Factor The First: Lil’ & Geoffrey’s computer DFO‘d in a bizarre and decidedly terminal fashion. Their budget wasn’t ideal for a full replacement rig, but there was no guarantee that going on a part-by-part replacement binge would solve the problem.

Factor The Second: My “stimulus” check from Uncle Dubya, however misguided a gesture it may be, is still money in my pocket. It’s hard to turn down money in my pocket.

Factor The Third: The so-called “gaming computer” was getting a bit long in the tooth, though with upgrades over the years I’ve kept it nearly up to the desired spec. (Basically: “Can it play City of Heroes and Heroes of Might and Magic?”)

Throw these three factors together with a flash of inspiration on the part of your humble journal writer and you end up with a solution which everybody can more-or-less afford. They get my old gaming rig, and I use the (quite reasonable) money I charged for it and some of the “stimulus” money to buy parts for a whole new gaming rig. Mind you, it’s not as powerful or neat-o-keen as the big HP workstation that I picked up last year… but it’s not meant to be. Its job is to play a couple of games when I have company over. With its Core 2 Duo and the 2 GB of RAM and the modest (but modern) video card, I’m quite certain that it’ll do the job nicely.

Amusing side note: I walked out the door early Sunday afternoon with a black Antec Sonata case in my arms. I walked back in the door Sunday evening with the newer version black Antec Sonata case in my arms. Hopefully I won’t have any annoying problems with this Antec purchase…

Now all I have to do is finish putting the thing together and slap an operating system on it. Well, I have ’til the weekend. Plenty of time.