Birthday Confessions

I must confess that I am an information junkie, and because of this, I bought myself two early birthday presents today.

The first present I bought from Allders, which is a department store in downtown Oxford that is going out of business or moving, I'm not sure which. Anyway, I was going to go to the library to check my e-mail, but a sign on the front door said that their 'air-handling system' had broken down and was being repaired....the library would open a 1pm which was 15 minutes from the time that I read the sign. I decided to kill the time by wandering around Allders which is next door to the library. Since they are moving and/or going out of business, they have reduced their remaining stock to ridiculous prices. Anyway, as I was wandering through the toys and games section I came across a clock that is powered entirely by water. That's right, there's a big digital LCD on the front, and you make it work by filling up the back with water. A frivolous purchase? Perhaps, however it struck me that where ever I travelled, there was likely going to be water available. This means I'll always have a working clock and calendar no matter where I go, and I'll never have to pay to replace batteries! How much would you pay for such an amazing device? Well, they originally sold for £15 (if they actually sold any at all), but I got mine for £3.75. At a bargain like that, how can you afford not to buy one? Hurry folks, before they're all gone!

My second purchase was a bit of a bigger ticket item, and cost me £50. That's right, a days wages, or the cost of a flight to somewhere in Europe! But I reckon it was worth it. What was it, you ask? A computer! That's right, I'm such an info addict that I bought myself an old computer to use while my laptop is being repaired. So what did I get for my 50 quid? Quite a lot actually...a monitor with speakers built-in, a keyboard, a mouse, a mouse pad, the cpu and a lift home (which was awfully nice, since I was going to haul it all back on the bus). Now, just for fun, I have created the following table to compare my laptop which is being repaired, with my new computer:

Computer:	Laptop	Clunker
CPU Speed	3200 mhz	100 mhz
Hard Drive Space	80 gb	3 gb
RAM	512 mb	64 mb
Optical Drive	Read: DVD-ROM 16x, CD-ROM 48x, Write: DVD-R 4x, DVD+R 4x, DVD-RW 2x, DVD+RW 2x, CD-R 24x, CD-RW 8x	Read: CD-ROM....8x
USB Ports	4	0
Firewire Ports	1	0

And so on and so forth...that being said though, I'm actually pretty impressed with what this thing can do! It will play MP3's off of my burned CDs (mind you it won't do much else simultaneously) and it can almost play MPEG1 video files at full speed. It has no problems running Firefox or Outlook (Outlook 97 that is), and really, e-mail and web access is the main reason I bought it. I bet that when my laptop finally gets back here, I can sell this thing for £50 again, or maybe even more. Hell, I saw ads in there for monitors like this one which were advertised for more than £50!

So happy birthday to me! I would show you pictures of my new toys, but like the table says, this thing has no USB ports ;)