Bad news. The BSOD showed up on my computer about a week ago, and you know what that means: the hard drive was getting ready to check out. Thankfully, I'm not stupid, so I quickly backed up everything I hold dear to my trustee 80 gig external hard drive.
This was the second IBM T23 computer I owned, and, maybe not coincidentally, the second failed hard drive I've experienced in less than four years. 
I ran to Best Buy, only because they offer on-site assistance via their "Geek Squad" service center. Competitors all have service plans much like Best Buy's, but for the most part they involve shipping your computer to a service center and hoping it makes its way home to you in a week or two. (yeah, right, 2 weeks without a computer!)
Best Buy has a good selection - but I don't know of anyone who raves about their knowledgeable employees. Heck, for all I know the so-called "computer guy" helping me spent the past two weeks in the home appliance department selling blenders.
Still, he sold me on buying a laptop configured for Microsoft Windows Media Center OS. As hard as it is to have to replace a computer unexpectedly, I figured, "why not make the best of it?" I liked the idea of owning the media center "toy." Already I was starting to feel better about the hard drive crash.
I brought the laptop home and handed it over to my company's remote support folks for set up and configuration. A day later I was ready to rock and roll. I'd stayed up late the night before reading excitedly about Windows Media Center. So you can imagine how disappointing it was to find that the machine really just came with regular old Windows XP.
That's what I get for listening to the guy from home appliances....
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