Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Argh.

As you will have guessed today's topic is elderly computers. Having put off the latest round of upgrading for some while, I finally decided that was one terminal chunter too many so went back to my numerous notes and worked out what I wanted. Trawl through numerous sites ending up at Amazon, wade through that entire thing, whittling on specifics, opinions, price. Finally get everything I want (bar the hard drive as still can't decide). Click Checkout, where I not only unearthed all the stuff I'd stashed months ago and didn't buy (or bought elsewhere) but discovered that the very good buys have accrued eighteen pounds in postage between them. Bloody Marketplace-dom where every item clocks up charges regardless of where it's being sent from.

So any recommendations for where to buy RAM, an optical mouse (preferably Playstation 2), a USB PCI card and possibly a new hard drive when I decide what the computer will cope with? One which preferably doesn't append spurious postage charges on everything? It is disconcerting to realise that the unnecessary gouging actually makes walking into PCWorld a viable option again (seriously, the mouse would be cheaper in a rip-off shop). If websites can manage to sell DVDs for £1.99 all inclusive why does the inclusion of silicon demand a minimum charge of £5 per unit?

I know precisely who I should go and talk to, but I haven't heard from him in about five years, none of his contact details still work and even the fail-safe doesn't because his parents have moved as well. I think I need a new computer-geeky friend (but I used to have so many); will you be my friend?

Oh, and the first person to ask "why the hell don't you just get a new computer?" wins a prize. It's a very special prize; they get to buy me one.

There's nothing quite like trying to find bits for a computer to make one what to go and buy anything else instead. Ooh, cheap DVDs, they'll cheer me up.

Or maybe not. You know I hadn't decided on which hard drive to get? Well, Play are doing one for £300. Expensive, but then it does hold 1TB. That's like seeing something with a best before date of three years hence; my brain doesn't go that high yet. And how long will it be before people talk in petabytes (which Firefox's spellcheck doesn't recognise as a word yet)?

As my current hard drive is about one seventy-fourth the size of that one I'm going to stop before I start crying.

Anyhoo,