disappearing text

The oddest thing just happenned to my computer, and before anyone asks no I haven't been taking any drugs. I was browsing the internet and I went to cnn.com from google news to read a story...but the story didn't load (only the headline), and although all the pictures showed up, there was no text in the navigation buttons, and the search bar on their page was very thin. I went to a few other pages and sometimes the text showed up fine, sometimes it didn't.

So I opened my anti virus program to see if I had contracted some strange new text eating virus, and the text on the program didn't show up!! No text in the system buttons, no text in the windows--only the pictures showed up. My fire-wall was the same, and several other programs as well. I went to restart the computer, and where it normally says "saving your settings" or whatever, again no text. Booted up normal and now the text is back.

So it's not really a problem, but I would really like to know what the hell happenned. Quite a twilight zone moment but I'm sure there is an explanation. Thanks.

Windows? Enough said.

could have been temp files full, page file, ect. usually a reboot fixes most strange problems.

Are you using service pack 4 in a combination with an older type of firewall? I used Atgard (good but old), untill I installed SP4, after that the firewall blocked anything on the internet greater then 32 kb, strange, weird, windows, but true

Win2K sp3 zonealarm firewall, but the fact that the firewall program display text itself wasnt showing up tells me it wasnt internet related. I've seen windows (and linux based, and mac) systems do some pretty wierd sh*t but never anything so specific and so total, meaning just certain text types affected and across every display on the computer. If I wasn't so sure it happened I'd say I dreamed it, and if it had happened to one of the turkeys I work with I'd tell them to stop staring at the computer for so long...I guess it's just proof that the stuff going on behind the whirring hard-drive is so complex that truly anything is possible. And I'm glad it went away without any help from the dead chicken.