TECHNOLOGY GEEK QUESTION ALERT

Yeah, I'm shouting.

And so I turn to all of you out there for help where technology's failing me.

About a month ago, Yahoo Instant Messenger started doing this really stupid and fucked-up thing: the stealth settings on it stopped working. See, I'm a sneaky brat and always log on as invisible, and then make myself visible to groups as I go through my day. (OK, my secrets are out. Deal with it.) Now what happens are a few really bizarre and untrustworthy things.

First, I noticed that my password, when I log in, is the wrong number of characters. But when I change it back to my real password, it works. So what is this fake password that got saved in my settings? Second, when I change my status (say, from "Available" to "Stepped Out"), Messenger makes me visible to everyone NOT on my list. Third, when my computer goes into sleep mode, I come back to find that I'm now invisible to the people I was visible to, and visible to everyone else. Including people on permanent invisible and no, that's none of YOU. Fourth, if I make myself available to people, half the time they still see me as invisible. Or is that indivisible? My brain, she hurts.

I've uninstalled and reinstalled completely, and no dice. No change at all.

Yahoo Customer Care isn't helping at all. According to them, they sent it to engineering 3 weeks ago now leave us alone and stop asking, kthxbai. It seems like if they're smart programmers, there's either something in the Windows Registry or in a .DLL file somewhere that's corrupted, wouldn't you think?

Anyone have any suggestions? According to Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D, I don't have any adware. According to NAV, I don't have any viruses. But the password thing has me wondering if there isn't someone or something out there grabbing my IM stuff for whatever reason (all they'll get is a bunch of silliness). Do any of you have any ideas what might be going on, or where I could go to look? The only thing I care about with it is my message archive, and I know how to save and restore THAT.

I plead. I beg of you. Be efficient for me where Yahoo isn't. Suggest me things. I'll be forever in your debt.

Huh?

( two quizzes for you )

Ahem. Random time.

Tomorrow afternoon I get to go to a volunteer tea at Hannah's school. It all sounds so civilized, doesn't it? We get tea or coffee and sometimes coffee mugs, and the 5/6 class feeds us petit fours and other delicious desserts and they might even sing for us. I'm only going for the food.

Think they'll mind if I clean the Jericho on the banquet table?

AHA! Found my missing Disc 7 of my Samurai Champloo set. See? You didn't even know it was missing, did you.

sff_corgi was mean and said she wouldn't get me a Jason Carter of my very own. And just because I'm married! Some nerve.

I ate with chopsticks tonight.

And... I think that's it. End transmission.