My God! It's like being back in...1998!

Just this morning, the scroll wheel on my mouse has decided that it's had a good run and been useful and stuff, but now it's time to give up the ghost and wander off to the great Circuit City in the Sky.

So now I gotta use my friggin' arrow keys. Talk about retrogressing technology.

I can still depress the scroll wheel and thus get the drag-and-scroll, which I suppose I'll start doing, and it'll probably feel natural after a few days, but for right now I feel like one of those American tourists who goes to Paris, checks into the hotel room, and then wonders why on Earth the toilet has a button that squirts water up. It just ain't right.

And on top of that, the computer itself has developed a tendency to lock up, requiring a BruteBoot (that's what I call clicking off the power via the switch on the surge protector) to get things going again. The machine is pushing four and a half years old, so I know it's had a good life. I suspect it'll be time to look into a new machine within a few months. If I can stretch this machine's lifetime out to, say, autumn, I'll be happy. But it doesn't do well with The Daughter's games anymore (and her games are all pretty old), the letters on half the keys are worn away from constant use (not usually a problem for me, since I've been able to type for years without looking, but it sure makes things tough for those word-verification doohickeys on many blog commenting systems), and now the scroll wheel is apparently down for the count.

Hopefully I'll be able to get a good deal, since all I'll really want is a CPU, mouse and keyboard; I won't need a monitor since that's still going strong, as is the printer. Again, I'm hoping to keep the current machine active for a while longer, with six months being ideal, but we all well know that may not work out.

(This would be the time, of course, for that super wealthy reader of mine to hit the tip jar. I've gotta have one rich reader, right? One?)