I hate being broke.

[WarLocke]

What kind of Internet connection do you have? You don't have to "buy" every game you want. (I'm not a big advocate of piracy. If you have the money, you should give it to the people who make great games, but I feel for those who can't afford them.)

I'm stuck in 56k Hell. If I had spending money at all I'd try Charter Digital Cable, since they're advertising a free month and (IIRC) free installation now... But I'd still need to buy/lease the modem and I'd bet there's a clause saying I'd have to sign up for however long or something.

And yeah, I know of some pirating sites, and with the way the industry is going recently, I've considered it. But however much I'd like to stick it to the Evil Corporate Aztechnology Empires, I just can't get over that hump that keeps me from shafting the hard-working coders and artists who love their jobs.

If I were you, I'd save up for a decent upgrade.

Yeah, I've been trying to. But it seems like every time I get a nest egg going, something comes up and poof!

Crap. There's a little independent computer shop about four blocks from my house, and I had a flyer with their different "basic setups", but I seem to have lost it. I remember the owner saying he was always revising his setups to use new hardware (probably not bleeding-edge, but nice stuff, anyway), and that the top-end model was about $2,000 for a 3ghz P4, with 768mb RAM and a GF4. Plus a DVD/CD-RW, 250gb HD, peripherals and such. I don't remember whether they came packaged with monitors (which would be nice because mine is kind of old). The basic model was about $700 I think. That was a few months ago though, so I don't know if anything's changed since then.

That's not exactly cheap (I could probably get a Dell or something better than my current one for $500, but I have this pathological fear of big pre-fab computer companies), but he also offers a 3-year warranty, with free tech support and part replacement for the first year, which seemed awful nice to me.