Idle Hands

Last Monday Thunderthighs and I took his laptop down to Monkseaton Computers to have the Norton anti-virus updated.  Previously updating could be done remotely by the store, but the manufacturer no longer allows this, making life more difficult for both the retailer and the customer.  Presumably Norton would prefer people to buy directly from them on-line, thus harvesting their customers’ bank details.

The anti-virus licence allows it to be used on three devices. 

As Ferretfingers' laptop is on the same licence as Thunderthighs’ I could do his at home (no idea how that works).

It took some time, effort and hair pulling but, on Shrove Tuesday afternoon, I actually managed to put the new Norton anti-virus onto Ferretfingers’ laptop.  I couldn’t do it on Tuesday morning when he was out with his father because he’s managed to get face recognition onto it.

When the anti-virus downloads it checks, scans, upgrades and defrags the device before it will allow you to carry on with your life.  With the amount of stuff on Ferretfingers’ laptop this took some time.  It spent more than half an hour defragging, during which time I got a little bored and restless.

And Ferretfingers wasn’t happy that I was hogging his machine.

A little while ago Ferretfingers was obsessed with printing out the internet and storing the sheets in poly-pockets.  He can no longer do this because he’s put so much stuff on top of his printer there’s no access to the paper tray.  When I can get hold of these sheets I use the clear side to print out minutes, agendas and other stuff for and from the various meetings I attend, preferring to read on paper than on screen.  So the paper is reused before it is recycled, or turned into kindling.

I looked at the big red box of poly-pocketed paper.

I started sliding out the sheets of paper, put them on the table and piled the poly-pockets next to them.  The next time Ferretfingers floated back into the room I got him to sort the sheets out with all the printed pages facing one way and all the clear ones the other, ready for the printer.  We had quite a little conveyor system going.

Eventually the anti-virus had finished doing its thing, by which time we had a couple of hundred sheets of paper, and a few dozen empty poly-pockets.

It’s not just the devil who finds work for idle hands.