Monday, April 11, 2011

Green Monday: free aspirin.

Hi, there! Today's post is brought to you on a virus-free notebook, courtesy of my last paycheck. Would you believe a Trojan that FOUR antivirus programs couldn't scrub? Not wanting to lose the rest of my mind, I disabled the LAN on the laptop and relegated it to document and photo storage.

It also plays games, woo-hoo!

This new little beastie will do all of my online stuff. No storage. If something gets through the Mighty Firewall of Doom, I can just wipe the whole thing and reinstall the works. Go, me!

Anyhow, in honor of all those who wish to be rid of annoying viruses of all kinds, I bring you free medicine. Note: I am not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV. This is just something that I do myself that could be helpful to you. Talk to your doctor, yadda, yadda, yadda. Thus endeth the C.Y.A.

Sometimes I wonder if the FDA and the USDA might be in cahoots with the medical mavens that promote all of those "new and improved" drugs on the market today. Suppose there's an elaborate plot to put bad-for-you stuff in the food supply (like soy and high fructose crap syrup) so that more and more people have to be treated for things like infertility and prostate cancer and all manner of other things, bringing huge profits to the companies involved?

Strictly a theory, mind you.

Having recently torn my rotator cuff, I am on a first-name basis with interesting pain. Reaching for my wallet has been an adventure for a few weeks. Jumping jacks are right out. For the most part, it hasn't been too awful, but there have been a few times that left me sniveling on the floor, clutching my shoulder.

Do I take a handy-dandy pill, available without a prescription and in numerous candy colors? No. I hate taking pills, largely due to the fact that they get stuck against my golf ball-sized tonsils and make me sound like Donald Duck on a bad trip.

So, I head for my pantry. On the top shelf is a bag of what look like sticks. They are thin strips of dried willow bark, which I tear up and steep in boiling water. Willow bark contains salicylic acid, Mother Nature's version of...

Aspirin.

Yup, aspirin tea. Dose it with honey, and it doesn't taste like boiled bitter bark. It tastes like sweet boiled bitter bark!

Hey, cheap and effective, and no plastic bottle to go in the landfill. I won't gripe a little thing like taste. Except for that shirt the dude in the park was wearing when I gathered the bark. Sheeeesh...

3 comments:

  1. Four anti virus programs didn't catch it? Ouch. How did you end up finding it? Just curious. Enjoy your new computer. :)

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  2. Michelle -- Well, the first program would find the replica and put it in quarantine. The other programs would then think "Oh, problem solved!" and pass it by, while the original Trojan was hiding in a file and making copies of itself. Much snarling and swearing.

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  3. I'll see your med theory and up you one: the virus programs are designed so that some can get through in hopes people will give up and buy new computers.

    Seriously, I try to avoid drugs at all costs. Sure, my back pain might go away, but apparently, according to the Quick Quiet Voice, I could maybe bleed from my eyes, have limbs start falling off or be unable to breathe ever again. *snort*

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