There are some sites I actually want to see the adds on, well one really. They guys at Penny Arcade tend to advertise things I tend to like. Once upon a time I figured out how to unblock only their site, but I've re-installed firefox since then...

Anywho, if there was a super easy way to selectively disable blocking on certain sites, I'd use it. I don't begrudge folks making a few cents off my eyeballs if they pick the right adds.

Actually the windows repair option won't work registry files are corrupted or missing, It won't recognize a windows installation to repair. This, however, will fix the problem: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

Judging from the translated help file it just deletes/corrupts parts of the registry. If System Restore is enabled, which is the default, these registry files can be extracted from the last restore point (something like C:\System Volume Information\_restore{yadaYada}\RP1\Snapshot). Even if your a typical user and can't find a competent repair shop to do the data is still easily recoverable... So yeah, not that devastating a self-destruct mechanism...

The CDC says this about the 1918 Flu pandemic:
Case-fatality rates were >2.5%, compared to 0.1% in other influenza pandemics

Use HijackThis. Bleeping computer has a tutorial which links to tools you can use to look up process and service names. It's essentially a registry tool that displays keys are often exploited (your startup list, BHO's, services, things like that), though it does several other handy things as well.
It's also a great way to simply boost performance by cleaning up unnecessary startup items and services, but use it with care, most of the things it displays are totally supposed to be there.

If HijackThis looks clean then your system is probably not infected and you should check the hard drive, chkdisk might tell you something, but the manufacturer probably provides an .iso for a bootable disk that will do a more thorough test. I'd make a backup first.

Actually, I go out of my way to not bring it up - I have a hard enough time convincing people that I'm not a social leper. But people talk about tv a lot, and I often have to explain why I have no idea what they are talking about. IMHO some folks are uncomfortable with the amount of tv they watch, this explains why a decision to distract oneself with something other than tv is interpreted as smugness rather than a personal choice.