Open the Pod Bay Door, HAL

"I'm sorry. I can't do that, Dave."

An astronaut is deep in space with a computer that takes on a deranged intellect, realizes that it is about to be turned off, and kills most of the crew. Dave is left with only one choice if he wants to live to see the end of the odyssey: unplug the damn thing. I'm perilously close to doing the same thing for all the same reasons.
It knows...honestly, I think it knows. Well, why wouldn't it? After all, the email announcing my cart number at the Apple store is stored in its memory! But, it's NOT THAT sophisticated!
I'm talking about my computer, of course. It's a pc, and I'm going to a Mac in a few weeks. There are a lot of reasons for the switch, and the hope of fewer problems and hedaches is major among them. So, just when I make the decision to go big or go home, my Dell decides to do "funny" things...things like take six minutes to boot up then returning to the Windows page just as I'm about to acquire my email. Returning to the cute photo of my granddaughter as a background is nice, but it's not what I wanted.
Trying to copy and paste pictures to my blog has become more tedious than waiting for a train on a cold,rainy Chicago day..."and another little baby child is born." Sorry, channelling Elvis there. Seriously, five minutes will go by before the photo is loaded, and it will take another three for it to appear on my blog. Downloading pictures from my camera? Job would start swearing if he tried it.
Surreptitiously moving my iTunes folder has happened more frequently than I can recount, and I have to call in the expert every time to restore my music. He says it's the same problem, but I can never fix it in spite of specific directions.
I'm sure the skeptics among you are nodding knowingly and whispering "virus" among yourselves, but I have a crackerjack virus protection program (no prize, though)that cost me a gajillion dollars (unnecessary with a Mac, I hear) so I KNOW that's not it...unless...
Maybe the fact that this computer is eight years old makes a difference...I mean that's like 240 years old in dog years.
Maybe I haven't blown the dust off as often as I should have...
Maybe it's watching me right now...