Those of you who suffered mental anguish as a result of my last post will feel smugly vindicated to learn that I have received my just and well-deserved reprimand-- and from my own computer, no less.

I was persuaded to go here to see what my actions had wrought.  And of course I could not resist clicking on the video.  (To get the full effect, you have to turn off the blog's default music player first.)  I had made it almost all the way through will no ill effects, when suddenly Josiah (my computer) proceeded to shut down on me.

I should note that this random computer shutdown stuff is actually a fairly common occurance, especially when I am on the internet.  And unless I am in the middle of posting on my blog or commenting on someone else's, no data is ever lost, so it is generally not a tragedy but simply a minor annoyance.  I have narrowed the reason for these shutdowns down to three possibilities:  (a) The Mac commercials  and all the naysayers are correct and Windows Vista really is an inferior product.  (b)  The computer encounters a virus which shuts it down (which would mean that my AVG Free Virus Protection is actually the inferior product).  Or (c) The computer senses an impending threat and shuts itself down in order to avoid serious damage (which would mean that both Vista and AVG are functioning quite well, thankyouverymuch).

Oh, I'm getting side-tracked here.  This post is not about computer shutdowns; it is about one specific computer shutdown, which is the one that occured the other day as I was viewing the aforementioned video.

I am convinced that the reason for this particular shutdown was none other than option (c): my faithful Josiah was attempting to protect himself (and me) from a perceived threat to his (and my) well-being.

After all, how much Shaun Cassidy is too much?  For most of us, about three seconds, but Josiah apparently has a high pain threshhold.  Even so, four minutes and 59 seconds was obviously the limit.  I am pretty sure that just before he shut down, I heard Josiah scream, "Aaagggghhhh!  I can't take it anymore!"

Or something like that.