Spyware/adware bugs and a strange quiz result

AhAH! It was spyware that crudded up my comp this weekend, causing Juno to take foooorrreeeeevvveeeerrrr to open (I timed it just now: three minutes for the software to open). My "Matrix" fanfic buddy "Dark Puck" was talking with me last night when I managed to get online, and suggested my problem might have been the dreaded spyware/adware. I still had the installer for SpyBot Search and Destroy on my comp (when the computer geeks fixed my comp, they backed up all the files in My Documents and the installer was among them), so I reinstalled SB S&D just now...

Et voila! I'm back in business!

I've been on long enough to scoff a quiz off someone else's LJ:


Your aura shines Orange!


What Color Is Your Aura?
brought to you by Quizilla

Strange.... The description fits me, but I don't really *like* orange. Hurts my eyes, unless its orange flames or orange pumpkins at Halloween and/or Thanksgiving.

Speaking of which, to all my Canadian friends on LJ, Happy Thanksgiving!!

Changed plans and a Walk with my Mom

Okay... My dad and I were planning to go to the Topsfield Fair today, but he ended up working later than he had hoped for, so we decided not to go. Oh well! That way we can save our money and go to the "Lord of the Rings" exhibit at the Museum of Science in Boston on Sunday. I tried buying the tickets online just now, but for some reason, I can't seem to access their secure server. Screwy computer...

I went for a walk with my mom up to the elementary school she used to attend, formerly the Shawsheen School, but which is now called the Louise Trahan School (I think). She took a few pictures of the building and the yard and the colorful trees behind the building. Then, when we walked back, we passed through the old burying ground on the corner of Shawsheen St. and Main St., the way we used to walk home when I was taking dance classes as a kindergartener, when I was going to Donna Miceli's Dance Studio back in the days when it used to be on the second floor over an appliance store. Well, Donna Miceli (whom my mom went to high school with) moved her studio to another, larger space on top of the old Central School near the center of town, and the appliance store got rennovated about 15 years ago, so now it's just a one-story building. ...But the old burying ground is still there: it's a typical New England cemetary with tombstones dating back to the late 1600s, when the town of Tewksbury had barely been incorporated. The newest ones date back to around 1919, so it's *old*. There used to be a big dead oak tree in the middle of it, with a "NO TRESPASSING" sign on it, but the tree blew over during Hurricane Gloria back in the '80s... I miss that tree... What's a graveyard without a big, spooky dead tree in the middle of it?

Well, anyway, the remains of the tree got cut down and now there's a big stump in the middle of the graveyard... and someone keeps putting a jack o'lantern on that stump sometime during the night on Halloween, each year, for several years in succession. I'm determined to find out who the jack o'lantern-leaver is, so this year, I'm planning on bundling up in some warm clothes and hiding in the bushes in the graveyard on Halloween night and watching to see who leaves the jack o'lantern.

I wonder if they're the same person who left a pair of small brass bells tied on either end of a length of string draped over a slightly tilted tombstone at the corner of the lot, near the entrance/exit path. Is there anyone here who can tell me why someone would a pair of small brass bells on either end of a length of string, draped over an old tombstone that's slightly pushed up from the ground? Is this some kind of occult thing or a superstition or just someone being odd? Thanks!