Sun actually worked pretty well, except for the games my son wanted to play. My wife and I were perfectly satisfied w/it.

Re neighbors: Yes, I agree, try Linux. It's on my list to help neighbor #1 rebuild his dead box using some form of Linux. I'm thinking of Suse 9.1, largely because I'm most familiar w/Suse, and I want to upgrade from 8 to 9.1 myself. No time yet though.

Bootable Linux CDs for when the kids want to play. That's a good idea. I hadn't thought of it. Though if Windows is so flakey that I need to boot Linux whenever the kids come 'round, I probably should still think about moving away from it (Windows).

The one neighbor's PCs might be too old to boot from a CD. I'm honestly not sure right now.

I could run Linux too, for my office at least, but Apple is doing such cool things with their software that I really do want a Mac in the house. I can escape malware and get some cool software into the bargain, and I can afford to spend $500.

One scenario is that I buy the $500 Mac for the family and then convert another of my office PCs to Linux, leaving only my laptop running Windows. I'm still thinking through the scenarios, but I'm sure that I want to buy one Mac and reshuffle the rest of my PCs.

I, uh, do reserve the right to think for a long time. I don't get off the dime and buy a new box very often. I bought one laptop two years ago. All three of my desktops date back to 1998 and 99.

It's funny, when I was younger, I always wanted new this, bigger and faster that. Now I could care less. My PCs are old. My cars are old. My TV is old.