well, i was in 'safe mode with networking' and browsing around. it was the only way i could use the computer without unbelievable lag. when i scanned with this site:
http://www.klitetools.com/comments.php?id=2088&ca...t=Dr.Web+CureIT%21
it found SOMETHING and i got rid of it. i also did some of the things on this site:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/ven...ta/w32.chod.d.html like the things it tells you to do in the registry. i deleted some of the stuff in there. it wasn't all accurate, but i did as much as possible. when i rebooted in normal mode, much to my surprise, things ran smoothly! so i don't know if it's really GONE, but i like the way things are running now. i still can't open the sites that were listed previously. they aren't in my hosts file, so i don't know why i can't go to them. if anyone has any other suggestions on how to unblock those, that'd be great.
anyway, thanks for the help everyone
