister could no longer log into her account on her Windows XP machine. When you tried, it went to a black screen with only the mouse cursor shown. The common symptoms of a broken computer, like one caused by a virus infection.

Normally, this sort of thing would be a geeks nightmare. One would have to spend time to fix it or reinstall Windows XP. There are supposedly tools to fix this (System restore and such) but past experience has shown this rarely fixes the problem.

But I was prepared this time. When I first set-up my sister’s machine, I made her a limited user. And it was one of the better decisions I made. I simply created her a new account, and everything worked and she was happy to have her computer back with AIM and MSN and iTunes (though not the music, though that can easily be copied over).

This has some pitfalls. I have to log in to do random stupid stuff like change the clock time, install new software, and update Firefox. But these hassles, even when combined, have paid off for themselves by not having me sit in front of a broken computer.

Managing her account from Regina is gonna be hard though. And I don’t have much time to resolve this problem.

Please, please, please stop defending Phelps on this pot thing. You’re not only really bad at defending him (and really, he can defend himself. He’s an adult), but you might be actively hurting the pot movement you are so obviously championing for. You are well intentioned, but please keep thought-deprived comments and headlines to yourself.

If you want to learn more about the movement, both for and against. You can read more about it at the National Institute on Drug Abuse or the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Either of these do a much, much, much better job.