So I went out and bought a laptop. I'm actually pretty happy with it considering I only spent $900 on it (had been planning on spending more). For that price i'm happy to have gotten a Core Duo processor (1.66 GHz), 15.4 inch widescreen, 120 gig hard drive, Mobility Radeon X1400, and 2 gigs of RAM. Though it did come with XP home, which is a bit of a bummer - i'm trying to decide if I want to buy XP Pro.

Considering I haven't owned a copy of Windows for the last 5 years i've got some serious catching up to do with games. There's so much I want to play from that time period - gonna be hitting the bargain bins for the next few months looking for the games i've been missing out on.

It's definitely not a gaming rig, but it runs Oblivion at an acceptable level at 1024x600 with medium textures and most of the fancy effects turned off. Even with the lower settings that game is gorgeous and too addictive. I've basically given up any hope of being productive for at least the next couple weeks.