I was up early this morning — actually, I was up all night — and around 6:45, as I was having breakfast, I switched on the TV. Being that it was quarter to seven in the morning, there wasn’t much of anything interesting on, so I stopped on Nickelodeon’s Jimmy Neutron and left it there while I enjoyed my toast and jam.

As I was finishing the last slice of toast, I happened to look up and see the title character, Jimmy Neutron, and two of his friends fiddling desperately with a machine that had just spit out a pizza which immediately became sentient and attacked the three of them. Jimmy was unsuccessful at getting the machine to respond, and shouted out that the screen was frozen. Being a geek, I noticed that the machine’s screen was quite clearly displaying the most feared of Windows errors: the Blue Screen of Death.

My immediate thought? “That’s what you get for not using Linux.”

Now, I’ve never had the particular problem of my computer spitting out homicidal foodstuffs, but I’m almost positive that if such an occasion were to arise, Linux would protect me from it. To begin with, it sounds like something that would result from a Windows virus, so that’s one strike against it. Second, it’d most certainly need elevated access, and I’m pretty sure I’d be smart enough not to grant root to an app called “Italian food that takes you out,” so that’s two. And finally, I’m sure there aren’t open-source paranormal pizza oven drivers.

So, that’s today’s lesson: If you use Linux, you don’t have to worry about being killed by a maniacal, murderous midnight snack run amok.