The imp in my computer

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times for Sam Vimes, Commander of the Watch of Ankh-Morpork.

On the one hand, tensions between the dwarfs and the trolls in Ankh-Morpork, which are always at a simmer, are threatening to boil over. He has to keep a close eye on the trolls and dwarfs who are Constables in the Watch who must put aside their differences and work together.

Now he has been pressured into hiring a new Constable who is a vampire. Vimes does not like vampires; well, it is not that he doesn’t like them, he just doesn’t trust them.

There has been a murder that the Watch must investigate – a troll has apparently murdered a dwarf in a tunnel complex under the city. He is under pressure to solve it quickly because it could launch a full-scale riot in the city. The new vampire on the Watch, who is very beautiful and looks about 16-years-old, needs to be partnered with a Constable who is a werewolf. Each one has senses that make her especially adapted to working in dark tunnels where the murder occurred. Everyone knows that vampires and werewolves do not get along very well….

Complicating matters further is that Lord Vetinari, the not-so-benevolent despot who runs Ankh-Morpork with a not-so-velvet gloved hand, is upset with the amount of money the Watch is costing the government and has assigned an “efficiency expert” to go over the books and the activities of the Watch.

(Be patient. This post really is about my computer, and I will get to it in a minute.)

On the other hand, Sam is head-over-heels in love with his wife and they have a young son, who he adores. He has taken his duties as a father very seriously.

And to help him remember his husbandly and fatherly duties, Sam’s wife, who is somewhat bossy, insists that he carry a Gooseberry.

“Duddle-dum-duddle-dum-duddle-dum!”
Ah yes. No matter how bad things were, there was always room for them to get just that little bit worse…

Vimes pulled the smart brown box out of his pocket and flipped it open. The pointy-eared face of a small green imp stared up at him with that wistful, hopeless smile, which, in its various incarnations, he’d come to know and dread.

“Good morning, Insert Name Here! I am the Dis-Organiser Mark Five, the Gooseberry. How may I…” it began speaking fast in order to get as much said as possible before the inevitable interruption….

I don’t carry around the Terry Pratchett equivalent of a Blackberry, or a PDA, or one of those incredible new mobile phones that can do just about everything except wash the dishes, and I have never sent a text message on my little TrakPhone that is for emergencies only….

But I am convinced I have a “little green imp” living in my computer.

I have very particular ideas about how I want my desktop to look. I am a big fan of the uncluttered look – I like it plain and simple. In particular, I like the “old Windows” version of the desktop. Like this:

Which is what it looked like this morning when I turned my computer on. (By the way, Oklahoma Granny, if you enlarge the picture and look at the time signature at the bottom right and subtract about 10 minutes you will get an idea of what time I get up).

However, yesterday morning when I turned my computer on, this is what I saw:



Mind you, I have done nothing whatsoever to the desktop settings on the control panel.

Nothing at all.

It just changes itself.

This is not one of those weird computer problems that makes one want to heave the thing against the nearest wall, it is just bewildering.

Do I have an imp in my computer?