So first off a thanks to the internet, knoppix and a post over at

http://www.overclock.net/windows/879553-msvcr80-dll-missing-catastrophic-failure.html

My Symptoms: my laptop would not boot.  Would not let me get anywhere.  Just like the symptoms in the post.

Thankfully, all I had to do was go rename my avg directory and all was good.  But I needed something to boot from and I knew and trusted Knoppix from my past linux experimental days. 

If it wasn't for Knoppix, I would have probably reformatted my machine and I didn't want that.