After long consideration, we decided that it made sense to break down and use some of the house money (since there's not enough for a downpayment on a new house and our credit sucks from being a one-income family with a chronically depressed bill-payer) on a laptop.
So on Thursday evening Mara and I went and bought it. It's a Toshiba Satellite and it's wonderful. I am typing on it now. It has wireless, so I can be in our office room and not in the family room. I got my desk set up and there is a nice place to work and my stuff is up with pictures on the bulletin board and everything like that.
I spent Friday evening moving my music files from the old external hard drive onto the laptop and I uploaded some of our CDs that hadn't gotten transferred before. That was pretty neat. My next move is to buy a audio cables so I can hook the laptop into the stereo directly.
I think Tim wants to buy me an iPod or similar (probably the Zune so I can stick with WMP format instead of Applecraptictunes) for xmas. I can't decide what I think about that. On the one hand, groovy, bring it on absolutely. On the other hand, we just blew our wad on this ginormous portable music storage system that also types, so that feels excessive and also just a little bit silly. I still want one. It just feels silly.
I wish I had something profound to say. I owe at least three of you about three hours worth of phone calls. I will find a way to make that happen sooner rather than later. I'm sorry!