While over at my aunt and uncle’s house (we were eating Blue Ribbon BBQ and splitting a DVD of mine so I could view it on the laptop), we started discussing the future of my computer. My uncle, who orders and maintains the computers for BBN in Cambridge, suggested that since I practically need to rebuild from scratch, it might be cheaper (and less of a headache) to order a computer from Dell and add my stuff to it. My only concern with this route is that adding my own drives might invalidate their warranty.

I saw a nice model (E510) that comes with a 2.8 GHz dual core processor. I’m assuming that means it has two CPUs, but I’ll have to contact them to find out if they are both 2.8 GHz, which sounds logical condsidering the speed of CPUs today, or if that’s the speed that they think they will run at under most programs. After adding all the goodies I need (and deducting for the screen that I don’t) it’ll cost me $799 for a brand spanking new ‘puter, if I buy it on sale. So I have to get my taxes done tonight or tomorrow and hope I’ll have a check or two directly deposited into my account before the sale is over. *crosses fingers*