And I did it all by myself!!

I feel like a little kid who just did something for the first time, and feels inordinately proud of himself.

Finally disgusted with my deteriorating, eight-year-old laptop, I bought a new desktop. On sale at Fry's for $180, I purchased the last one in the store, a return that was marked down another $10. I got it home and got Albert, a fairly computer-savvy guy in addition to being a regular at the Tustin poker game, to come over and help me start it up.

Somebody named Tony had installed Windows XP on the computer, then returned it to Fry's. Or at least somebody that wanted to call their computer "Tony". It was supposed to come out of the box with a Linux-type OS on it, but started up with XP already there, and Tony's name in the startup.

The computer was very slow, which worried Albert. I ran a Grisoft anti-virus program, showing all systems normal.

Kev came through. "Hmm, only 128MB of RAM in there? You probably want at least 256 to run Windows XP." I'm not smart enough to know this.

512MB from Best Buy later, I managed to open my computer, install the RAM, and close it up, all without screwing anything up. And the computer is now waaaay faster than before. It's wonderful.

For most people, I'm sure this exercise is on par with changing a lightbulb - nothing out of the ordinary at all.

I can't help feeling like I did something special. Perhaps it dates back to when my father, an IBMer, took me into the office on Saturday afternoons as a wee lad. Surrounded by computers that under no circumstances was I allowed to fool with. More likely, this episode reminded me that I'm inept when it comes to computers, and I don't like feeling inept.

Enough about that. Bottom line is I have a computer that I can trust again, and (thanks to my roommate) a high-speed ISP. Welcome to the 21st century.

Time to fire up UltimateBet.