Blue Screen of Death: Zac's Laptop, RIP...

Three good years it gave me. And now all it does is make a grinding noise, followed by an occasional plink or plunk sound. Fortunately most data had been backed up, but lost are all pictures taken in the past six months and a certain revision of an earlier piece of writing that I rather liked. Alas...

The most lamentable part of the ordeal is that I never quite got to live the lifestyle that I wanted the laptop for. I never got to write a novel on it while sitting in the corner of a pub, nursing a pint, occasionally nibbling on some Welsh rarebit. The most I ever did with it that was dependant on it being a laptop was surf the internet from my couch and work on a paper for one of my education classes while riding down I-5 in the passenger seat of a car.

Now it's time to shop for a new computer, but this time I think it'll be a desktop - money's not tight, but it'd still be an extravagance to buy a laptop at this point in time. And worse comes to worst, there's still my work laptop.

Now anyone have any desktop suggestions for someone who's a compulsive internet surfer, downloader, and occasional writer?