I don't remember where I heard it, but I do remember hearing that one of the signs you're in a dream is that your phone doesn't work properly. Which leads me into this dream I had recently:
I was asleep, when my phone wakes me up. I don't remember it actually ringing, just thinking "someone is trying to call me," so I answer it and do my best to pretend I wasn't just sleeping. We don't have an actual conversation, like no words are exchanged, but through the inscrutable logic of dreams I ascertain that the caller is an old acquaintance setting me up for a job interview. We hang up and I go back to sleep.
Next thing I know I'm at the mall wondering if this was where my interview was supposed to be. I try to think back on the conversation but I don't remember anything other than being really sleepy. For a moment I suspect that I must have imagined the conversation, maybe it was all just a dream. I don't remember who I'm supposed to meet, where I'm supposed to meet them, or what job I'm supposed to be interviewing for. Then I reason that I wouldn't have come to the mall unless I was supposed to, so I decide to fake it til I make it.
Sure enough, I find my old acquaintance who introduces me to someone I've never met about the job. We start chatting for a bit, and then the job interview turns into a scavenger hunt and I'm sent off into the mall with my prospective employer's shopping list. I wake up before I find out if I got the job.
I did this one campaign which was a hexcrawl where the party was shipwrecked on an island purported to hide the lost city of gold.
The site of the shipwreck was home base, but the party obviously wanted to explore. There were some NPC crewmate survivors, so they would assign them to work on projects while they were exploring. I would always tell them that "some guy" was working on their stuff.
Cut to a few months later when they have a sort of mutiny on their hands. It seems that one crew member in particular was fed up with how much work they had to do while the party went adventuring that they turned the crew against the party.
I have the D&D 3.5 core rulebooks on my shelf in the nerd nook. I know that I'm never going to play 3.5 again, but it's the system I first got into the hobby with. It would feel wrong to get rid of my personal history of nerdship.
My understanding is that no amount of anti-virus software replaces common sense. As long as you're not downloading sketchy programs and giving them permission to run, you're pretty well set.
Some people might tell you that there's no viruses on Linux, but that isn't exactly true. Linux has something like 2% of the desktop market, which makes it less attractive to develop malware for - but 2% of a few billion computers is still millions of potential targets. Not to mention that Linux dominates the server market, and arguably that's where malware is more valuable. To think that there's no malware targeting Linux is naive.
Many anti-virus suites are effectively malware though. If you decide you do need AV software make sure to do your research before installing any.
Anyway, long story, I don't personally use an anti-virus, and for your stated uses I'm not sure I'd recommend one.
If you're mostly using it as a web browser then I would definitely recommend a solid ad blocker. UBlock Origin is free, highly esteemed, and can be installed as an extension to whatever browser you're currently using.
I used to have really bad chicken-scratch printing and I wanted to improve.
The exercise that really stuck out for me was to find a font I liked in a book on calligraphy and started practicing the alphabet.
Before I started practicing, I didn't pay much attention to how I was forming a letter, I'd just draw it - and it would look messy. Once you start looking at each letter as a discrete number of strokes you start paying attention to the small parts and the whole looks much better.
If you're really lucky, you'll find a guide with arrows showing which way to draw each stroke. Super helpful. Note that this font uses a fountain pen, so it'll look different with a standard ballpoint:
Aw man, in the tenth grade we had to do a music recital and this was the song I chose. Specifically because I knew thirty kids would have to play some music whether they were interested in the course or not, and I thought the whole sleepy thing was a funny bit.
