Tonight I realized it was time to let my poor laptop go into the abyss -- kind of. It's not that the computer itself is too slow. It's only a Pentium III that's logged nearly 7 years of dedicated, but all I use it for is surfing the web and writing, so it's more than adequate. The problem is that my wireless options for internet access have become increasingly limited. First the PC card slots started shorting out, so I could no longer use my wi-fi card. Luckily I had a USB wi-fi adapter sitting around, but after several months of bumping around, the USB adapter kept coming loose. Pinching the adapter with pliers helped, but the fix could only last so long. I soon had to abandon being truly wireless and opt for a shitty ethernet to wi-fi adapter I had discarded in a closet. Because it was shitty. Did I mention it was shitty? Well, it's shitty. It has to be plugged into an electrical outlet to function and is slower than a baby raised in gunny sack fully of bus fumes. If I wanted to wait a couple of minutes for a page to load, I'd stop spending $45 every month on broadband and just yell the address to my neighbor and ask him to tell me what it says. "Yeah, just... No... NO... I said www dot ChicksUsingDildosThatAreActuallyShellackedTurds dot com, not www dot ChicksUsingDildosThatAreActuallyShellshockedTurds dot com. Ok, yeah... what? No, I didn't hear you. It's a picture of what? Sick, dude! Ha ha haaaa! Huh? Oh, sorry, man! I didn't know your kids were standing there. Uh... why don't we try cnn dot com instead."

And with that, I searched for laptop deals online and found a Dell with a dual core 64-bit processor, a gig o' RAM, and an 80 gig hard drive with free shipping for $450 plus tax, which came to just shy of $480. I hate to spend the money, but the old one is next to impossible to use as a true laptop. Plus it won't be put in the graveyard quite yet. I will repurpose it as my home automation server, moving all of that crap off of my desktop and freeing up resources to calculate complex math required for running simulations for potential cancer cures. And 3D butt porn.