Bloody brownies!
I had the weirdest day today. Here is how it started.
I check my e-mail as I do every morning. I didn't a thing as is usual.
Now, the other writers and I use a special research program called Premise. One of the writers got Premise installed on one of the network drives yesterday, which is useful because we don't have permanent desks yet. However, only he benefited because only his account had permission.
So this morning I call the techie down in the southern office to give me access remotely. He does and then I carry on with my morning research assignment. Except I can't. The library for the area of law I need to be researching is missing. So I call the techie again. He installs the missing library. I go back to doing my research thing.
Now the problems is that I am not finding the case that I found yesterday. This is bothersome. Did I spell the terms that I used int he search query correctly? I am not sure. So I try to open MS Word to spell check the terms. Word don't open. This is strange. May be Premise is hogging the memory or something. I don't know. What do I know. I am just a dumb humanities major. So I close Premise and try to open word. I get Premise. Now this is real strange. So I close Premise and try to open the database program. I get Premise. Now I am really confused. Thinking maybe I somehow clicked something by mistake. I close the only application open (that would, of course, be Premise) and click on the e-mail program shortcut. I get Premise.
Being left with no alternative, I call the techie. By now, we have both had a long morning. I tell him what has been happening. He doesn't believe me. Blazes, I don't believe me. So, through remote access, he tries to open various applications and gets Premise every time.
In fact, every shortcut opens Premise. Restarting the computer opens Premise. The techie thinks I have played an elaborate joke on him. As I told him, if I had the education to do that, I wouldn't be working at my present job ... I would be programing or something.
The techie opens each shortcuts' properties and discovers that each shortcut is mapped to exactly what it should be mapped to (e.g., the Internet Explorer shortcut says it opens the Internet Exloprer ie.exe file in the program files directory) ... and NOT Premise.
So he calls New York ... in order to speak with the techie-in -chief would proceeds to do a great poltergeist impression with my mouse cursor.
Needless to say, my computer user account got straightened out. But what a weird way to start a day.
And for those who care, the official explanation is that it was a virus -- method of transmission unknown.