Father Gates, forgive me, for I have sinned. I surfed the Web unprotected and caught a worm meant for you. This creature brainwashed my computer into spreading clones of itself across the Internet -- and preparing to attack one of your Web sites on Saturday. I hope that you dodge that assault, and those from thousands of other Windows zombies infected with the "Blaster" worm. And I pray that you find the wisdom to interpret this episode as a sign from above: It is time for simpler, safer machines.

The first clue that my home computer had caught Blaster, a malicious program known as a worm, came around 2 p.m. Monday when a window popped open on my screen and announced that my system was about to shut down. (I usually run firewall software to protect against intruders but had turned it off temporarily to run a conflicting application.) The message was pure geek-speak: "Generic Host Process for Win32 Services has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." Then a clock appeared and started counting down from 60 seconds.