Since AVG came out with their most recent piece of bloated trash — version 8.0, I’ve been trying out new anti-virus software. It has me singing stupid Weird Al lyrics in my head:

Yes, I’d rather jump naked on a huge pile of thumbtacks
Or stick my nostrils together with crazy glue

Believe it or not, I think I’m past the point of trying to find something acceptable that’s free. Yes, I’m willing to pay for quality now, I think.

Give me something that has virus scanning only, not an whole stinkin’ suite anti-phishing, internet security junk. I’ll use Windows Defender for my anti-spyware, thank you. It automatically updates with MIcrosoft Update. Just give me something that is fast and refined.

Let’s run down the list of experiments so far:

• Symantec/Norton Anti-virus 2004 — endless BSOD reboots on my previous machine
• Free Symantec Anti-virus that comes with AT&T DSL — won’t install
• Grisoft’s Free AVG v8 – bloated, slow, new nag pop-up to upgrade (grrrr). Questionable detection of viruses.
• Clamwin – no real-time virus scanning, lots of false positives, a full scan takes way too long. This is looking more and more like a stale open source project.
• Avast Free – no scheduling of scans in the free version, atrocious user interface
• Avira AntiVir – nag pop-up screens (grrrr), slow updates, no e-mail scanning (not a big deal for me — just an FYI)
• (current) Kapersky Anti-virus – I’m liking what I see of this so far. I’m currently enduring a nagging 30-day trial.

Before you ask, there’s no way I’m trying McAfee anything. I’ve uninstalled expired versions of that booger on too many machines.

Been wondering about NOD32. They say they’re better than the others. We’ll see how Kapersky goes. If these don’t make the cut, I guess I’ll look at NOD32,  Microsoft OneCare,  Panda, and Sophos.  Probably in that order.

Any other suggestions?

In case you didn’t catch the news, the Phoenix Mars Lander landed on Mars last night at 6:53 PM Central Time. It launched in August 4th, 2007 and traveled 423 million miles.

Here are the official NASA images.

Here’s the Twitter feed if you’d like to follow.

Update: Here’s the web TV channel.

My daughter is redhead in the front row sitting cross-legged in the black David Cook shirt.

Nice blog post here.

I would much rather hear Kevin Harlan call games instead of Billy Packer, Dick Enberg, John Thompson, and yes, even, Marv Albert.

I love it when he does Chiefs games, since he’s a hometown guy.

David Cook is a class act.

He paid a secret visit to Thomas Ultican Elementary, where my kids go to school and he attended back in the day. My daughter Becca “touched” him. He stopped in the hallway and signed an autograph for my son (left) — yes, it was my daughter’s picture of him.

Here’s the pics and video of his Blue Springs visit. Here’s the pics from the Royals game.