I am in love...

...with my new computer!!! Isn't it beautiful?! I would marry it if I could. Now, there is a story as to why I want to enter matrimony with a metal box. Come, let me share.

Five years ago we bought a new computer. I loved that computer as well, but I was more in love with the store we bought it from. Totally Awesome Computers. Remember Del Schanze, the freak with the even freakier commercials? Well, he knew how to run a business. We bought the computer there, and never paid them another dime. Got a virus? Bring it in and they would take care of it for you. For free. Got so much spyware that it takes 15 minutes to load up? They fixed it for free. Any problem I had, I knew I could just take it in and they would fix it for me.

And then, gasp! The unthinkable happened! They went out of business. Apparently Del went off his medication and shut down all 8 of his stores in one afternoon. Crazy! So we heard that PC laptops was honoring the lifetime service guarantee. So we took it there and they just weren't the same. They were pushy and tried to get us to pay for all these upgrades. I don't think so.

So over the last couple of years, my computer has been getting slower and s l o w e r and s l o w e r. To the point that when I was getting on the internet, I would bring a book to the desk with me because I would have time to read a page while it was loading. It was worse than dialup! And I have Comcast high speed! My dad figured out that it was running with 121 MB of ram. And if you are not computer savvy, just know that that is really slow!

We held off as long as we could, but it was affecting my work, so something had to be done. But where do we go? Who can we trust? We took part of our tax refund and we bought a computer from Office Depot, one that they had advertised for a really good deal. But the video card went out after 12 hours. We called manufacturer and they wanted us to ship it to them so they could fix it. It would only take a couple of weeks. Are you kidding me? We returned it.

So then we waited and tried to figure out what to do. The tax refund was gone and T lost his job (I still haven't found it, have you?). Then we got our tax stimulus payment, and I discovered http://costco.com/

Lovely, lovely site. You can customize your own computer! Start with a really basic unit and you can upgrade just about anything with several different levels at different prices. I upgraded to 4 GB of ram. That is fast! And Costco has concierge service for tech support should anything go wrong! And it was free shipping! And even if it wasn't, they will refund your shipping if you have to return something you bought online! How cool is that?

I received the computer on Tuesday, it's now Friday night. I have spent so much time reloading programs and music and pictures. But it's almost done and I love it. It is so fast!

Since I am already married, I guess we will just have to live together. But if we are going to be that personal, I need a name. I am stumped at what to call my wonder machine, so I would love your suggestions. So give me a name, any name. Because I am seriously leaning toward "Pete." And I really don't want to.