Dude, You're Getting A Dell!

I used to think those Dell commercials were the funniest thing. :)

My Compaq laptop has been on life support for about a year now. I'm actually surprised it's lasted this long, it's over 4 years old, and it's traveled a lot of miles, and well, basically been abused (it even had a soda spilled across the keyboard and lived to tell)

You can't even read the letters on most of the keys, they are that worn down. And that's for the keys that are even there - some of them are even missing!

So since it's been overheating, the battery no longer holds a charge for longer than 10 minutes, everything freezes all the time, and oh yeah, the spot where you put the electric cord into the laptop is frying the cords while popping back and forth between battery and electric for no reason, so DH told me a few weeks ago that I could buy a new laptop. I figured I'd stalk the back to school sales over the next few weeks and see if there was a good deal (all the while hoping it would last until Black Friday)

But today, the newer electric cord melted so bad it broke off part of the cord. I managed to jiggle it enough that it's in, and working off electricity, but the laptop cannot move, or the cord's toast and it's on battery.... which means I have about 5 minutes to jiggle it into the right position, or it's shut itself off.

So I bit the bullet, signed into MyPoints, and clicked through to Dell (3 points per dollar spent! plus I get points through our credit card!) They currently have a deal with an Inspirion 1525 laptop for $499 AND it's eligible for free 2 day shipping!

I'll admit my total was higher than that, as I choose to soup it up to higher memory among other things. But I will get another 4 years out of it, so it will pay for itself. When I purchased my first computer for myself back in 1997, I said it was going to pay for itself - and it did, with all the freebies, deals, and surveys I participated in. And each one since then always has.

I'm counting the days until the estimated ship date on August 5th. If I disappear for a few days, it's because the cord jiggling sent my blood pressure through the roof and I gave up!