so, i took the clean drive out of the pc and put it into the laptop because the electrical usage is lower, but forgot to plug the video card in before it posted. so, i had to put it back into the pc to get past the nag screen (i can't see it on the laptop. the lamp is burnt out.) and i noticed the squiggly file, which passes every scan but seems to act like a trojan, was back again. further, the kill & restart mutants were back. i think that figuring out what these are is key to understanding the reboots.

so, i booted back into xp and deleted it from the xp install, and came back up in 7 to find it was gone, but the kill & restart mutants were back. hrmmn. did the clsid create the mutants? is that a coincidence?

i rebooted again to find the clsid there again.

worms tend to be able to do stuff like this, recreate themselves from their own fragments. but, what happened?

i guess there's two possibilities:

1) this is normal. but, i can't figure out what the files are. if it's normal, it's pretty weird.

2) i picked the file back up from the bios in the laptop.

if the latter, i might have infected the pc with it.

if i have a virus (government or private sector, but this looks like it's government - and this all started when i put the rcmp disc in my computer, remember) in this laptop bios, i suspect i'll need to fix the lamp before i can flash it. i know how to flash a bios; i don't know how to flash a bios if i can't see the bios screen. and, it's making me wonder. as always, the lamp burned out when i was gone.

but, for right now, i just don't know, and i'll need to do another fresh reinstall before i do. so, i'm not going to worry too much about this for right now, i'm going to just work out some loose ends and get myself back online within a few hours.

again: my cyberstalker is persistent, it is true, but this is just a stupid waste of everybody's time. i should be back into my email well before the morning.