I have a laptop that's over 5 years old. In computer years, that's about 109. If it were human, it would be on TV telling Jane Pauley that the secret to its long life has been not drinking alcohol and eating fish three times a week.

I think computers (like people) eventually just reach a certain age and say, "I've had it." Mine has become unable to fight off the spyware it used to easily defeat with ZoneAlarm, virus software, and the other "safe sex" computer prophylactics I've given it. I've got this one browser hijacker that's like herpes. Can't get rid of it. It keeps changing my home page, and when I delete the file that's causing it, it just comes right back. It frequently launches mysterious operations and may be trying to contact the dead. And the computer also tells me that it sometimes burns when he pees.

Perhaps because of these nefarious buggers -- or in my attempts to "fix the problems," some "important files" may have been deleted. I know this because the computer now alerts me to a wide array of maladies when I re-boot it. I expect smoke to come pouring out of it at any time.

To top it all off: one of the cats -- who did not wish to be removed from her nice warm "keyboard pillow" -- dug in her claws and sent the "8" and "B" keys flying deep into the night. Can't get 'em back on.

Time for some holiday computer shopping.

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