My computer has been resurrected. The story of its death is tragic and also annoying. It can't possibly be unique.

Once upon a time I had a website. I had enough time, money and internet access to maintain it, and it gave me an excuse to learn some neat web design tricks. It was a vanity site, sure, but it was a fun toy to have and I make no apologies for it.

Then I quit my job to move to Milwaukee. I gave up a fair amount of money and, in order to make ends meet, I dropped my internet access. So my website sat idle. Then the hosting died. Then my domain registration died. Then somebody bought the domain name and filled the site with porn and pop-ups and spyware and an ungodly amount of hellacious and evil crap designed to make the antitechnological arguments of Luddites seem reasonable in the face of a neverending cycle of dialogue boxes that won't take "No" for an answer.

I know this because I went there.

Sure, it was morbid curiosity. I wanted to see if somebody had moved in or if the site was just sitting idle. Now, when I ditty-bopped over I hadn't yet installed a firewall, or antivirus software, or pop-up blockers. Essentially, my computer & I walked in naked, were brutalized and raped, then shoved back out into the internet never to be the same again. I emerged stronger. My computer was a wreck, and wanted euthanasia. I set my jaw, blinked back tears, and I wiped my computer and reinstalled.

I was a wiser, sadder man, knowing that I can never go to my homepage again. But entities have died, and I must honor them.

In other news, I'm going to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind tomorrow night, probably by myself, possibly with a friend, but almost certainly without a date. Seeing this movie breaks one of my most important moviegoing rules: never pay for a movie which stars Jim Carrey. However, Charlie Kauffman pretty much trumps everyone else, so while the decision was painful, I made it with a minimum of hesitation.

Expect a review tomorrow night.