...seven, six, five...

Sometimes it's useful to have more than one computer. I've just spent the last six hours trying to reinstall Windows 2000 on my own system, and after two complete installs, numerous uses of the MS-DOS FDISK and FORMAT commands, and several partitioning schemes, I don't have a hard disk that works, let alone an operating system. I'm writing this on my mother's computer.

It is my life's ambition to have a computer that doesn't slow down to a crawl every few months, or contract nonremovable spyware and popups, or crash at odd moments with no more explanation than an impossibly cryptic error message. It would also be nice if it didn't become senile just when I need it most.