So today I got a tip from a coworker about a little computer store called PC City. Supposed to be a good place to buy hardware and stuff. It turns out that it's like a block from my lair, so I swing by on the way home to check it out.

It's a fairly typical small computer store, with a decent assortment of various components around, and the sales people are nice and friendly (and knowledgable, unlike certain chain stores). I get a price list from them, and start thinking about hardware for Moya. I decide it would be best to think this over a bit, do some price comparison, and consult with gnucash before making any purchases, so I slide on home.

So I mosey up to the castle lair, balance the bank statement I've been procrastinating (LOTS of transactions last month), and make sure all the bills are in order. Then, I focus on the price list, and think about Moya. The PC which will live in the living room.

"Hmmmm... Thunderbird 1.2 GHz sounds mighty tempting, but I could probably live with 1 GHz for $40 less. And of course I'll need a case, and some memory. While I'm buying memory I might as well get Argo a little upgrade. And I'll probably want something so I can install from cd. I could get a CD-ROM drive, but a CD RW would be so much more fun. And of course a video card. Hmmm... I could get something really cheap, OR I could get a GeForce 2 and see what it's like to actually play Tribes 2 as opposed to watching the frames go by one by one."

I mentally added up the price of the parts I had selected. The total came to something in the neighborhood of $800. I hadn't exactly been planning on spending that much. (After all, this started as a project to only buy a few parts necessary to revive Dagobah, but we know how that went...) I checked the online prices for identical or very similar hardware. The prices at the local store were certainly in line with what online resellers were charging. Hmmmmm.... Today was payday. Tempting. Damn tempting.

I looked at the clock. 19:40. The place would close at 20:00. I considered that I could easily jump into Tobias and make the run. Then I could have my ALL my parts ready to assemble upon return. But then, a brief moment of sanity struck, and I decided that it would be best to at least sleep on it and wait a day. I stood up, paced a time or two, went to the kitchen, heated up some leftover spaghetti, and turned on the nightly Buffy channel.

I may yet go tomorrow and acquire hardware. I may decide that I don't need to be spending a bunch more money on hardware at this juncture. Or perhaps a compromise between the two. We shall see.