A good, cheap alternative is the Razer Blackwidow (base version-- not the "Blackwidow Ultimate"). Previous Razer keyboards have pretty much sucked, but this one is great, uses Cherry Blue switches, and has a pretty solid build (I swear it weighs like 8 lbs). It's not as good as the Das (although I say it is damn near close), but it only costs about $60 at Newegg.

Well, the NES sold 34 million in the US (source: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/historical_data/pdf/consolidated_sales_e0912.pdf), and the PS2 sold over 50 million, as of more than two years ago (source: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/01/15/PS2-sells-over-50-million-units-in-north-america-breaks-console-sales-record/).

To make that even more significant, consider this: Sony contended pretty heavily with Microsoft and (to, I believe, a lesser extent) Nintendo for console dominance, whereas the NES completely DOMINATED Atari and Sega. Even though the NES had a MONSTROUS lead over its competitors, it still only sold about half as many units as the PS2 did.

As a matter of fact, the PS2 sold nearly as many units in the US alone as the NES did worldwide.

It's been a while since I've used Firefox (I believe I stopped using it just as version 3 was either being finish or just released-- switched to Opera and then Opera/Chrome).

I've gotta say, the RC isn't bad. I hate that they've completely gone the Chrome route with the UI, though (although Opera did about the same thing). If some of my plugins (Logmein in particular) worked on it, I'd probably even keep using it (as it is, Logmein only works well with Internet Explorer and stable builds of FF).

Very true. I believe 100% that the biggest reason that Facebook has grown to the size that it is today is because of the (mostly shitty) applications.

People no longer play Farmville because it's on Facebook-- they go to Facebook TO play Farmville.

It makes me sad to say that.

I have no problem with money going to artists.

However, I do have a problem with them getting money when I'm not using their content. I do not wish to pay for my neighbor's teenage daughter's music addiction.

C is less of a problem in Windows 7 than it was in other versions. The way applications stack on the taskbar is much more efficient now.

I LOVED the ability to have multiple desktop environments when I was first introduced to them (I think in Ubuntu Breezy Badger). It was one thing that kept me using Ubuntu as my primary OS for a while. I eventually switched back to Windows because of school, and I've not missed Ubuntu since Windows 7 was released.

Hmmm.......

No.

Actually, most people I know struggle with the OSX interface. It might be because they were raised on Windows, but a lot of it never quite made sense to me ("X" doesn't mean "close"???). People tend to also expect the "maximize" button to make something take up the whole screen, which it often does not in OSX.

I would actually go as far as saying that Windows has a very nice interface. My only real problems with it at this point are:

A) The amount of viruses that seem to be able to infect even the machines with reputable anti-virus programs.

B) Some of Microsoft's actions as a company.

This might have been changed, but last time I tried, it would only let you play single player on a "guest" account-- you couldn't pick up where you had left off on your personal campaign. Also (and I know this hasn't changed), you cannot play custom games (skirmishes against the AI or custom maps) in "guest" mode.

Go get a Mac and install Linux on it.

Really though, have you tried a fresh download and a new install?