Every man has his limits and I have reached mine. I’ve discovered my breaking point and it was delivered by Maxtor, the evil bastards who design, build and sell really terrible hard drives that die and die and die.

I’m on my third Maxtor hard drive on the current machine on which I am currently typing. The machine that works sometimes, and doesn’t other times. And, finally, yesterday, I had enough.

My computer delivered a digital suicide note in the form of “Bad Sector”. I’ve fixed it and the thing is sort of working for the time being, but the time has come to retire this piece o’digital junk and replace it with something more . . . appropriate.

I had originally planned on building my own. But time is of the essence and, I do not have the time. I’d have to compile the components, get it all installed, format, load and do a lot of crying. Unfortunately, I have to work as well and . . . I just don’t have the time to go through that.

So I interviewed potential computing mates yesterday. People who could build my dream machine in a custom manner and still respect me in the morning. I was surprised by my findings. Going to a local store will get you a better machine, cheaper, and probably more reliable, than going to any of the national chains and asking them to do the same.

The eventual winner was Jacob at Computer Renaissance. I walked in, showed him my requirements and he started to smile. “Ah,” he said. “You want a high performance machine.” Why yes. Yes I do Jacob.

“Have you ever thought much about computers Mr. O’Brien? It’s the central preoccupation of my life.”

He pulled out a motherboard that made me cry. It was beautiful. Full of slots and chips and circuits. They shone like digital diamonds. I imagined all the beautiful data that would be shooting across those circuits and diodes. I looked at the slots and the ports and cried. Jacob held me, told me he understood.

We worked out what I wanted. Made sure that I could upgrade everything. This is the Mother Board.

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I’ll be able to set up RAID in a few months, when I’m ready. I’ll be starting out with 512 MB of RAM and will eventually add another 512MB. If I want, I can go up to 3 gigs of ram. I’m drooling just thinking about it.

And, I’ll be putting an AMD Anthalon XP 2000+ processor on there. This puppy is going to fly.

Jacob will be taking my old machine and trying to give it a new life for another person. He said that it is like donating organs. They’ll gut it, ditch all the crappy pieces and give it to a worthy person.

And so, there goes my dream of upgrading it with a sledgehammer. But I’ll have a new computer and I’ll be happy.

And I’ll be able to watch DVDs on it. Which means now I’ll have three DVD players in my house. The power. Insane power? Can you feel it?

Oh yeah. I can feel it.