The Gift That Keeps on Giving

Now, here's a really embarrassing admission: when I was a small child, I was incredibly susceptible to eye infections. So, as if my terrible myopia weren't enough, as a blonde, tousle-headed tyke, I suffered from a series of hideous-looking styes. Each stye was not only painful, but also it marred my appearance, made me extremely self-conscious, required endless explanations, and constrained my activities as I had to lay around the house with hot compresses on the afflicted eye, since no other treatment was efficacious.

It had been years that I've been similarly inconvenienced, stigmatized, and disabled, but somehow Microsoft Vista has managed to do it. I have to say that just a few days owning a brand new machine that is saddled with the operating system from hell has sent me straight back to the most miserable moments of powerlessness in my childhood. Although I swore to keep an open mind, in my experience Vista has been painfully slow, a memory hog, and just as likely to crash as to function for a few moments.